#house66

This costly mistake left us with two options. Option 1) Continue with the hardwood floor installation as per the schedule, and install the replacement columns on top of the flooring, which would mean that the bottom steel plate would be exposed. This would be ugly and a possible tripping hazard. Option 2) Delay the hardwood floor installation until the replacement columns arrive, so that we could sink the bottom plate as per the design. This would not be ideal either, because delaying anything sets off a chain reaction on our water-tight schedule. You know me. I'm not okay with ugly. We chose the latter. Now the new columns are in and we are racing once again!

We have passed all required inspections for the electrical, plumbing, mechanical and structural systems of House 66. Now we are racing to apply the interior finishes, in sequence. The drywall is almost entirely hung, complete with tape and three coats of mud. Tomorrow the second floor ceiling and walls will be primed, after which the contractors will start on the tile in the second floor bathrooms. After the tile comes the cabinetry, then carpet, then baseboards and trim, and finally the finish fixtures. On the ground floor, the first item to be installed after drywall is the hardwood floor, followed by kitchen and fireplace millwork. Our construction calendar has no room for error.  

Due to some timing issues on site the spray foam contractor ended up walking off the job that Friday. Once the drama was settled we were able to reschedule him for the following Wednesday, with a lot of grovelling and begging.  An inspection was requested on Wednesday evening. We crossed our fingers for a Friday inspection, since drywalling could not begin until the insulation had passed inspection and the contractors were standing by for a fun-filled weekend of catch-up. The inspector arrived this past Monday. We passed, and now the huge push for finishes has begun. 

To achieve a direct spatial relationship between the family room and kitchen, I opened up the entire main floor, which required some serious structural gymnastics. The main structural wall of the house was jogged, meaning that not all of the second floor joists were the same length. To have them all rest on a central beam some of the long joists needed to be cut and the short ones replaced. The new beam runs toward the stair, so to avoid a column here the beam meets another beam with a "T" intersection and spans the stair. The column on one side will be concealed within a wall. The column on the other side will be split into twin, side-by-side steel columns for a lighter-weight look.

I only said "yes" to one of the above. 

Construction is slightly more expensive this way since we have to pay the involved trades to show up more than once, but it's a price we are willing to pay in order to move in on time. 

Literally. Yesterday we discovered that there is a structural wall on the ground floor sitting on absolutely nothing. The floor joists that support the second floor run north-south. In the middle of the ground floor there is a structural wall that runs east-west, that supports the entire second floor. The ground floor framing changes direction, and the joists below run east-west. The structural wall on the ground floor is sitting on a doubled-up, 2x10 joist. That's it. 

It's not a shock to discover that my desired aesthetic and construction budget do not agree. I have been trained to be hyper-focused on architectural detailing and I have extremely high standards. I have designed homes for celebrities with bottomless bank accounts. I'm a perfectionist. Now that quotes from contractors are coming back with a mind-boggling number of zeroes we are forced to choose between diluting the quality of the design or reducing the scope of the project. It also doesn't help that demolition is under way. The list of items we can eliminate from our wish list is dwindling as our dumpster fills up.