Adding On: Progress Pics

Adding On: Progress Pics

Like normal, these are old pictures.
Here's the excavator:


that dug a big hole in the hillside:


Here are a few of the bottles that were dug out of the hillside:


More concrete for the footing boxes in the hillside:

Adding On: Going Up!

While the weather held, the block went higher:

Caution: Wet Floor

The weather stayed warm, the concrete was poured, and the sun came out of hiding.

New Floor - Concrete, continued

Liquid flooring:

If you've never walked in wet concrete, you should try it if you ever get the opportunity.

Ick.

Here's the ramp that connects the existing front entry way with the new slab:

A couple of inches difference in elevation, it's a ramp instead of a step.

More Room

Every time someone asks what we're building out there, the standard answer has become, "More room." And most of the time we're so busy it's obvious why we need it.

Here are some pictures of progress:

These first couple are picture before the floor was poured. Everything is prepped and ready, but the weather had to be above freezing for at least a few days to allow the ground to thaw and the concrete to cure.




In this picture, you can see we've got the front door propped open. That warm-ish air sure feels good after a long winter.


The concrete truck made it:


And the work area is caution-taped off:

Construction Pictures, etc.

These pictures are about 2 weeks old (I told you in the last post that I was running behind. Again.); you can tell because the ground is not covered in snow and ice and the sun is shining.

Until today, there has been nothing but snow, more snow, ice, gloom, and more snow.
Today, while not sunny, the temperature is above freezing for the first time in at least a couple of weeks.

During this prior brief, sunny, but barely above freezing period, a few rows of block were laid.

Here's the site during preparation, before mixing mud:

Fortunately, this mess in the parking lot (Yes, PC, it is a mess. An understandable mess, and a temporary mess, but it is a mess.) doesn't effect the path to the front door:

Block laying:

This is what it looks like now, even two weeks later. There has been some other digging going on for plumbing, but that's been hard fought: the ground is frozen.

If this current run of above freezing weather holds for a few days, the ground can thaw enough to pour the concrete floor. After that, there will be more block and then the wood framing. At that point it will begin to look like something pretty quickly.

Let's hope the weather holds.

Concrete (hopefully this is the last post about concrete for quite a while), back door view, and fire

It has been 3-4 weeks since we poured this back patio:


This is at the rear of the building, a level up from the parking lot.
The concrete truck parked up in the alley and we carried the cement down in 5 gallon buckets. There were four of us (we could have used another person or two) and it was hard, sweaty work. This is, again, water control. And it's a nice shady resting spot, too, that will be the beginning of the hillside seating area.

See the small concrete pad here?


That's for the air conditioner:

It sure feel nice inside!

Walking over to the other corner of the building, still standing on the concrete, this is the view:


The roof is actually red now, and I'll get those pictures up soon, but here it's still tar paper.
You can see the door in the back of PC's truck. In the previous post there was a picture of the door after it was unloaded, so I'm chronologically upside down. Soon I'll post a picture of the door where it's supposed to be...


Just a few minutes later, the fire trucks screamed through town to put out this fire:


It must have been a huge fire because I could see flames from here!


But the fire department(s) had it under control pretty quickly, because it didn't last long.

Thank goodness.

Concrete (How many posts about concrete does this make now?)

These pictures are from a couple of weekends ago when we poured the slab right in front of the main door, underneath the overhang, so that I could tile the entryway right up to it (the outermost tile being underneath the threshold of the door -if the door ever makes it here).






See the 2x4 in this picture? We used that to drag along the top of the form boards to get the right amount of concrete and to begin to smooth it off:



The "Energy Shield" in this picture is really a 'Concrete Shield' to keep the concrete from splashing back onto the tile that was already laid inside:


This is the next step to smoothing out:



And this long handled, huge tool is called a 'bull float.' Because it's big? And floaty on wet concrete? I guess so (that would be the scientific explanation):




And we poured a run down the side of the building, too. It's looking pretty mucky in this picture:



But it's starting to shape up here:


Most All of this concrete pouring has to do with water control. Old buildings stay in good shape when you take care of them; that's what we want.

Phase III and more about the tile...

Blogging has taken a back seat to Phase III: Preparing to Open.
[D, my multi-tasking abilities are stretched to the limit ;). ]

Tiling the floor was a glamorous job:


Now that it's finished (yes, and grouted, too), I find myself in an odd phase of tying up loose construction ends and beginning the process of papering/supplying the Coffee House into reality.

I'll try to avoid the nuts-and-bolts boring parts of paper (business licence, tax registration, etc..) business here; I'll say it's time consuming and leave it at that.

As far as construction loose-ends:
My metal roof (for the entryway overhang) was a week late for delivery. I got the call today that it has finally arrived, but it has arrived damaged -at least in part- so the damaged parts will be re-ordered and should be here by next Tuesday (the original order was 1 week late, so we'll see...).
The front door should be in by now, but it's not. Another week....?
The front end of the coffee/food prep area is laid out to my satisfaction (taking into consideration electrical, plumbing, efficiency, appliances, etc.), but I am still looking for a pastry display case to complete the layout.
The back end of the food prep/baking area is roughed-in, but not finalized.

There's more, too, but I'll get to some of those things in later posts.
For now, here are more tile pictures:

I am very pleased with the tile. Since my fingers and palms still have holes in them from the work (and my fingernails are just now beginning to recover), I'm not sure if I'm pleased because the job is over or because it looks good. Probably both, because it does look good.

Not grouted yet (but dusty):


If you've been following along, I mentioned finding a way to reduce my time when concreting in the cut-tile edge pieces. It's the Ziplock bag:

I filled it full of cement, cut the tip off one corner, and squirted the mud onto the floor where the edge piece was to be laid:

It was easier than trying to trowel the mud in with a screwdriver (or something of appropriate width).

This Ziplock trick is exactly the technique used to frost a cake (thanks, S, for teaching me something about that), except without a fancy patterned tip.

Oh, yeah, and icing doesn't have tiny rocks in it that prevent the bag's zipper from zipping tightly. That was so messy I didn't even take a picture of the exploded wet concrete bag.