Autocad Bliss

Eric has been drafting and drawing and meeting with probably 20+ contractors and the idiot utility providers for the past 6-7 weeks. Today we signed a contract with John Moody of Thomas Archer Construction to fix the floors, finish off the interior framing and install windows & doors, all of which he thinks he can accomplish in 10-15 days. His attention to detail is great and I can see us hiring him to do the finish work as well.

Eric is drawing elevations for John of every room from the vantage point of each of the 4 walls (i.e., lots of drawings). It's so cool to be able to plan out every cut of every tile, something I never would have thought of.

We already have a plumber, are close to a contract with an HVAC guy, and have a few electricians bidding on the scope now, so I think things will really start to move. I'm still hoping for a December 2009 move-in!

Trash and next steps

This is a great aerial photo of all of the shit in the backyard, and just one of the not-too-many punchlist items Stanley's crew needs to complete before we make our final masonry & concrete payment. The concrete truck maneuvered into the alley too because we poured a concrete walkway outside of the light well. Next steps? Eric is about done framing the attic. We're considering hiring someone to do the floor & wall framing because Eric needs to focus on coordinating the separate metering & subs for a while. We're going to Chicago for a long weekend starting Thursday (more jetblue free flights), for some relaxation and inspiration!

Concrete Montage

The pics tell the story better than I can but this was an exciting day!! In the first photo you can see the concrete truck blocking 1 lane of Ontario Rd. during rush hour. The second photo shows the layers of plastic, insulation and wire mesh that will go below the slab. There's gravel and plumbing further below that. The black plastic wrapping the back bedroom area is called drainboard. Any water that was able to penetrate the exterior and interior waterproofing on the brick wall, would be captured in the drainboard & run into the french drain below. Photo #3 shows the first bit of concrete being smoothed around the back bedroom area (the sump pump is on the right). The aerial photo is made possible by the fact that we don't have a floor above yet! The rest are just progress photos as the slab got poured & smoothed all day. Note that there are 2 more windows in the back bedroom area that are not visible from this angle.

Roof framing almost done

After lots of research & coordination on Eric's part, we were able to replace the main roof beam last week, with the help of Eric's friend, Noah. This was a big milestone! It's girth is probably 4x that of the old twisty wood beam that it replaces. It consists of 3-9" LVLs bolted together every 24" as prescribed by our structural engineer. There's also flashing in the pockets so that it doesn't rest directly on the brick. This allowed us to remove the floor jacks throughout the house and prepare for pouring the basement slab (which happened today - pics to come).

Since last weekend, Eric has sistered all of the roof rafters with new ones to strengthen them (thanks Rob for the nail gun!), and I will definitely sleep better at night knowing the roof is less likely to collapse in on us. Yesterday Eric worked on the rafters while I reset some of the weak brick and nailers around the windows in the front bedroom. It's amazing how weak everything is, but more so than age, I think a lot of the problem comes from lack of maintenance over the past 101 years.

Old school vs. New school

Eric and his friends Cleve & Todd worked on installing the replacement roof beam yesterday, although it's not quite done. The 100-year old wood is being replaced with 3 of these LVLs. Check out the difference in grain. The work has physically been challenging for Eric lately, with a few days of back pain, so I'm trying to convince him to take it easy.

Long week!

It's been a busy week with no time to post, so I have much to report. The front steps were poured on Tuesday and have dried, so here's the latest & greatest photo of the front. The stone cap on the retaining wall will be installed on Monday and maybe I will paint the columns this weekend!

Shiny New Gutters

Eric was very excited today that a gutter and downspout were installed on the back of the house. It was custom-painted, by Eric, to be shiny metallic, which will look great with our silver windows. This should really help with all of the water we've been getting in the basement. Stanley's also doing some pretty intensive waterproofing this week and the plumber is installing a sump pump, so our basement will be well-protected from water (unlike the one next door at the house that Eric rents!).