Flatwork-ish

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Time to catch you up on what's been happening since Beth painted the fence! There have been amazingly busy days and what seemed like days on end where contractors were scarce. But we'll start today's entry with the driveway and stairs.

The concrete contractor split the concrete work into two sections. The driveway, stairs and walking path to the front door were spec'd for an acid-washed sand finish. This required a different mix of concrete than the standard brush finish - more sand in the mix (I think and who knew?) The plan was for two pours in two days, but Astoria being Astoria there was rain. A lot of it. So the first pour was on Thursday with the second pour for the sidewalk and driveway apron scheduled on Monday. 

After a rainy weekend the sun was shining Monday morning and the concrete crew was busy early pouring the sidewalk (no rebar, 6 inches thick at the driveway and 4 inches the rest of the run) from our neighbor's driveway to the west to about twenty feet in front of the neighbors house to the east to replace broken sidewalk sections. 

The driveway apron would now wait until Tuesday morning when they also replaced two sidewalk sections across the street that were damaged during water main work, repaired damaged curbs and filled in curb cuts for rain drains for our home and the next house to the east. I can't remember if I mentioned that we rerouted our neighbors rain drain so it drained to the curb instead of the slope behind our house when the excavators were last here. Oh, and they poured a trash bin pad for our neighbor to the west while they were at it. Why not? It was a busy day.

The City is very particular about slopes on sidewalks, again who knew? Before the second pour, the inspector came out and measured the grade and pitch of the sidewalk forms. In the photo above you see what looks like a white rectangle in the middle-left of the concrete, that is our water meter housing. Every other water meter on the block (and most of the city) is in the parking strip, but the City required us to relocate ours into the sidewalk. It does seem like the City has a special set of rules for our project, but there's no fighting it.

While all that was going on Brian was putting the finishing touches on the fences and the electricians were on site to hook up the indirect lighting. Brian also installed our ipe wood deck in the courtyard - it's just the right size and looks beautiful. This is the same material we used on the two large decks off the back of the house. There will be a Pacific Northwest garden around the courtyard deck and walking path with perennials and a couple Japanese Maple trees.

In front of the retaining wall and trash bin enclosure there will be a California sun slope garden. It was about the time the above photo was taken that we did, finally, receive our "conditional" occupancy permit. It's the same as a regular occupancy permit except it had an attached list of right-of-way and water-main project items to complete within 45 days or the city would go after our performance bond. Easy-peasy, right? I didn't care, the bank needed the occupancy permit so we could refinance the construction loan to a mortgage. And they were getting very, very antsy.

Remember this handsome young devil? This is SPuR - Sparkle Princess Rainbow. He came to visit while Adam was doing the final grading work, capping the sewer clean-outs and spreading soil around the front yard. SPuR is all legs and klutziness, typical teenager. Either SPuR remembers me (we've had several visits) or he is indiscriminate with the scritches. Probably the later, but we have fun and it makes me happy!

After several months with a temporary mailbox nailed to "our" utility pole we finally decided to install our proper mailbox. Why wait? Well, our civil engineer was taking his sweet time with the site line survey for the certification for the City (part of the "conditional approval") and we were afraid the mailbox would interfere with the sight lines. Wait, what? This is a bit of a story, but because our lot slopes down so severely at about 35 feet in we had to build close to the front of the lot. That required a sight line triangle variance at the sidewalk for safety, which requires certification by the engineer. My head hurts, but we finally said "this is stupid" and installed the mailbox. 

You'll also notice the iron stair rail, replacing the temporary rail the city required for occupancy. I get it, it's a safety thing, but we've done absolutely everything they've required. They gave us 10 days to have the permanent rail installed, so it was a big deal. Our steel contractor was jammed, but made room in their schedule to measure, build and install the rail.

Meanwhile, we've been working diligently to get things organized and put away. Our crowning achievement, after waiting two weeks to let the driveway cure, the MINI is now at home in the garage!

And our parting shot for today...our home at night with the indirect fence lighting. When our architect pitched the idea of Japanese lantern lighting in the fence, I knew it was exactly what I wanted!

Up next? Coming soon (really), the east side slope and water main punch list!

Tom Sawyer Didn't Paint the Fence...Beth Did

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Returning from his vacation (he was on vacation while we were moving - smart man), Brian began work on the fences at the front and west side of the house. First up, purchase twenty four 12 foot 1x6s and deliver them to his garage down on ninth street about a mile away. Second up, convince Beth that she could stain them all and that it made better sense than him doing it. He was, of course, successful. 

Over the course of four days I stained the boards, back and an edge, then the next day the front and other edge. It took me a day, but I realized rolling the stain first and then lightly back brushing allowed for maximum coverage in the shortest amount of time.

The following week we started on the fence boards for the courtyard area above the retaining wall. I spent another fours days down at the garage staining all four sides of forty eight 18 foot 2x2 fence boards, three 18 foot 2x6's for the rail caps and stained the fence posts in place.

The fence will be double-sided and have LED lights embedded into the top cap. When lit at night the courtyard fence will glow like a lantern. Below, dry-fitting the not-yet stained rail cap before the interior fence boards are in place. 

All in all I stained all four sides of approximately twelve hundred feet of fence boards over two weeks. And I think I even gave Brian an apple. 

Hello Blog, It's Been Awhile...

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We did it! On Friday, August 23rd at 4 pm we had running water in the house. At 6 pm we brought our final bags over and spent the night. It was a long slog to get to this point and life still seems to be running in overdrive, but we're here.

The previous weekend we mustered the troops, daughter Jeanette, her partner Jarrett, son Scott and brother John to help us empty the contents of our 10x10 storage unit in Portland. We also picked up the sofa, ottoman and chair at the upholsterer in Tigard. Everything was moved into the house at 464 and then we had deli sandwiches from Gaetano's. (Because that's what you do, right?) The following week Scott and I moved the rest of our belongings from the condo to the house by MINI. "Sure!" we said. "We can do this without movers!" We are not in our forties anymore. Thankfully, this is our last move...ever.

The City noted two mechanical items to be remedied before the mechanical inspection passed - a bollard in front of the water heater in the garage; and extended condensation pipe from the bedroom mini-split at the back exterior of the house. These items were remedied shortly after the inspection so we were ready to go! Waking up the first morning in our new home was awesome. The river view in the morning from the bedroom is sublime.

Meanwhile the concrete contractors worked on the retaining wall for the courtyard in the front of the house. We had specified a board-formed finish on the exterior of the retaining wall, not really understanding what that entailed. Seriously, it seemed to take forever for the forms to go up and then they brought in new 2x6 boards that they had power washed to raise the grain.

The boards were hand selected and inspected so the best grain was facing in. The corner was mitered so the final finished corner would be even and present the best finish to the exterior. Meanwhile, Brian installed the post-on-pole fence posts so the poles would be embedded in the concrete. It all seemed very backwards.

Rebar was placed between the forms and Fiberglass pins were used instead of wire. In the following photo you can see the pins at the interior form wall. When the forms come down the fiberglass is trimmed to the wall and we won't have little lines of rust running down our wall.

Also in this photo you can see Pom Pom Baguette, the self proclaimed Queen of the Jerome Avenue, judging me. She lives across the street, but is rumored to keep an eye on all the goings on in the neighborhood, outside and inside homes.

Concrete was poured on August 29th and the forms were removed after the Labor Day holiday on September 4th. That is some good looking concrete!

Next up, Tom Sawyer talks yours truly into painting a fence!

The Saga of the Water Main - Now With a New and Improved Ending!

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Just when I think the water main guys have abandoned us, they show up again in force. They were apparently waiting on yet another part. We arrived at the house last Monday to asphalt cutting and more vacuum truck action. They were cutting holes and installing connectors for our neighbors connections to the new waterline.

 And they made the street cut across to our lot. Later in the week we had an actual waterline running to our lot.

The real fun began when they pressurized the new waterline. Apparently they do this to test for leaks. But the crazy thing is that the plastic pipe they use actually expands under pressure. So they have to pressurize, take readings every eight hours and re-pressurize, until the pressure readings stop dropping. If the readings keep dropping after three days there's a leak.

 

IRL the eastern-most end of the pipe has a pressure gauge, but I don't have a photo of it sitting here typing on the hotel guest computer tablety-thing. More on that later. Jesse and Brad came by every eight hours or so last Saturday and Sunday, checking the pressure and re-pressurizing the line. By Monday they were ready for the civil engineers to come and sign off. 

Approval gained on Monday afternoon, they emptied and swabbed the line and filled it with chlorinated water. The pressure was tested again, along with a water sample that was taken to a lab in Longview, Washington for testing. Water sample approved, on Tuesday the line was emptied and swabbed again and pressurized with water from the city supply. The water in the line was sampled for testing again on Wednesday. Pending test results, we have the go-ahead from the City to connect the neighborhood supply lines to the new water main on Monday!

Back to the hotel digression...While all this water main stuff was going on there were several other things happening. First, the concrete crew has been working diligently on the retaining wall - more on that in my next blog. We have been spending six hours a day or more cleaning and prepping the house for move-in, until recently assumed to be sometime in November. And likely the most important thing, we received a temporary certificate of occupancy allowing us to move all our (stuff) from the storage unit in Portland into the house! 

I had an appointment in Portland with the nose specialist yesterday (everything looks good, but because of the tiny breaks at the bridge of my nose its going to take a good nine months to heal completely). And Scott will be rocking out tonight to The Pretenders and Foo Fighters with his twin brother Angel. So tomorrow seemed like the perfect time to rally the troops and move everything to Astoria. Having, in my questionable wisdom, decided to leave my laptop at home, I'm relegated to working within the framework and overt security limitations of a Hilton Business Center (really?) computer to bring you this news.

Have a great weekend!

Light, Sound and Video

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Scott admonished that my last post was particularly "upbeat". In my defense, I planned on two posts all along, what's going on outside and the electricians. Ah, the electricians. Things always seem brighter when they're around. (Pun intended, but it's actually true.) They were on site a couple weeks ago just in time to shed some light on Paula's visit.

In the primary bath Scott's towel warmer and the vanity lights are installed. Except for water the primary bath is complete!

In the den Scott's TV is programmed, the mini-fridge is installed and working and we have music! Beth hooked up the ceiling speakers to the Sonos AMP and set up the drawers for album storage.

 

Upstairs the pendant lights are installed over the stairwell, in the living room, kitchen and bedroom. They are soooo pretty!

The TV in the living room is installed with a Sonos Beam sound bar, all programmed and ready to go. The ceiling speakers are hooked up to the Sonos AMP and sound amazing.

And the Google Nest doorbell is installed and working. It's fun being able to see who's at the house or frustrating to see who isn't.

Yes, we have a smart home. After a lot of research I chose Apple HomeKit as the central control hub for the house. Currently the Lutron Caseta hub controls the lights, SmartThings can control the TVs (I haven't figured out why), Google Home controls the doorbell and Sonos controls the amps and speakers. 

As I added lights to the Lutron Caseta hub they were automatically added to Apple Home and ready to be controlled on both our phones in Apple Home and via Siri. Super easy! I had to play with the names and categories to make it all make sense. For instance, "Siri, turn on the Exterior Front Porch lights," was clumsy (default category, name) so I made a category called Porch that turns on both the porch lights and the light over the garage.

Now I'm spending lots of time on the internet searching for things like "can i add google nest doorbell to apple homekit," and "how do i add sonos amp to apple homekit?"

Crawling to the Finish...This is No Olympics

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At the end of our last blog we wrote "This coming week we are hoping for water, final plumbing, mirrors, final electrical, final countertop finishing, and retaining wall footings (and maybe even the wall itself.)" Ha! To be fair, we had retaining wall footings at the end of the week. And the mirrors are installed. But everything else is just laughing at us.

It would be another two weeks before the concrete sub was back on site working. They were on site during that time taking measurements, drilling holes, etc. And working off-site making some sort of brace for the bottom of the retaining wall. More details on that in the next post.

Water main work began with the vacuum truck digging more holes, this time in the street. The boring subcontractor did his thing, digging under the street utilities from 4th to 5th street and then pulled the pipe up through the tunnel.

An exciting start to the project! The city stopped by, our neighbors asked questions and our civil engineer, Geoff, was on hand. Geoff predicted we'd have by the end of the following week. That was three weeks ago. 

Finishes, Part II and Waiting for Water

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The thing about relying on "schedules" is that one is frequently disappointed. This past week was no exception. Water main work was supposed to happen last week, but because multiple people from multiple organizations need to be there the work was postponed to tomorrow (Monday). We are assured that the contractor, subcontractor, city engineer and inspector will all be there. If that actually happens we'll have water this week. I've crossed everything that can be crossed and I'm still not sure it will happen.

Suffering from condo and construction fatigue, Scott and I headed north up Highway 101 on Monday to explore the Olympic National Forest. On Tuesday we hiked to the most northwestern point in the contiguous United States, Cape Flattery. The photo above is a cove on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The land you see eleven miles across the strait is the island of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. It was a most welcome respite.

Back to reality on Thursday, I was looking for work so I installed the shelf brackets and (with some help) installed the shelving in Scott's office and my pantry. 

The plumber's were on site last week, installing the newly received black fixtures for the bath in the den, the disposal and air switch in the kitchen and the sprinkler head covers. They installed the sink in the garage and started installing the hot water heater, but the location of the plumbing lines seemed to trip them up. I assume we'll get that figured out this week, along with toilets and actual water. 

Except for cleaning, the laundry room is all but complete and looking snappy!

Brian installed the pull-out shelves in the den for Scott's album collection. I then pulled up all the tape and drop cloths, cleaned the shelving and installed additional shelves and the album holders. It's looking pretty sporty and quite like the renderings. The white square to the right of the shelving is the fresh air intake. It will be hidden by the beverage fridge. There are two more fresh air intakes, at the stairwell and in the bedroom. They are part of the reason we don't need an HRV system. The special fan in the powder room upstairs that runs constantly is the other part of the passive system.

The electricians were on hand early in the week and installed a lot of outlets and switches. In addition, most of the appliances have been installed. Above the fridge, microwave and dishwasher can be seen as well as the cooktop, inset to be flush with the counter.

I think this is my favorite photo from this week. In the primary bath the plumbing fixtures, grab bars (that don't look like grab bars,) towel warmer and shower glass are all installed. I just love it. Mirrors in the primary and den bath should be installed early this week. There was a hiccup with the primary bath counter (an easy fix but took a day to get the contractor out) that prevented mirror installation.

We're hoping the electricians will be on site this week. They were supposed to be there for three days last week, but after a day were pulled off to another job. There are still outlets and switches to be installed, the fixtures in the den and primary bath, and five large light fixtures (as evidenced by the large boxes in the living room and bedroom). 

I've been trying to line up someone to come in for new construction cleanup, but as yet haven't found anyone. The company that cleans around our condo common areas was a potential option, but they are tied up cleaning cargo ships (of all things) and don't have staff for our job. I'm at the point where I think we'll be doing it ourselves. We've been doing it all along, every Saturday, so why not? And, of course, who could clean to our expectations...we're pretty picky.

This coming week we are hoping for water, final plumbing, mirrors, final electrical, final countertop finishing, and retaining wall footings (and maybe even the wall itself.) We need water and a driveway along with final plumbing and electrical to get our occupancy permit. My BFF Paula is coming for a visit on Saturday, maybe she can whip the contractors (or the city) into shape!