Rain Day

With a sudden rainstorm lashing the house, the third and final coat of Stucco has to wait for a couple of days, but in the meantime, other work continues around and inside the house.

Before withdrawing to a warm and dry shelter to wait for better weather, the stucco crew did manage to attach the forms or "pop outs" around the doors, windows, and outer edges of the front and back facades. When the third and final layer stucco is applied over these pop outs, the facade will have depth and texture instead of being flat.









Another project that is taking advantage of the rain delay is the construction of a box outside the garage.



The purpose of this box is to house my new smart meter from PG&E that will let me sell any excess electricity the solar cells generate back.



Unlike the Stucco guys, the deck builders are not hindered by the rain and continue to work on the deck. In the tradition of the rest of the house, the crew is adding four massive concrete footings under the deck. Here's what the footings look like from the deck level:





And here is one of the footings seen from the side:



The reason for adding these four footings, other than the usual tendency to overbuild the house, is that one day we may want to add a hot tub to the deck and we would not want the deck to cave in when we put 6000 Pounds of water and a bunch of slightly tipsy people on it. Generally speaking, we want the hot tub to look something like this (who are these people?):



And definitely not like this:



While the deck is being prepared to support the weight of a couple of fully laden SUVs, the work inside the house concerns smoothness and texture. The drywall crew are applying "mud." This is mud:




And this is how it is applied:



The end result looks like this, gypsum boards on the walls and ceiling with patches of mud covering the screws, seams, joints and any other less than smooth spots, creating an even surface that will be sanded to uniform smoothness:













At the same time, cement board is installed in the bathrooms to provide a proper backing for tiles.



Also inside the house, the team was assembling to do the final wiring and installation of the shower controller. Our contractor got as far as taking the controller, which is surprisingly large, out of the box and reading the wiring manual before making a hasty retreat from the building. He said he would be back with the plumber, the electrician, and a couple of Nobel prize winners to try to figure it out.

Here's the controller:



And here's the wiring diagram:



Doesn't seem all that hard to me.

Next week: Less rain, more stucco, and even more mud everywhere.

Stucco on You!

With all the plumbing and electrical work completed and inspected, the pace of construction is accelerating both inside and outside the house. On the outside, the first two layers of stucco are being applied to the paper and wire-wrapped house. The application began on the sides of the house. Stucco is basically a thin layer of concrete that is sprayed on and textured to seal the house against the elements.



Here's what it looks like before being mixed with water and applied to the house:



And here it is being mixed with water before application:



And here what it looks like actually applied to the South side of the house:





Although the initial coat is sprayed on, the second coat is applied and smoothed out by hand with simple tools, which makes this very exacting and physically demanding work:



Hauling the buckets of wet stucco up four flights of stairs is not exactly a picnic either. Too bad our elevator is not installed yet -- sorry fellows. Despite the difficult conditions, the team is doing great work. Here's how the North Side of the house turned out so far:



The next side of the house to receive the Stucco base coat is the back, or West side of the house:









Finally, the front, or East Side of the house gets its share, first the deck:



Followed by the front of the house:



While the concrete icing is being applied to the outside of the cake, on the inside, the Sheetrock brand gypsum panels are going up like Kudzu on Miracle Grow.

Here's what the master bedroom and the master closet look like with their skins on:





Here's our office clad in gypsum board:




The kitchen:




Speaking of the kitchen, the infamous and very troublesome duct silencer was finally fitted with the custom elbows to fix the misalignment and I am happy to report that the vent end of the duct is now perfectly aligned with the kitchen centerline:



While we are talking about the vent, although this part of the ducting is not technically in the kitchen, it and the small jet engine that can create a near-vacuum in the kitchen on demand both got a snug gypsum blanket:




I have not yet heard this monster fired up, but I am very much looking forward to that moment. Just to be on the safe side, I will have ear plugs and a full SCUBA tank ready before we throw the switch.

The boy wizard's room under the stairs:



The laundry room and garage:





The elevator machinery room under the staircase on the ground level (guest quarters for boy wizard)




The entrance foyer:



Even the concrete-walled Grotto now looks habitable:




Even the usually unmoved Jenn is impressed by the speed of the gypsum blizzard engulfing the inside of the house:



This is very exciting stuff. The hope is that the pace will continue. Next week: playing with mud and tape, a little color in the stucco, and maybe an actual use for the elevator shaft, other than dramatic photos and dropping random objects down to the basement -- both of which I will greatly miss.