Shafted and Entrenched

So it finally happened. The time came to turn the dramatic, open staircase winding its way up from the ground to the top of the house






into a shaft for the elevator.



Here I am waiting for elevator to arrive:



Here are where the elevator will stop at each floor:
Ground Floor: Garage, Wine Cellar, Grotto



First floor: Kitchen, living room, dining room, family room/media room.



Second floor: Office, Guest Bedrooms 1 & 2





Third Floor: Master Suite, Deck.



And here's a view looking down the shaft from the top floor. The wooden platform in the shaft is a temporary platform on the floor below that allows access to the shaft for construction. Eventually, these platforms will be withdrawn and there will be an open shaft all the way down to the garage:



We had to put in additional lights to compensate for closing off the stairs from the natural light coming in from the top:






Speaking of the Master Suite, the skylights arrived, and soon the holes in the roof



will be plugged with the contents of these boxes, Vellux Sky Lights:



Another development was the discovery that the original house lacked a slab foundation and that the entire house was resting on a few inches of concrete in the garage. This explains why parts of the house had sagged down and we had to jack them back up (see this post). Since our Auto Club card does not cover the house getting a flat tire, we need to build a proper foundation in the garage for the house. Typically, this involves digging a hole, a trench in this case, and filling it with -- you guessed it -- lots and lots of beautiful concrete.

Here's the trench:





The concrete will come along a bit later.

Not sure who, but someone has already started partying at the house:



Next week: More plumbing, Fire Suppression, Warm Floors, and maybe windows.

Kiwis Sweep the Italians 5:0

More America's Cup news: Emirates Team New Zealand defeated
the Italian team, Luna Rossa in the last two races of the Louis Vuitton cup. This is a tremendous achievement for the Kiwis who will face the current holder of the America's cup, Switzerland's team Alinghi starting on June 23 in Valencia, Spain.

Let's hope that team Alinghi's view of the upcoming races is of the Kiwi boat's stern, like this:



Go Team New Zealand!

America's Cup News: Kiwis:3 Italians: 0

This has nothing to do with the house, but as you may have guessed from the fact that I have a link to the America's Cup news on my blog, I am big fan of the America's Cup Sailing races and follow the races that are taking place in Valencia, Spain to select a challenger to race the Swiss team that currently holds the cup. The only two challengers left are the New Zealand team (Team Emirates) and the Italian team (La Luna Rosa). Whichever team wins five out of nine races goes on to challenge the Swiss team for the cup later this month.

I have always been a big fan of the New Zealand team, and since the American team was eliminated in the semi finals last month, I don't even feel conflicted cheering on a non-American team to win the race.

Well, the Kiwis have won three stunning straight victories over the Italian team. I am hoping that they keep going on the same pace and that they defeat the Swiss team in America's Cup finals later this month. It makes absolutely no sense for a land locked country like Switzerland to hold the world's most prestigious sailing cup (seen here next to a big fan at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Club in Aukland, New Zealand in 2003):




Go Team New Zealand!

No time for waste; all broken up and hauled off.

We stopped by the house on Saturday to check on things and found the plumbing crew hard at work. Even since yesterday, there has been much progress. On the master bathroom, the plumbing for the tub filler has already been installed ... in the ceiling.



All over the house, individual threads of copper and iron were woven into the tapestry of pipe, wire and conduit that will keep power, gas, and water flowing through the house. I was a bit concerned about pipes passing so close to light enclosures, but John assured me that it was all according to the building code and therefore perfectly safe.







By now, the design of the master shower has gotten even more complicated and more and more pieces of paper with plans and technical specifications are hanging from everywhere. When this thing is done, it will have no less than 7 shower heads, an electronic control unit, an electronically controlled mixer valve and a steam generator squeezed into that space. The plumbing, needless to say, will be fairly complex, thus all the paper that is hanging from everywhere telling where everything goes.





Another unusual aspect of the house's plumbing is that the instant-on water heater that will be supplying hot water, as well as powering the radiant heating system to be installed under the floors, is going to be located outside the master bathroom wall, about thirty feet above the concrete patio below. Everyone tells me that this is the optimal location for the water heater for a variety of reasons, but I am still a bit concerned that if we need to service the heater or even to adjust the temperature of the hot water, we may have to hire a plumber with mountain climbing experience just to get to the thing. I guess I should just get a rappelling rig and not worry about it. Here are the connections for the water heater in the master bedroom closet on the top floor:



And where the heater will be hanging out on the back of the building.




Master plumber John seems to be unmoved by all this complexity and was calmly working away at a very loud and dangerous looking machine that looked like a cross between a lathe and a spinning wheel. I'm staying out of his way.



The crew was working with such intensity that, from time to time, smoke would issue from the open ends of the pipe.



On the other hand, the smoke may have just come from a couple of these:



In other, non plumbing related news, a very nice fellow and a very loud jackhammer are taking apart the old slab in the garage. I am hoping that the plan calls for it to be replaced with concrete -- I don't think the plans call for a mud floor.



Technically, the concrete slab is all still there, albeit in very small pieces. I am not sure if my car has enough clearance to park over the mound of broken concrete, but it should not be a problem for Jenn's all-terrain vehicle.



Turns out I did not need to worry. By the end of the day on Saturday, all the broken up concrete was gone and the garage and entrance were cleaned up.





Next week: more plumbing and more wiring. I can't wait to see where the fire sprinklers are supposed to go.

Down the drains

Up to this point this has been the house's only bathroom facility:



This may be perfectly functional, but we were not going for rustic, and we were delighted to see the plumbers show up and start putting in pipes everywhere, even if some of them get a scary glint in their eyes each time they fire up one of their torches. Who's going to argue with a guy holding a lit torch?



Contrary to their title, plumbers don't use any Lead these days, only copper for fresh water and cast iron for drains.





Threading these pipes, particularly the larger drain pipes, through the relatively small framing members in competition with all the wires already in the walls, is a very tricky operation. It's a little like a cross between Tetris and Origami, but these guys seem to be figuring it out somehow.







This gets fairly complicated, particularly in the bathrooms. In order to make sure everything ends up where it is supposed to, the plumbers have cut up the plans and taped the bits to the walls of the bathrooms to mark where everything goes.







Of course, we are far from the point where one can stride to a small room, carrying some easy reading material, and relax in seclusion for a few minutes. These plastic caps show where toilets will be placed and connected, but for now, all we have is pipe to nowhere, capped with a plastic cover -- not particularly comfortable, even with the latest issue of Stuff magazine to distract you.




In the meantime, we are stuck with our rustic solution:



But don't underestimate the determination of a guy with a big torch: We will have indoor plumbing soon.