The latest floor plan. The lav was relocated to the second floor. This made more room width and will allow for a future car lift.


A progress drawing of the second floor. Two possible toilet locations shown.


And some ideas I was playing around with. I think the fan over the second floor window will be there. I am thinking of extending a section of roof out just over the garage doors. Maybe even blend it into the wall above with a curved roof pitch. Extend maybe 4 feet out. This would allow me to put recessed down lights there, and keep us out of the rain if we are using the pass door to enter the garage.

 

awesome project, aside from the headaches!

 

Just out of curiosity? Why not use an 8' door instead of the 6'8" door that you have shown? That way the height of the door would match the height of the garage doors.

 

Oops, my mistake. I saw the specs for a 9' garage door which means that your door is an 8' door. My bad....

 

The garage doors are 9' wide and 8' tall. The pass door is only 6'8". That's one of the reasons why putting an awning type roof bumped out across the front appeals to me. It will also break up the wide expanse of cedar shingles a bit.

And it sometimes is a PITA dealing with some of the subcontractors, having had to fire a few.
Sometimes I just have to laugh. I called one of them and wanted to know why they were not on the site as I was tired of waiting for them. "They are loading up right now" was the reply. I had left the site and I was calling on my cell, parked in his loading area. Must be invisible men. We got a chuckle on that one.

 

Wow, awesome project- sounds like a bunch of incompetent contractors in your area! Coming along very nicely though!

 

I can’t have all bad luck. I got a bid from a slab man that came highly recommended. He came to the site and said he would get right back to me. Two days later I call him, yup, get right back. After four days and another call I got my bid. $11,500.00 for the work. Hmm….it’s a one day job for a four man crew, and materials would run about $5,000.00. He must think I’m stupid. I called two more slab men and got two more quotes with me buying the material. One man was recommended by a contractor friend who uses him all of the time, he quoted $2,400.00 for the labor. The other man was someone who was looking to buy the house next door, and he came over and gave me his card because he saw the work going on. I told him then that I was all set (I had not sacked the second crew yet). His quote was $2,600.00. I used my instincts this time and went with him because my instinct told me he would do a great job. He had no qualms about any of the specs and picky details of the job, unlike the other man. My instincts turned out to be right, they usually do.
We set a date of May 18 and after weeks of rain the 18th came with sunshine. He showed up on time and went to work. Things are looking better. $4,500.00 plus $2,600.00 puts me at $7,100.00, 44 big ones less than the first guy.

We decided to do the 6’ apron later to avoid possible damage to it from the heavy equipment when the septic system gets redone next week (I hope). The forms were staked out to grade and rebar was placed to tie the apron to the main slab.



Steel stakes were set with a cross nail at the proper grade height. The floor will be 3 inches higher in the back to allow and melting snow from the cars to drain to the doors.



What a beautiful site, concrete at last. This is the first mixer load. I’m using 4000# fiber mesh concrete with Super P to make it handle better. You can also see the grade stakes in many places.



It didn’t take long to place the concrete. Now to let it set enough to start the finishing process. They poured the addition slabs next.



The first pass of many many passes with the power trowel. A burned or polished finish takes many passes with waiting in between. The man in the foreground is cleaning up the edges by hand. Doing a nice job too.



The next day we can see the finish. The pic is a bit blurry but you can see the reflection in the concrete. The slab is dry even though it looks wet. My shoes even squeaked when I walked.



Relief cuts were done early the next morning to make the concrete crack where we want it to.



After the cutting I hosed it down and covered it with a tarp for a good wet cure. The tarps will stay till I need to start working in there again, maybe in a week or so.



The garage doors have been ordered and will be installed in about two weeks. I specifieded R15 with insulated lites at the top row.

 

Nice thread.

Anymore updates?

 

Remember that the egyptians still have the most durable concrete. Could this possibly be due to the centuries that it took to complete the structure?

 

There will be. My excavation contractor is currently holding the job up. I'm hoping he will start late next week.


I need to track down my excavation contractor and open up a big can of whoopass on him. Oh! Wait! You're the excavation contractor!

 

HAH!! Bobk=Owned.

 

Its all good though. I was at his office yesterday afternoon for a job meeting. We sorted a few things out and he will prep for the apron and also prep the driveway for asphalt. We will put the binder layer on and save the top layer for after the big machines leave the jobsite. This will also make the garage useable a lot sooner.




JK about the whip thingy, we talked more about cars than the job.

 

I could not bear to see the new turbo on a gravel driveway. Do not want to go to porsche hell . Binder will proceed forthwith!!! Where is the building?

 

BobK tells me that there is something in concrete that makes people who work with it turn stupid. I have to agree. The guy who did such a good job on the floor was supposed to pour the apron yesterday and the weather was perfect. He pulled a no-show, dosen't return calls either. I have the first layer of pavement set for Friday. No apron=no pavement.
Just venting.

 

Last Saturday BobK sent a crew over to tie in the waste line from the garage, and prep for the apron in front of the garage. They also leveled and compacted the driveway. I had scheduled concrete work for the apron, AC condenser pads, and generator pads to be done Tuesday afternoon. My concrete guy didn’t make on Tuesday as planned, but he was there Wednesday AM. I was starting to panic because I was hoping to get the driveway paved on Friday. The pads and apron got done and they were finished by 1:00. It’s a darn good thing it got done because the paving company showed up a day early. I could see why this guy is so busy because of the quality and speed of their work. They showed up at 11:00 and were finished before 1:00. As I got to the site they were unloading a backhoe from one trailer, and a paving machine from another. The dump trucks that pulled the trailers were full of asphalt. Three men were already in the driveway with shovels doing the hand work. The backhoe did the final grading and a roller arrived from the previous site and did the final compaction. I took off for 20 min to get my camera and when I got back the paving was half way done. They did an excellent job on the final grading because there was a downpour last night and there was not a single puddle on the driveway this morning.

A few of BobK’s smaller yellow machines.



Two of his crew got the Bobcat set up with a vibrating roller compactor.



A plate compactor was used for the close in work.



By the afternoon they were done and the driveway was prepped.



The asphalt starts going down.



The roller packs it down.



Another plate compactor is used for some close in work.



They’re just about done, not too bad for less than 2 hours of work. They put down about 450 sq yards of binder.



The garage doors should be in next week. After the leaching field gets done we will get the paver back for the finish layer of asphalt, and get our landscaper in to finish putting our yard back together. Once the doors are installed, most of the garage work will come to a halt and I will start building the house addition. Gotta keep the war department happy.