The crew this weekend included Me and Ryan, along with Evan, Eduardo, Alex, and Christoph. We were able to build the 2nd floor joists, 2nd floor subfloor, 1st floor mini-roof joists, and 2nd floor partition walls.
I don’t have time to go into it now, but the thing should be under roof and ready for trades this week.
-C
These shots are old, and I’ve been so freakin’ busy over the past two weeks, that I haven’ t been able to drop by the office and get them off my camera. (My stupid casio camera requires its dock to connect it to a computer)
I didn’t get anything done this past weekend on the house, because I had drill. The snow was a pretty unwelcome surprise, and after it started piling up and weighing down my tarp, I had to take drastic measures to ensure that the tarps wouldn’t rip and release dozens of gallons of water into my new addition. I ended up cutting holes in the tarp to drain the water into buckets, which still isn’t a very efficient solution, but its working for now. Hopefully this weekend we’ll get the 2nd floor decking done and will be able to create a much more efficient tarp over the whole project, avoiding this mess.
Anyways, here are some shots of building the first floor walls. I was able to get the sheathing up last Tuesday, just before the big freeze. My house is a pretty chilly place these days, but the heat and water are on, and the pipes are not in danger of freezing. (Though, when the BGE bill comes, I may have some ’splainin’ to do.
The last shot is one taken from the front of the house after we took the temporary wall down. The square footage on the first floor is nearly doubled, which is pretty exciting.
-C
Here’s my first floor, in its infancy. This weekend I’ll have it insulated, have the subfloor down, and have the walls built.
-Chris
After two very long meetings that occupied entire evenings this week, I am coming to the realization that the post-deployment break is over, and its time to start drilling again.
I am now assigned as the Executive officer of the new 244th Engineer Company (Vertical, formerly the 253rd Engineer Company). As a construction unit, the XO’s actual title is “Company Construction Officer” which is interesting… I guess it’s no coincidence that I also work in construction in my civilian life, but I could imagine Engineer Officers with little or no construction experience feeling awkward if they were put in the same position.
I have been a platoon leader since 2003, so moving on to XO status is new ground for me. Fortunately, I was able to learn a lot about the job from 1LT Little while we were deployed. They say the difficulty of an XO’s job depends completely on how the company commander chooses to put you to work.  We shall see.
-LT
(I haven’t signed out at LT in a while…)
It’s been an extremely busy weekend down at the Whong residence. At quitting time on Sunday, I stood on my new first floor, and could finally “see” the outline of my new kitchen, stairwell, and powder room. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture, but I’ll be sure to post one tomorrow.
I had hoped to start on the first floor walls this weekend, but installing the main foundation beams proved to be quite a challenge, and killed most of Saturday. Hurdles we overcame included matching the existing finished floor height exactly, jacking up and sistering one of the 100 year old joists in the house, framing the new stair opening, keeping the foundation beams level across 6 different footings, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Thanks to Eric and Tom for assistance with the beams.
Today (sunday), with help from the amazing Alex Baglione, we set the first floor joists, complete with joist hangars and hurricane ties requiring hundreds and hundred of TICO nails… my wrists, hands, arms, back, sides, neck, legs and feet hurt, but my new first floor exists.
I didn’t get the plywood for the subfloor, but I threw all the extra lumber I had on the deck and pretended to stand in my new kitchen.
Hooray for the weekend… now it’s time to sleep.
-C
Here are two more…
This is me standing atop a mountain of rubble that was once my kitchen roof, and one of a newly opened up crawlspace.
