End of the Sixth Week

The renovation of 3283 began six weeks ago today. A lot of work has taken place. The past five days have been wet, very, very wet. But the wet weather didn't deter the contractors. The framing team and masonry/concrete teams were busy on site today.  From the outside there wasn't a big change but key interior milestones were reached.

Jeff Sparks and his guys finished sheathing and house wrapping the east wall of the addition.

Bill has put the last piece of sheathing in place and is setting up to install  house wrap.
Contractors worked well together. You can see the concrete chute feeding the basement floor.

The house wrap was handed out the opening for the future bathroom window.
Bill stapled it in place as a concrete chute fed workers installing the basement floor.

Here's how the addition looks on the north side of the cottage.

Closing off the temporary opening isolated the main floor of the addition from the cottage proper. This led to one of the milestones I mentioned.  Jeff and John helped me properly locate the door opening between the cottage and the addition. The door we plan to install is a pocket door so we needed to make sure we could open enough of the wall to fit the whole width of the extended frame.  Once its location was determined, they removed the set of windows that was in the location; cut through the siding and interior drywall; removed the studs that were in the opening; and installed a header and supporting studs.  

The cottage and addition are now connected ... we can walk into the newly created main floor space.

After the window was removed,
the crew removed the drywall from the room in the cottage.

The siding was cut down to floor level where the door will open.

John is nailing a header into place.
The header needed to extend over the entire width of the pocket door frame.

Here's the opening looking from the cottage into the addition. 

Here's the opening looking from the addition into the cottage,
The wide opening in the new studs at the left will be another pocket door to a bathroom.

The second milestone completed today was the completion of the basement floor. Fred, Brian and the masonry crew worked in the basement today. They made final preparation for arrival of concrete to pour the north "half" of the basement floor.  The process followed the same steps as the south portion did earlier this week.  I have fewer pictures because access was more difficult.

The same large redi-mix truck [or one of the same fleet] brought concrete for the floor.

Once fed by chute to the basement, the concrete needed to be spread over the entire area.

The floor needed to be finished around the penetrations for
the underfloor plumbing, including the pump station.

The whole basement floor has now been completed,
The addition is to the left.

It has been another good week. I can begin to see the end of the first phase of the project.  The masons will be back Monday to fill the openings in the block. I expect that the plumbing sub-contractor to return early next week. And, the electrician will be here to try to make sense of the under house wiring and re-connect the house to the "grid." Then, after some final carpentry [basement door and some exterior trim replacement], back fill and grading  .... the Deitz contract should be complete.  

I need to make final roofing and HVAC contractor selections. Then, I can watch their work and write about them.

Here are a couple pictures of 3283 at the end of the day today, April 12, 2013.

Back [east] Side of 3284 -- April 12, 2013

Front [west] Side of 3283 -- April 12, 2013