Windows, Electrical, More Dirt

Another busy week at the site with at least 10 people doing various jobs. The windows were all installed in 3 days. This included strapping the walls to protect from earthquakes.

The electrical work continued with all the can lights in place and the wire pulls being done. We have a massive amount of cable coming into our utility room - the communications wires for telephone and Internet throughout the house and one of two electrical panels. We've all been putting our heads together with the Structural FX team, mainly John who is heading up the electrical work, to cover all grounds - landscape lights, Christmas lights with timers, outdoor lights, locations of light switches, electric plugs. It's important to get all this done now before the walls get closed up.

We had to order some special gear for termination of the communications and AV equipment. We went with a HDMI cable for the TV that will be buried behind the wall and pulled to our AVR receiver. That should over us for video and sound and clean up the wiring. We also went with Seimon S66 punch blocks with modular jacks for the telephone cable (also using CAT5e) connections. This allows a punchdown block for direct line terminations to dedicated lines like Tivo, fax, cordless phone, but also RJ11 extensions for our PBX which will run throughout the house (a small Lucent/Avaya Partner 12 extension system we picked up on eBay that handles up to 5 lines, does conference calling, intercom etc). We also ordered Leviton CAT5e termination panels for the Internet cables and a Terk 5 x 8 multiswitch for the coax cables which allows for 8 coax extensions connected to 2 satellite dishes and 1 TV cable. All of this will be elegantly mounted in some large in-wall electric panels that Brian/John bought including the cable modem router and Linksys router.

The HVAC installation is moving along, although I never really see this crew. They are buried under the crawl space of the house placing the furnaces and AC. We went over the optimal placement of all the vents to ensure a good flow of air. The engineering of this is complex and important to get the flow right.

We had our interior designer Nancy Linebarrier pop in to help with color coordination. All of this was prompted by an urgent need to pick a roof color. We decided on colors for exterior paint, roof, pavers for the driveway and back yard entertaining patio, retaining walls and trim. Whew! It was a good thing we looked around the neighborhood the past few weeks to determine what we liked and narrowed down the choices.

For our exterior lights, we ordered Hubbardton Forge 5893 sconces for the front and Minka Lavery Great Outdoor 71197 for the back.

Next week the plan is to finish up the rough electrical, plumbing (almost all done now) and HVAC to prepare for an interior inspection by the City. Also in parallel will be the roof and solar panel frame/jacks. After the inspection, the walls and ceilings will be insulated and the sheetrock goes up which will take about 3 weeks. The exterior stucco will start too. Then it's on to tiling and cabinets...the end is clearly visible now!

3 Month Milestone

So here we are exactly 3 months after the demolition work was completed on the main house. This week so far the gables are up on the garage, chimney, windows are starting to go in, electrical is in full swing, HVAC started today and a ton of other little details I'm no doubt forgetting. It's impressive just how efficient the Structural FX crew is!

Roof is Up

This week saw the completion of the trusses over all the roof and the sheathing of the roof with plywood. The progress has been absolutely stunning. It's an enclosed structure now and you can see how all the rooms size out and will look. See photos of front and back. The front garage doors are closed out right now in the photo as is the front door. We were glad no one was hurt doing the roofing as there was a serious amount of wind here in the Bay Area the past few days, enough to create mini-tornadoes out of the dirt in our back yard.

The Structural FX crew also completed the cutouts for all the windows, which are ready to be installed now. It's impressive to see the team working, about 9 of them on site Friday - 5 doing roofing, 2 on electrical and 2 on plumbing.

The rough plumbing continues to be put in and the electrical just started Thursday. In just 2 days most of the boxes and lights are positioned. The team has been very proactive in making recommendations on things we forgot - provisioning for Christmas lights and outdoor low voltage landscape lighting, additional light switch boxes for outside lights, slight changes to inside switches, and addressing our list of desirables based on the finishing we bought - e.g., electric plug near the toilet for washlet. We also went over the communications, alarm wiring and speakers throughout the house. It's relatively easy to modify things now but very important to get this done now or it will not be easy when the walls start to be closed up.

Next week the HVAC work should start, electrical continues for 2 weeks or so, window installations, bathtub placements and possibly some leveling of dirt and preparation for retaining walls in back. There are also a lot of "L" shaped frames to build for all the coffers in the ceiling, some 120 of them which will be a job in itself!

Raising The Roof

The past week Structural FX finished the shear walls around the house and prepared the garage foundation for pouring the concrete slab. The slab turned out great.

Yesterday, right on schedule after the Holiday, the trusses arrived from Hopkins Truss company on a truck with a huge crane. I was surprised that it could be moved into the driveway area but clearly the fellow operating the crane was a real skilled pro. It was one of those cranes that has a long extending arm designed to lift the trusses off the truck and place them at various strategic points on top of the walls. They are then spread out by hand and nailed together with the cross pieces.

The framing crew is hard at work now placing the trusses and should be done by end of week, an amazingly fast 3 days to put the entire roof up. The windows should arrive Friday so the pressure is remains on! The electrical work will also start later this week.