Sheet Rock…Day 23

The Big Sky Construction crew is busy working in the garage today. They have almost all the sheet rock hung and will probably start taping later this afternoon. The panoramic photo gives us our first view of the garage with the drywall installed. With the heat on and the walls covered it feels pretty civilized in there!

The next photo shows sheet rock covering the walls in the staircase to the bonus room. This space is going to house; work benches, cabinets and tool boxes. The spot under the stairs is just big enough for my air compressor.

Garage Doors…Day 3

The Allen Anderson guys finished up the garage door installation late yesterday afternoon. We decided to put automatic openers on the first two doors leaving the last two stalls manually operated. The first photo shows the garage doors with the window grills in place (Amarr Classica 3000; Tuscany door…Thames window).

The photos below show inside details of the doors, tracks, and openers. In the first two we see the high lift tracks running all the way to the ceiling and the LiftMaster 3800 automatic opener installed on the front wall.

The next photo shows the LiftMaster opener attached directly to the shaft of the counterforce spring assembly at the top of the door track. The opener turns the shaft with a 24 volt DC motor and has a battery backup system that provides temporary power in case the main power goes out (the box on the left). The last photo shows the automatic lock mechanism that secures the door each time it is closed as well as the manual release handle to be used when all power is gone.

Sheet Rock…Day 22

The Big Sky Construction guys keep plugging away on the sheetrock at the “L” Shaped House. They have finished up the bonus room and are hard at work hanging drywall in the garage. The first photo shows the East wall of the bonus room with the walls and ceiling finish sanded ready for primer.

 

The second photo shows the door from the garage at the top of the stairs. Now that the heater in the garage is up and running (and the miniature weather system that occupied the stairwell is gone) the door can finally be opened. The third photo shows the sheet rock going up in the stairwell as the work in the garage continues.

The last photo shows the the end wall of the garage with the chaos that comes with hanging sheet rock all around!

Heating & A/C…Day 8

The guys from American Air (the heating contractor) were back this morning to get the forced air furnace in the garage up and running. With the doors installed and the heater running the garage was starting to warm up nicely…

I arrived just a few minutes after they fired things up for the first time and got to experience the manufacturing oils being burned off the heat exchanger…things got a little smoky!

Painting…Day 2

Steve Carmichael and his crew spent the day spraying primer on the first floor walls and ceilings. The three photos below show the results of their efforts in a way that I don’t think requires any additional comments from me…It all looks Fantastic!

Garage doors…Day 2

The Allan Anderson guys visited the “L” Shaped House garage today and got all the door tracks installed and the counter force springs adjusted. The photo below shows the door in the fully open position. The high lift tracks take the three sections up to the ceiling, stopping well short of where the florescent light fixtures will  be installed. The Amarr Classica 3000 doors feature three layers of steel with a polyurethane core rated at R-13.

Garage Doors…Day 1 (evening report)

The Allen Anderson guys got all four doors “stacked” in the openings and the high-lift tracks installed late Saturday afternoon. They plan to be back early next week to get the doors and counterforce springs adjusted and install openers in the first two stalls. The panoramic photo below shows all four doors from the stairwell to the bonus room.

The next photo shows the first three doors in a little more detail. The high-lift tracks bring the doors nearly to the ceiling as the doors are opened and make for a nice clean installation.

Garage Doors…Day 1

The good folks from Allen Anderson were out to install garage doors bright and early this morning despite the –14 degree temperatures. They had the doors “stacked” in the openings by 9:30 and were working on the high lift tracks when I stopped by around noon. The first photo shows the door on the third stall in place.

The next photo shows the first three stalls with the doors in place. We decided to use Amarr Classica doors in the Tuscany style with Thames windows (the frames and hardware will be installed later).

The last photo shows the doors early in the installation process. The “high-lift” tracks will bring the doors all the way to the ceiling as they open. The first two stalls will have automatic openers the last two will operate manually.

The “L” Shaped House…200 Days

Today marks day 200 in the construction of the “L” Shaped House. I decided to celebrate this important milestone by posting a couple of photos taken with my “real” camera (Canon 5D). The first shows a front view of the house with the beautiful winter sky in the background.

The second photo of the dining room and kitchen shows the overall construction progress at the “L” Shaped House nicely. The drywall on the first floor is ready to be primed…finish carpentry will follow shortly.

In the last two photos I have tried to capture two of the first floor sight lines that show the “open” floor plan and architectural “layering” effect Mike Kloti envisioned during the design process more than a year ago (see Mike’s original thoughts here).

OH…Happy 299th posting as well!

Ceramic Tile…Day 12

Matt Sletten is well on his way to having the floor tiles in the kids bathroom installed. The photo below shows both the wall tiles and new floor together for the first time. It’s hard to get a photo that captures the colors accurately…but this one is close.