Pouring Concrete

The Delaney House now has a concrete pad - the first step in having actual floors in the first floor.  The crew poured the slab, which is now setting up.  By tomorrow, work should be able to continue on closing in the first floor of the Delaney House.

The new front entrance to the Delaney House with the porch post supports in place

In addition to pouring the slab inside the house, we also poured the front porch slab.  This will eventually be at grade, so the house will be wheelchair accessible.  There will be a concrete walkway from the street to the front door of the Delaney House.

Now that the slab is done, we can work on installing the windows and doors, framing the rest of the bay window and getting the house closed up.  Then, we'll put down the piping for the radiant heating system that will heat the first floor.  After the system is installed, a second slab will be poured - this one only 2 inches thick of gypcrete.

Once the heating slab is in, we'll put down two layers of plywood, and then we can put down the finished floor.

Looking down what will be the hallway toward the front door 

Then we get stairs, and connect the two floors.  In the picture, the stairs will be on the right (by the post in the middle) and will come down toward the front door.  The stairs are a straight run, with a turn at the bottom and two steps down.  With the almost 10' ceilings, the stairway will be long, but we hope to make it a real feature of the first floor.

After that, all the finish work starts: wiring, plumbing, insulation, and then the walls go in.  Still a lot to do, but definitely progress is being made!  We hope that both houses will be occupied in 2012 - keep your fingers crossed.

Back at the Delaney House

I recognize that the blog has become somewhat dull of late, mostly because the work we have been doing has been somewhat dull. There is just so much one can write about stripping and scraping redwood trim. No matter how beautiful it is, it is still dull, tedious work.

But now things are happening at the Delaney House:

The plumbing for the downstairs bathroom

We're hoping to pour the new slab this week.  David the plumber came and installed the drain waste and vent pipes for the first floor bathroom (all of which are in the slab), along with the drain for the mechanical room.  Tom installed a plastic vapor barrier, and then Tom and Jimmy worked to put all the rebar in place and tie it all off.

The rebar in place, ready for the new concrete slab

Tomorrow, the inspection is happening for the plumbing. Assuming we pass, we'll backfill the holes around the plumbing with gravel, lay the vapor barrier backdown around the pipes, and the concrete slab will be poured Thursday or Friday.

Also on Thursday, the Kolbe windows for the downstairs are arriving.  Artistic Millwork has done a great job in getting us the windows, faster than we expected, so they are being delivered Thursday morning, and Tom and I will meet the truck and move the windows up into the Cheney Cottage for storage.  Eric and his crew are going to finish framing the doors and the bay window, so this weekend Tom and I hope install all 12 windows.  Soon, we hope,  the Delaney House will actually be weather tight AND lock-able!

The new front entrance for the Delaney House - concrete posts for the columns in place

At the Cheney Cottage, not much happened except scraping.  I have been working on installing the St. Charles kitchen cabinets, and have the base cabinets in along with the large overhead cabinet with the glass doors.  We are installing a couple more upper cabinets on the wall near the bathroom, so the Delaney kitchen, albeit small, should have plenty of storage.  The cabinets are going to look great, and now we're trying to decide what kind of counter to put in.  Granite seems to be de rigueur these days, but I hate granite - it's so cold and unfriendly.  We were hoping to put in Corian, which has a linoleum-like look but comes in some beautiful colors and is indestructable. But Corian is also unbelievably expensive ($13/square foot), so we'll probably go with some version of linoleum.

 Kitchen cabinets and stove in the Cheney Cottage

Retiring the Heat Gun

Tom and I may never be able to retire - at least, we'll probably never stop working on houses - but our heat gun has finally reached the point where it can stay home and relax.

On Sunday, I finished installing the door to the WC, and I stripped the door and the trim around it in the hallway.  This is the last of the woodwork that we're planning on stripping, and so we are now done using the heat gun.  We still have paint left to scrape - the living and dining rooms are pretty much done, the stairwell is mostly done, and Jimmy is working on the upstairs hallway.  Tom scraped the front door, so it is ready to be finished too.

But the heat gun is now finished with it's work.  And the place looks amazing.