Month: April 2016

Building a house is like building a sand dribble castle at the beach

About 10 years ago, I was heavily involved in building out our office space in San Francisco (about 96,000 square feet).  This is in a large downtown office tower and it was bare concrete floors and completely empty floor to ceiling on 4.5 floors – so about 22K square feet per floor.  Our architects were … Continue reading “Building a house is like building a sand dribble castle at the beach”

About 10 years ago, I was heavily involved in building out our office space in San Francisco (about 96,000 square feet).  This is in a large downtown office tower and it was bare concrete floors and completely empty floor to ceiling on 4.5 floors – so about 22K square feet per floor.  Our architects were great and the space came out very nice while still being cost effective.  An interesting take away I got from that experience is that EVERYTHING is a decision and those decisions build on each other – like dribbling sand at the beach to make a dribble castle.  Every decision is dependent on the small little decisions that you made earlier.  We are at a stage now on my house project that this is really clear

Not a whole lot has obviously happened since the last post – but things are staged for an explosion of obvious progress.  Specifically, take a look at the photos below.

Blue tape is on the cabinets showing where the door pulls will be.  Dribble-dribble. The I-Beam is now in place (temporarily tacked down with generic screws).  Each cut, mount hole, size of the plate, the under beam mounting blocks were things that we discussed and mulled over and finally made a decision about – all oriented on how to give good leg room under the counter surface while still providing the support needed for the counter itself – and look good?  Dribble-dribble.   This is not a unique or an original observation obviously – but it struck me particularly yesterday when I was visiting just because there are so many decisions that have been taken but not fully put into action on display.

Things that are prepped and pending

  • A lot of the appliances have arrived – the dishwasher and cooktop are in the house (still in their boxes)
  • The door pulls are marked out
  • The master bath tiling looks about to start (materials are here).
  • Plumbing fixtures are showing up and getting prepped
  • Light fixtures are onsite and ready for installation
  • Templates have been made for the counter tops (cutouts for the sink, cooktop etc…) and the counter tops are in progress
  • Surface treatment (3 coats ultimately) is partially complete – the bedrooms are at 2 coats, main public area is at 1 coat

All in all – there should be a lot of good stuff show off soon – built off of all the little prep work that Paul and his team have been putting so much effort into these past few weeks.  The house is looking just fantastic  🙂

Snow in April

It is snowing here in today but we are not supposed to get much.  But it is supposed to be very windy later today – up to 58 mph gusts.  My Dad was scheduled to look at some potential archaeology sites out by Worcester today – but he conferred with the rest of the group … Continue reading “Snow in April”

It is snowing here in today but we are not supposed to get much.  But it is supposed to be very windy later today – up to 58 mph gusts.  My Dad was scheduled to look at some potential archaeology sites out by Worcester today – but he conferred with the rest of the group yesterday and wisely called it off.  There are a lot of damaged trees in the woods this year from the one storm that had really heavy snow (see pictures of storm damage in this earlier post)  – there are a number of “Widow Makers” hanging around here and being out in 50+ mph winds could be quite dangerous – and uncomfortable too!

Anecdotally, my Dad has noted that one of the leading cause of death in Colonial times was being killed by falling tree limbs/widow makers.  We have a theory that these are more common when trees grow without a lot of competition (lower stress, faster growth, less strength).   Today, New England is a reforestation success story – I believe up until the 1990s the net generation of forest land was enormous, only recently leveling out as farming went into a steep decline here.  Around our part of the state, a LOT of trees, of many different species, have been sort of falling apart for no particular good reason that we can see.  The only link is that they appear to be the same general age – between 50 and 100 years old.

This would have also been common in early colonial times as the pre-contact local Indian tribes used to keep the land fairly clear for farming – but they were heavily decimated by disease early on and that activity would have slowed way down in the late 1500 and 1600’s (possibly).   So similar conditions leading to similar weaker than normal trees, leading to more trees falling apart?

Potentially difficult to come up with direct evidence to support that theory – but interesting musing.

On a different subject, I was out sick for a number of days last week (feeling a bunch better now thank you!) – too much getting woken up in the middle of the night (Brussels bombing alert from work, Fire alarms) on top of a fast trip back and forth to San Francisco.  However, Atlantic Industrial Models finished up the I-Beam and it has been delivered to the house.  They are still working on sanding the floor but Paul can at least do final measurements for the island.  Oh – and Wolfers lighting called and the special order fixtures have arrived.