Warm and Dry

windows are in. we're satisfied with the placement, especially the way they frame and bring in the outside.

bedroom 2
bathroom 2living room

we really like the way that Nick, Win, etc. create waterproofing "redundancies," as they say, with the windows. guess that's obvious. who wouldn't like that.
recessed lights have arrived in boxes.
so have skylights
Here's the insulation that will go in the walls. looking forward to that. well, not really looking forward to the insulation. We won't even be able to see that, but we are looking forward to being warm in the winter and not seeing the temperature of the house drop 20 degrees after the sun goes down.
ventilation for the bathroom. this will be a big upgrade too. lack of ventilation in the old bathroom caused many problems (mold, rust, peeling paint...)

framing?

Not really sure where the "framing" phase stops, but at this point they were still building things that looked like frames. Regardless, to avoid further exposing my ignorance of the building process, this will be the last post with the word, "framing," in the title, or anywhere else in the post.

This is the frame for the opening for a future skylight in the bedroom. We like the way this worked out.
There are the frames for the low walls in the kitchen. The range will stick out on the near side of the low wall in the foreground to form a little peninsula, and the counter-height table will be on the other side of that. Low wall in the background separates the kitchen and living room.
Framing for the steps down from the kitchen to the living room.
Same steps viewed from the living room side.
New bathroom will have a low wall surrounding the shower, washer&dryer will be to the right in that bathroom. Haven't seen that setup too often, but we like the idea.

Framing Part 2

At this point the house is enclosed, plywood on the frame. Changes the feeling for sure, and not for the worse.

This is the living room, taken from in the living room.
Living room, taken from the kitchen
Looking out from the kitchen again, high windows in living room visible here.
Kitchen
View from the back, looking East

Framing part1

First stages of framing for the new part of the house. Connection with the old part can be seen above. Looking west from the driveway to the backyard shown below
Roof slope very slight, ceiling will not slope inside. Chose this direction for the slope to take advantage of southern exposure for possible future solar (which, despite what we had been led to believe, is still cost prohibitive at this point)
corner of the west and north walls. framing for windows towards the top on the north.
looking straight west out the back, can see where the doors and windows will be.

ducting and pipes

We decided on a hydronic air handler as a sort of combined heating and hot water system. Some of the ducting has already gone in. Also put in the plumbing. It'll be exciting to have water flowing (as opposed to trickling) and hot water in the bathroom sink.


Our system designer, George Nesbitt, likes to put the heating vents/registers up high on the wall, which we like - makes furniture placement easier, probably gets the air that comes out to flow around the room better.







Some of the old pipes

floor joists

****I'm using smaller pictures for this one, but (in case you haven't figured this out) if you click on any of the pictures, they blow up to full page size.


more pieces involved here than I would have thought, and definitely more than there used to be based on the looks of the existing structure.

these i-beams that they are using for the floor joists can apparently provide support across a 25 foot span without sagging.
Mudsills - what the framing will attach to.

So I got curious about the etymology of "mudsills" and learned that this building structure actually serves in the etymology for another meaning of the word. This was the first hit that came up from wikipedia. Twisted and disturbing, but probably not as surprising as I wish it were that someone would actually posit this as "sociological theory."

From Wikipedia:

"Mudsill theory is a sociological theory which proposes that there must be, and always has been, a lower class for the upper classes to rest upon. The inference being a mudsill, the lowest threshold that supports the foundation for a building.

The theory was first used by South Carolina Senator/Governor James Henry Hammond, a wealthy southern plantation owner, in a Senate speech on 4 March 1858 ^[1], to justify what he saw as the willingness of the lower classes and the hegemony of non-whites to perform menial work which enabled the higher classes to move civilization forward. With this in mind, any efforts for class or racial equality that ran counter to the theory, would inevitably run counter to civilization itself.

Many saw the argument as a weak justification for exploitation, and a flimsy example of creating your own science to reference as proof.^[2] An obvious flaw lies in that there are no indications as to which class or race rightfully belongs to the mudsill other than the pre-supposed regional groups that were already in place at the "bottom", causing a circular argument.

It was directly used to advocate slavery in the rhetoric of John C. Calhoun and other pre-Civil War Democrats, that were struggling to maintain their grip on the Southern economy. They saw the abolition of slavery as a threat to their powerful new Southern market that revolved almost entirely around the plantation system which was furthered by the use of primarily African slaves, but also utilized destitute whites."

Back to the floor joists.

These are the hangers, whose name actually indicates their function.

starting to hang the joists.

...and ready for the subfloor.

Foundation Pour

All the foundation work done by Jaime Canelo / Canelo's Construction. These guys did outstanding work - thorough, meticulous perfectionists in addition to being dependable and easy to communicate with. We highly recommend them for any kind of concrete or stone work that you might need done (they also do paver stones, landscaping, retaining walls, etc., and will work throughout the bay area)

Canelo's Constructions Inc.; Jamie Canelo-Hernandez, President; licensed contractor #924795; (510)439-8662

It was fascinating to compare the old and the new; see and learn about the changes in how concrete work is done.

Concrete, pumped through a hose, into the forms.

Not visible in this picture, but the person in the white T has a vibrating wand that he puts into the poured concrete every so often to settle it. A mesmerizing visual effect. Takes some judgement, as apparently too much vibrating can separate the aggregate from the cement.

After the forms are removed they will be reused.

Finished with a 2" slab over the vapor/moisture barrier. Those orange things, "rebar caps," are there partly as a safety measure to prevent impaling.