I arrived to the house last Friday to witness the historic event. Bode trucks in attendance. All the plywood had been taken down to enhance ventilation and the crew was already nearly done. When they say they're going to pour concrete they mean fast. They're going to pour fast.
I thought the house looked amazing sitting up on the one seemingly small, but apparently strong, beam on the corner. When the plywood is up I guess I imagined that that was helping to hold the whole thing up. I imagined wrong. Turns out that house has been resting on this very beam for weeks.
Another closer photo of the single sliver of a bean that holds up the front part of the house. With the plywood down there's LOTS of light down there now! Eventually those holes will have windows in them that will match the ones above them but a wee bit smaller.
Here's the Bode crowd doing what they do. This was taken about 10 in the morning and they were working on pouring the last room before the garage. They are working on George the Younger's soon to be room since it's the easiest to crawl out of. The concrete poured directly on to the radient heating tubes means that our amazing conrete floor will be toasty on your toes when you want - and cool on your feet when you don't. Given that we live in SF we do realize that we will be "wanting" more than we "don't."
The guy in the cowboy hat on his knees is the crew leader. His job (the most important in the hierarchy of concrete floor pouring) is to smooth it out with his tool. The second most important man is the one holding the hose with all the diarrhea-like-consistency cement "poop" pouring out.
This is GC Paul showing me how the nifty floor leveling device works. They set up a tripod with an electric beam that shoots out all around the lower level. There's another measuring stick with a sensor on it that if held at the right height will trip the alarm and send out an ear piercing scream to let you know you are level. Scared the crap out of me but it works.
Here's the beautiful wet concrete in the pool room. Strange to think that some day you won't be able to look this way any more once the interior wall goes up and the stairs come down. But for now - what a lovely site!
This is the newly poured concrete in Henry's room taken from the vantage point of the hall closet upstairs. And, do you remember, Henry was really keen on trying to make a secret escape route from his closet downstairs to the closet upstairs? Turns out that GC Paul has a couple of young boys himself and so the secret passage way is on. Henry doesn't know it yet - so it's going to be a cool surprise for him.
The guy in the cowboy hat on his knees is the crew leader. His job (the most important in the hierarchy of concrete floor pouring) is to smooth it out with his tool. The second most important man is the one holding the hose with all the diarrhea-like-consistency cement "poop" pouring out.
This is GC Paul showing me how the nifty floor leveling device works. They set up a tripod with an electric beam that shoots out all around the lower level. There's another measuring stick with a sensor on it that if held at the right height will trip the alarm and send out an ear piercing scream to let you know you are level. Scared the crap out of me but it works.
Here's the beautiful wet concrete in the pool room. Strange to think that some day you won't be able to look this way any more once the interior wall goes up and the stairs come down. But for now - what a lovely site!
This is the newly poured concrete in Henry's room taken from the vantage point of the hall closet upstairs. And, do you remember, Henry was really keen on trying to make a secret escape route from his closet downstairs to the closet upstairs? Turns out that GC Paul has a couple of young boys himself and so the secret passage way is on. Henry doesn't know it yet - so it's going to be a cool surprise for him.
On Sunday George the Elder and I headed over to see how the "drying" was going. This is him taking his first steps in his stockinged feet on the new garage slab. I made him take his shoes off! It was new, it was pretty. I didn't want us to be the ones to scuff it up!
Our first stroll on the floors of the rumpus room. The skylights (here still covered in plywood) are going to be so much closer than we could have imagined when we were walking on the unfinished floor. This space is going to be wonderful and sunny!
Our first stroll on the floors of the rumpus room. The skylights (here still covered in plywood) are going to be so much closer than we could have imagined when we were walking on the unfinished floor. This space is going to be wonderful and sunny!
This is taken from the far corner of George the Younger's room looking out in to the hallway (that doesn't exist yet since the wall that will separate the room from the hallway is only on the plans and not real yet).
With a nod to OSHA here is the handily crafted don't-bump-your-damn-head-on-the-beam solution.
And finally, here's our terrible artwork in the corner of the garage. GC Paul told us when to go over and carve our initials in our garage - but he kind of mis-calculated and the cement was fairly well set by the time the boys and I got there on Friday afternoon. Still, it isn't often when you have the unalienable right to carve your initials in cement, so we went for it.... kind of like a dog peeing on his own front yard. We own it, we get to mark it!
Next posts will show the cutting of the joints, and the final grinding and polishing. They are polishing today and it looks - - well it looks...GRAND!
With a nod to OSHA here is the handily crafted don't-bump-your-damn-head-on-the-beam solution.
And finally, here's our terrible artwork in the corner of the garage. GC Paul told us when to go over and carve our initials in our garage - but he kind of mis-calculated and the cement was fairly well set by the time the boys and I got there on Friday afternoon. Still, it isn't often when you have the unalienable right to carve your initials in cement, so we went for it.... kind of like a dog peeing on his own front yard. We own it, we get to mark it!
Next posts will show the cutting of the joints, and the final grinding and polishing. They are polishing today and it looks - - well it looks...GRAND!
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