Day 3

Wow! The walls are up!!!! Today was a very productive day. But let me back up and talk about day 2:

Yesterday
was a very important day, as we had to get all of the structural in for the floor system, plus the plumbing, plus the mechanical.

The SIP walls were delivered on-site. We still had a lot to do before they could be raised, though.





Yes, this is me driving the boom lift. You know, when I was a framer this was an hourly task for me. Actually, most of my framing skills are still there. Sadly, though, my framing "muscles" are LONG gone. Sucks getting old :-)





We made great progress, but the building inspector showed up about an hour too early. He said we were not far enough along to approve the rough framing inspection. Bummer. This kept up from installing the floor deck (3/4" plywood), but it actually turned out okay. It gave us one last chance to fix all of the little things (mechanical connections, electrical wiring, door bell wire!) before putting on the floor deck. I had to pay an extra $100 for an early morning inspection, but the inspector came out on day 3 at 6:45 in the a.m. and approved everything with flying
colors! Yea! We could put down the floor deck!!!


Yikes! The one dangerous thing about home remodeling is avoiding the existing ceilings! The double hole here was the result of one bad step from Bruce. He about ended up on the floor of our bedroom after dropping thru the ceiling. Fortunately the guys around him grabbed him in time. It's all funny after the fact, but truth is I punched 3 good size holes in our ceiling by taking faulty steps. It's scary dropping down there! Throw some spackling up there!!




I have to say a very big THANK YOU to the ladies who loaded up this dumpster on Day 2!!! Kris, Kathy, and Oma -- thank you soooooo much for helping us clean up the job site. This was a HUGE help!!



Day 3: Inspections approved, floors on, we putting up the walls!
We had to square up the wall layout, snap lines, and nail down floor plate. Once the floor plate was all in, we took a lunch break.

12:45pm. Lunch break was over, we began erecting the walls. We were done with all of the exerior walls by 6:30 pm. Would have been about 4:30pm, but we ran into a 1/2" snag on the west wall and a 1/4" snag on the east wall. Minor hiccups, but we pushed through it and made it. THE WALLS ARE UP!!



This cheesy smile is just because I know that I'm going to have my104 linear feet of walls completely erected in just 4 hours!!






Here is a typical wall, as it is being erected into place. What we are trying to do is line up the bottom slot so that it fits over the bottom plate. Once it is seated on the bottom plate, we slide it over to the adjacent wall, lock it in place and move onto the next wall. I think we had about 30 walls to place. Each wall get foamed to the next on, not glued. And each wall has cam locks built into them -- once they are locked, they are solid!



This is an important picture. In the foreground is Luella. She and Brian own the company that built our walls. They came up for the day to instruct us on how these walls should be properly erected, and even rolled up their sleeves to participate in the fun. They were a tremendous help, and Luella was every where we needed her to be (locating the proper walls, hauling over the sledge hammer, supplying us with plenty of foam guns, and all around moral support!) A big THANK YOU to her for supporting us on getting the walls up so quickly!!!!

A few members of my framing crew. From right-to-left, there's Brian (owner of ICS Colorado), Jeff (my neighbor and brewing buddy), John (Shilling, a great, great friend), Bill (the only guy who really knows how I enjoy my coffee!), and Jose (my neighbor and lead framer).






Here a shot of setting a typical window header. What you can't see is the boom lift, fully extended, holding that header in place, gently lowering it to rest in place.








Just a shot of me and Jeff, poised on top of the boom lift (completely non-OSHA compliant, insurance-voiding technique!). But hey, those walls gotta get cut somehow!!





After it was all said and done, we sat down for some great dinner provided by our friend, Mary Shilling (Thank you Mary!) And enjoyed a fine helping of Barrio Brew,ESB and Kolsh. It was all very tasty!

I was a bit nervous at dinner, though. You see, we've been having some bad rain storms here in Denver the past few weeks. Day 1 and 2 we had GREAT weather, and even though there were rain clouds in the sky last night, they didn't looktrecherous . But tonight's clouds looked
menacing. We don't have a roof, and our stairway completely exposes our main level. So John [Shilling] and I went up during dinner andtarped the opening. Came down, enjoyed dinner, enjoyed some home brew and the clouds passed over. After tomorrow's work (the roof), it can rain all it wants to because I'll be dried in and ready for the party!!

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO tired!! Gonna hit the dusty sack...