CMR Update Sept 19th: HALFWAY!

The Cool Mid-Century Remodel (CMR) continues to move steadily forward. We are getting so jazzed about it. Rooms have dimension, the upstairs is going to be a open as we had dreamed, and our team just keeps working together nicely. Can't complain. Oh wait, I CAN complain (just a little - actually more of a whining than a complaint)... Now that the kitchen stair "hole" to the basement has been opened up, George the Elder and I are just a little blue about not being able to finish the whole kitchen remodel in Phase I. Like a double-edged sword we can see how cool it is going to be - and we can't do it yet. Patience Grasshopper. Patience....



We headed over last Sunday just as it was starting to get dark after dinner. Other Sunday "stuff" kept us from getting there earlier. It was a wee bit eerie being in the house in the semi-dark - but we still got to poke around and see what was new.



As before - we still can't get in the house-house without a little chinese acrobatics. This weekend, George the Younger was the boosted. Here's a picture of him grinning down at us after making the climb...





The H-man (who generally isn't a man prone to great adventure, especially in the dim of the evening) volunteered to wait upstairs, lock the back door, and wait until we could come around and fetch him from the garage. I was nearly certain that we would hear him yelling "Where are YOU????" long before we could make the 50 yard journey, but he had his "brave hat" on that evening and shimmied down like a champ.






Before coming down, Henry perused the plans in Luke the Foreman's makeshift office now located in our dining room. He's got quite the little command-central going on there - shelving, desk and all his Foreman kind of stuff. His plans are nice and clean. The plans that used to be in the basement had reached the end of their economic life. Too much wet concrete around down there I guess.

Here's a photo of the new decking for the atrium. It's nice and easy to see where the big bank of skylights are going to go to provide all that lovely exterior light in to our lower level. These are going to be operational, so not only will we get lots of light, but we'll be able to get a great deal of fresh air to boot. I have no idea how we're going to get them open and closed since they are located a bit high off the floor down there - - but I'm sure there's some kind of plan for that - like a big stick or something?

This is now the big hole for the stairs. To the right, where you see the 2x4's there's also going to be another big window that looks out in to the atrium. We're going to have more sun in our kitchen than Ian McSun of the McSun clan. Tres cool.

The header over the descending stairs has been changed to a nice sloping ceiling....

And in "downstairs" news: The pipes are in for the bathroom and laundry room plumbing and the entire lower level floor is almost completely covered with a heavy white plastic sheeting, which will then be covered with another kind of insulation material, which will then be covered with radiate floor tubing, which will then be covered with cement for the floor. The only thing holding us up here? The cement finish for the floor. This decision is turning in to one of those epic decisions. Arghh. We thought we had decided on the exposed aggregate, but now we are leaning towards a colored smooth trowel finish (with the possibility of a higher grade polish) - but the bottom line is that we need to hop on pop and get the damn decision made. I can't tell whether we are going to be the cause of our own construction delay.

And finally, in the setting sun of San Francisco, we arrived to our back patio to find nestled among various construction materials, a large piece of art work. We figured either someone was using our backyard for some bizarre satanic ritual over the weekend, or some teenager's mom finally put her foot down and said, "Get that spooky thing the heck out of my house!" and our back yard was the repository. Turns out that Foreman Luke's friend was the artist, wanted Luke to take the painting, but after viewing Foreman Luke decided against. Smart move Foreman Luke....

16 weeks of construction down...16 weeks to go. Wow! Halfway done.... In some ways the time has flown by and in other - well, I'm pretty gosh darn tired of this temporary apartment, it's temporary-ness and the temporary feel to our every day lives. But - when I look back at the photos from June 8 when they rolled the first little back hoe in our garage... well, dang. That's some construction!