{"id":2638,"date":"2019-05-16T09:26:58","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T16:26:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wright-macdonald.com\/blog\/?p=2638"},"modified":"2019-05-16T11:26:11","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T18:26:11","slug":"wednesday-may-15-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wright-macdonald.com\/blog\/wednesday-may-15-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday, May 15, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We now have a house full of windows waiting to be installed (Picture 1). As they hustle to get everything ready for the window installation there has been lots of activity. The grading work was given extra urgency by the forecast of rain tomorrow (Thursday) and Sunday. They really want to get all of the piled up dirt placed and compacted behind the new retaining walls before it turns to mud. This blog has photos that we have taken over three days during the last week, but have not had time to post. (Ted spent all of Saturday cooking in preparation for the large Mother’s Day brunch that our church does each year and that threw much of his schedule into disarray.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1 – The great room and, in the back, the kitchen are now full of expensive windows waiting to be installed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Picture 2 shows part of the east wall taken last week after they had started taking off the forms used to construct it. Pictures 3 and 4 were taken on Tuesday and show the process of waterproofing the wall, providing drainage behind it, and then using the soil that they had saved from digging out the area for the wall to fill in behind it. Because the grade behind the house is being raised, they had to bring in additional soil for fill (Picture 5). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Picture 2 – The retaining wall on the east side of the house after they had begun to remove the forms.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Picture 4 – For the part of the wall closest to the house they have begun using the soil that they dug out to build the wall, which had been mounded on the driveway, to fill behind the wall.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Picture 3 – Several days later, all of the plywood forms have been taken down and they have added waterproofing to the back of the wall and drainage behind it. This is the part of the east wall furthest from the house.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Picture 5 – New fill arriving. One of the challenges of building this house is that there is so little area around it to deliver things like this!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

They have also been working on the area around the diversion wall and on constructing the slope between this wall and the back of the house. For this work, they brought in a special, small Bobcat with a narrow bucket (Picture 6). Picture 7 shows this grading work closer to completion, with yet a different machine doing the work. In the background of Picture 7, you can also see that they have installed the steel framework for the bridge from the second story of the house to the backyard. This is shown more clearly in Picture 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Picture 6 – The small Bobcat adding fill on top of the diversion wall foundation to create the swale that will drain the area behind the diversion wall to the west gully.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Picture 7 – The debris wall with the swale uphill (to the left) from it and the slope down to the house and the new retaining walls.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Picture 8 – Steel framework for the bridge from the second story of the house to the backyard. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When they were building the retaining and debris walls, they also built several other things out of concrete. Picture 9 shows the edging for the green roof on top of the garage\/apartment. This is what you will look out over from the deck. Pictures 10 and 11 show two stages of the construction of the planter on the north side of the apartment. The difference is that, in Picture 11, an extra piece of concrete flooring, that was poured by mistake, has been removed. Picture 12 illustrates how, taking this extra concrete out reveals the intended design — a rectangle sitting on a second, offset rectangle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Picture 9 – Edging for the green room on top of the garage\/apartment. It had rained just before this picture was taken. The standing water shows that they will need to do some work to adjust the slope so that the water drains appropriately from the green roof.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Picture 10 – Photo taken last week of the edging for the planter on the wall of the apartment.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Picture 11 – The same planter on Tuesday; now they have cut out the extra concrete on the right side that was poured by mistake when this was built.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Picture 12 – View of the garage\/apartment from the front. With the extra piece of concrete removed, the apartment now looks, as intended, like a rectangle stacked on a lower, offset rectangle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While all of this concrete work and the grading were happening, other trades have been busy inside the house and the apartment. Picture 13 shows Julio, the cabinetmaker, and Julie, the designer last week as they were going over the design for the guest bathroom. When it was first framed, the utility room seemed huge. Now as things go into it, it is beginning to seem a lot smaller. Picture 14 shows a frame that will both create an air plenum and support the two air handlers for the house. The electricians have also been busy. Lots of what they have been doing is not particularly obvious, but Picture 15 shows the new boxes they have added to the banister for the step lights on the stairway to the second floor. The plumbers have also been busy in the garage\/apartment. Picture 16 shows the waste piping running to the sump pump in the floor of the garage. Picture 17 shows the drain pipes for the kitchen sink in the apartment. The last photo, Picture 18, is the view out of the main window in the apartment. Although the view is wonderful, the point is that it shows the beginning of the scaffolding going up around the garage\/apartment and the house. This is the scaffolding that will be used to put up the insulating panels and do the stucco on the outside of the house. This is also the scaffolding that needs to be in place so that they can install the waterproofing materials that need to be in place so that the windows — remember all those windows sitting in the house in Picture 1?! – can be installed next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Picture 13 – Julio, the cabinetmaker, and Julie, the designer going over the design for the guest bathroom. They are actually standing in what will be the shower stall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Picture 14 – Framing to support the air handlers in the utility room.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Picture 15 – Boxes for the step lights on the stairway.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Picture 16 – Sewer pipes in the garage running to the sump pump in the garage floor.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Picture 7 – Drain piping in the apartment for the kitchen sink.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Picture 18 – This is a view out of the window wall in the living room of the apartment. Besides the view, it shows that they have begun to put up the scaffolding!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We now have a house full of windows waiting to be installed (Picture 1). As they hustle to get everything ready for the window installation there has been lots of activity. The grading work was given extra urgency by the forecast of rain tomorrow (Thursday) and Sunday. They really want to get all of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wright-macdonald.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wright-macdonald.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wright-macdonald.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wright-macdonald.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wright-macdonald.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2638"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wright-macdonald.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2645,"href":"https:\/\/www.wright-macdonald.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638\/revisions\/2645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wright-macdonald.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wright-macdonald.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wright-macdonald.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}