The gift of wrap

The house has finally had enough fog and wind and is now being wrapped in a nice, warm, and cozy layer of tar paper covered by a layer of wire mesh, basically a cross between a chador and a Farady cage, very useful for a woman venturing out in an opressive Islamic country during a lightning storm. Here's what the house looks like with its new covering:









Of course, this covering has little to do with forced modesty during inclement weather and has a very practical purpose. The black paper keeps the house sealed against moisture and the elements in general, and the wire mesh keeps it tightly in place against the house, and the whole thing provides a clean base for stucco (basically, a thin layer of -- you guessed it -- concrete sprayed over the outside walls) to cling to and tightly seal up the house.

Inside the house, the moment as finally arrived and plywood and Sheetrock brand Gypsum panels are covering the framing studs inside the house. The first room to get actual walls is the master bedroom, with the floors below getting closed in turn. Here's the master bedroom's new look:




Ok, so it's not all the way done, but it is a good start.

In the master bathroom, the red rubber waterproofing seal for the shower pan is installed and is being tested by holding on to the water stored in it for a few days. Looks like a pretty good seal to me.




Part of getting the house is getting wrapped and prepared for stucco is to figure out where exactly the front door is going to be. We don't need the whole door, just the door jamb and here it is wrapped in blue protective plastic sitting on top of a big pile of Sheetrock brand Gypsum panels:




It should come as no surprise that this is not an ordinary jamb, and the door it is going to support is no ordinary door. As you may guess from the massive steel construction of the jamb, the front door is going to be an equally massive stainless steel and hurricane resistant glass affair made by Neoporte in Los Angeles. Here is what the door will look like from inside the house (minus the glass side panel):



Another custom-designed peice of metal fabrication, although nowhere as massive as the front door, is nevertheless critical to the house. These two non-assuming metal devices are custom-made duct elbows that are part of the kitchen exhaust system:



The custom elbows connect to the ends of the duct silencer that is part of kitchen venting system:



The point of all this is too very precisely position the silencer to align it with the hood and the range that will be sitting under the hood when the kitchen is finally done. Here is where the duct silencer is positioned without he custom elbows:



In order to line up properly, the left vertical duct opening must line up approximately with the light fixture closest to it and as you can see in the preceding picture, using standard elbows, the duct is about 5 inches out of alignment and, we hope, the custom elbows will correct the misalignment.

Finally, here is a gratuitous shot of the elevator hoistway, or shaft if you prefer, only because we have not seen this structure in some time and once the elevator installtion begins next week, we will not be able to see it like this again:



Next week, more wrapping, more Sheetrock, and getting decked with Ipe.

Closing up, closing down

The team crossed a couple of important milestones this week. First, we finally have an actual garage floor. The post-apocalyptic moonscape that threatened to engulf anyone brave enough to step into the house is now covered with a smooth, beautiful concrete slab and we went from this:


and this:



to This:



Even the laundry room got a nice smooth concrete floor:



Another major milestone was that we passed electrical and sprinkler inspections and started insulating the house and closing up some the outside load bearing walls and the ceilings with plywood, with sheet rock to follow shortly. Here's some of the insulation that is going to keep the house warm and quiet:





And here are some the walls and ceilings that have their internal framing modestly covered with a plywood chador (the blue caps sticking out of the ceiling cover and protect sprinkler heads):









Speaking of sprinkler heads, here's the piece of plumbing that connects the sprinkler system to the water supply, and although we hope never to find out how well it actually works, is supposed to keep the pipes at the correct pressure should sprinkling become necessary:



At the same time, this massive gray cable showed up near the front door. I can only guess that this is the primary connection to the city power supply that will feed this power-hungry house:



The other end of the cable is lying near the new circuit breaker box in the Grotto, where a riot of multi-colored cables are converging to create the control center of the house, or as I call it, main engineering (With humble respect to the greatest chief engineer in any galaxy, Montgomery Scott):



Of course, there is no point in having a main engineering if you don't have a bridge (Ok, last Star Trek reference in this post, I promise), and work on our bridge, and the accompanying deck, continues apace. Here's what the deck and the railing look like from the master bedroom:



And here's a view from the other side, the future location of the back yard deck:



In this view of the beams from below, you can see the battleship gray protective paint that is being applied to all of the exposed metal parts. I wanted to paint it the same color as the Golden Gate Bridge, but I did not want to confuse any commuters.



And here is some of the wood that is waiting to be formed into the deck:



And even with the walls starting to get closed up, privacy is still difficult to come by, even in the master bathroom:



Next week: More of the same, plus gift wrapping the house, stucco, and adventures in garage door design.

The Concrete Storm

A sudden and violent rainstorm lashed San Francisco this week delaying the concrete pour scheduled for Friday.



But the weather eventually cleared, and the crew prepared to pour the footing for the back deck as well as the entrance foyer slab. In a replay of the oft-repeated drama that is building with concrete, the concrete truck showed up with a big load of liquid rock.



The first destination for the concrete are the forms that will create the retaining wall and foundation for the deck connected to the bridge. The whole crew was on hand to make sure the concrete flowed evenly and smoothly. As we all know, it takes a village to pour concrete:







But the end result is definitely worth the effort:








After the back deck, it's time to pour the slab for the entrance foyer. This is pretty exciting because we are done with all the foundation work and this is the actual sub floor for the foyer. The only thing that goes over this slab is the teak flooring.

Here comes the concrete:







Next comes the trawling and smoothing to create the perfect surface for the wood floor:





and a little graffiti to commemorate the occasion:



In the steel depatment, the construction of the main bridge railing continues:



And the construction of the two smaller bridges for the lower deck have also started:




Next week: more plumbing, more bridge and deck work, stucco, and finally, maybe, just maybe, some Sheetrock.