more news soon !!!

well, it been a very busy stretch of time. alot has changed. electrical, plumbing, drywall exterior is almost done. ill post some pics and details regarding all of it. i think we'll be moving back in about three weeks. yeah i'm crazy, crazy to have missed a wicked cross season. it better be worth it.

update, brand new news.

its been a little while, but trust me it's been busy as hell. a tone of progress has been made on all fronts. the latest has been the windows, i will fill in the holes regarding all the other development as the week ends.





the windows have arrived about 3:45 pm on Tuesday. the day was cursed with rain, but it held off with the haeavy fall till later that night. it was a mad house of excitement. two massive window frames, tones of glass, a flat bed semi, and a boom lift. the whole thing lasted about 3.5 hours, and the frames were in. the glass went in the following day. it was wild. the windows are amazing.

kitchen, the hub

i found a nice model picture of the kitchen.
i have worked on this with Edita, my sister in-law, and my boss. i work with her and my brother Artur at m-concept. a young design company. we design, import and install beautiful italian kitchen. we had a few different approaches to this floor plan, but that's the winner. it was her idea to conceil the bathroom with the tall cabinets, i think it's brilliant. it should arrive here in winnipeg first week of september.

57 is the magic number

Josh has nailed about 800 nails on the second floor. every hanger has to have all the nail holes filled. wow. the pictured hanger has 57 nails, there is also a different hanger with 77 nails. i hope his wrist is doing OK.

moving downstairs

everything (almost) upstairs is done. we are waiting on windows. there where some changes made in sizing due to stars errors, i think. but the date for installs is august 4th. we need to install four retainer just for my peace of mind. mid-west is doing this for me. i really like dealing with these guys. they are able to fabricate small orders, unless you need laser cutting service or milling.


we have moved down stairs and Graham and Josh have been tearing the back of our house to shreds. they have re-build most of it, and i have to say, it looks great. now you can see the shape of the building. i had a lot of planning to do this weekend. laying out the interior walls, figure out the stairs, and kitchen/bathroom upstairs. it's all done now. we can proceed forward.

i met with my painter. Ash, another young man, with a tones of experience. we will be spaying the upstairs ceiling and the beams this week , and later we'll paint the walls. it's a cleaner approach.

no roof yet?

next week will be very interesting.

more about the roof.

the roof is closed now. Zbyszek and his wonderfully crew of all polish roofers, sealed the roof with a rubber membrane, and monday and tuesday will install the insulation and the top water membrane. i really like this guy very relaxed and man of his ward.

Graham and Josh have installed the solar chimney after finishing the metal decking and acoustic insulation. the chimney was made by Kenny from Midwest Sheet Metal, a family owned business for the last 50 or 60 years. i will be painting it black sometime this coming week.

next,

- first floor framework
- ducktwork
- electrical
- plumbing
- and windows

very exciting.

i'm crying because i'm happy, really.

the roof is up. it looks supper. there is some more work to do on the beam hangers. 57 nails in each beam, and there are many beams. that's a sore wrist forecast. other than the happy moments, i have to deal with some unhappy neighbors. the size and proximity are proving themselves to be a bigger challenge than possibly expected. but what is there to do. it has been in the works for more than a year now, and there is no way of stopping this now. it's like turning a titanic in a sea of jello. but we must go on, there is absolutely no other choice. do i regret having been put in this situation, yes. i never thought that esthetics are such a effecting issue. religion, politics, and race have always been reasons for neighbors to not be 'friendly', or for moving. it's really to bad.

the roof is here!

STAR building material has finally send us the roof trusses. i still can't believe the missing page story. anyways, the crew is at it, and it's looking good. the shape is coming quick. don't miss a thing.

changes, it's all about changes

well, every day is different. trust me. as the house is growing so are my worries. Graham is doing an incredible job. i have not known what to expect from him. but i have to say, he is exceptional. unfortunately Larry left his side. he had a unresolved right wrist injury that was giving him grief.

so, meet Josh, Graham has recruited his bather in-law. ironically Josh was looking for a summer job, having just finished his undergrad studies in english. with years of experience in this trade already, he's doing just fine.

as far as the construction. the walls are up, things are looking good.

welcome to the second floor

second floor is on. walls are coming up and things are getting done. windows and electrical next week. looking good.

meet the players, meet the plan

the roof is on the ground, and being disposed off. it is incredible how much material is in a small building.



from here on it is mostly adding on material. it is very exciting to see the building taking shape. these men are the two responsible for all the carpentry. Graham and his apprentice Larry. i have first met Graham through cycling. we have raced together for a few years now. it is difficult to estimate someones skills without seeing their work, but i had a good feeling, when he said to me "i am very good". so far, he is very good! however, his company is nameless, having just recently gone independent. if there any of you have any 'good' ideas, please post them. i will show him your suggestions. the winner will be invited to our house warming party.

yesterday i had a chance to walk the floor layout in real time. it is so different to experience this in person, than on paper or with a 3-D models. in the background of all this excitement, the HVAC is almost ready to roll, electrical and plumbing is just waiting to roll in, maybe next week. Zbyszek is out of town for a couple of week, but the roof will be waiting for him by the end of this week. windows are being fabricated as we speak. it's all cooking.

raising the roof

after postponing the roof-raising two times, we finally had a date set. thursday july 2. star delayed our construction by a week. the truss engineer lost page 12b out of our book and couldn't complete his work on time? fortunately Colin Grover made him stay late after work to complete his homework. it got done. the material was delivered on july second as promised. ironically it rained all weekend. thanks Ted




the roof is off, well done Graham. i was there with few of our neighbors in the morning to watch the show put on by Ken, the boom truck operator. it was fascinating. the amount of control he had over this massive machine. i have made a video of this but i don't know how to turn the image around. now the fun begins. in about 8 days we'll have the second floor up and i can get to work on the electrical and plumbing. keep watching.

D E M O - bring your friends

i was very surprised with the call-out for friends to help me take down my walls. the local cycling blog FGBC made a small announcement in the cycling circles, and results were awesome. seven of them showed up on time. i was late, as usual. John, Sima, Hal, Colin, Chris, Dave, Johnny. they were great. we had the house stripped in about 7 hours of work. drywall, lath and plaster, all in the bin. the next is the roof. thanks guys.

life after paragon

they've been gone for a while now, but i wanted to show some of the images of the house after Paragon.

vermiculite

we had vermiculite, all over the attic. it was an expensive procedure, and i still don't know how i feel about it. the material on line, and the information i got from the professionals and local MLA office proved to be very confusing. what did we do? we ended spending a good chunk of our budget on removing the vermiculite. it is behind us now and the project can progress forward.
we reclaimed the house yesterday afternoon from Paragon Industries. i have to say i am very excited.

material is arriving

the star package is together and arriving bit by bit. Graham is coordinating the dates. the roof should be coming off on friday, june 26. unfortunatly the vermiculite removal decision has put us back two weeks. but it's all good.

moving out

everything is out of the house by now, and we are waiting for Paragon Industries to finish their job. the move was relatively smooth, except for the unexpected tension of everything beginning. finally.

solar chimney (passive cooling)

i just got an update on the PC chimney (passive cooling). it is nice and simple. much more refined than the model i have suggested.
tomek

solar studies ...

here is a page from one of Colin Grover' e-mails. his former prof Leon wrote a small review of the pinedale house project. it is interesting. have a read. tomek

the beginning of a new layer...

we have begun all this last summer. the house has been in our possession since 2001. our son was just turning 1 when we first moved in after finishing some small renovations, well maybe not so small, and now the changes are a lot bigger. we decided to stay here simply because of the neighborhood and the sheer proximity of downtown. we did think about moving somewhere, where we could build new, but i always loved the idea of reusing an older building. there is so many great examples of this treatment in this city. i will try to collect some of my favorite homes this summer as i try to squeeze in some riding (or maybe scootering) with our friend colin A. this is a test of my hobby building skills.
here are a couple of drawings i did of the future pinedale house. i will fill in the story as we ramble on. tomek