The Concrete Underground
- Thread starter ConCretin
- Start date
Cemoto
Well-known member
Hey Doug,
Are you guys keeping warm?
Hope all is well . . . .
Regards, and Merry Christmas!
Al
Are you guys keeping warm?
Hope all is well . . . .
Regards, and Merry Christmas!
Al
Bib Overalls
Well-known member
Hopefully this won't be your second winter in the R/V. Your wife must be a keeper.
Wow. Just discovered this site a little while back and just discovered this thread yesterday - I am amazed! Outstanding work! I worked as a field super for a GC for quite a few years and have dealt with my share of structural concrete and I am quite comfortable stating that the attention to detail, especially with the architectural concrete, is above and beyond the norm. I would've been ecstatic to have such a crew on my sites.
On a side note, the last project I had was a 28,000 square foot addition for a local First Baptist here in eastern TN. Full basement, main floor and second floor were all poured and I was somewhere around 700 yards in footings, basement walls, lightweight slabs and the elevator shaft. We were building downtown in Morristown, TN when a buck - yep, a buck - ran through town, jumped my site fence, took out a bunch of metal studs, then jumped down the elevator shaft. He ran laps for hours until I could get Wildlife Resources on site to help remove him. Quite the ruckus, definitely, and seeing all your concrete reminded me of that adventure!
Thought I'd share a pic anyway. Good choice on the EIFS, windows look great, and keep it up!
Dan
On a side note, the last project I had was a 28,000 square foot addition for a local First Baptist here in eastern TN. Full basement, main floor and second floor were all poured and I was somewhere around 700 yards in footings, basement walls, lightweight slabs and the elevator shaft. We were building downtown in Morristown, TN when a buck - yep, a buck - ran through town, jumped my site fence, took out a bunch of metal studs, then jumped down the elevator shaft. He ran laps for hours until I could get Wildlife Resources on site to help remove him. Quite the ruckus, definitely, and seeing all your concrete reminded me of that adventure!
Thought I'd share a pic anyway. Good choice on the EIFS, windows look great, and keep it up!
Dan
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Radio Ron w4ron
Well-known member
that would work, but boy does it take away from the look of the stairs...
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My first post on this forum. Hi guys!
This thread was wonderful! I read it over the holidays and spent two days going through it. It kept getting better and better. I was astonished when the scope of it all became clear and I resisted jumping to the last post to see the results.
The design is awesome and the views unbelievable!
I hope everything is going well with the OP and that he is able to wrap it up. It would be great to see updates continue if possible. I know it must be tough taking photos and documenting the project during construction - though it is surely also very valuable to the builder. Good luck with the project!
This thread was wonderful! I read it over the holidays and spent two days going through it. It kept getting better and better. I was astonished when the scope of it all became clear and I resisted jumping to the last post to see the results.
The design is awesome and the views unbelievable!
I hope everything is going well with the OP and that he is able to wrap it up. It would be great to see updates continue if possible. I know it must be tough taking photos and documenting the project during construction - though it is surely also very valuable to the builder. Good luck with the project!
Edgemonton
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2013
- Messages
- 47
WOW!
That took far too long to read (or not long enough as I am now sad that I am done reading it all..) but WOW!
Thank you for all the hard work documenting all the progress.
As someone else asked way back, I would be really curious as to how this house would do on a blower door test! Please post the results if you decide to do one.
That took far too long to read (or not long enough as I am now sad that I am done reading it all..) but WOW!
Thank you for all the hard work documenting all the progress.
As someone else asked way back, I would be really curious as to how this house would do on a blower door test! Please post the results if you decide to do one.
Sham
Well-known member
As everyone here I'd love to hear from this fantastic project, but at this point I'm getting concerned about LLWillysfan...
Any news from him? Anyone in touch with the guy? I really hope he's doing fine, just too busy to spend time on this forum...
Any news from him? Anyone in touch with the guy? I really hope he's doing fine, just too busy to spend time on this forum...
JbTech
Well-known member
As everyone here I'd love to hear from this fantastic project, but at this point I'm getting concerned about LLWillysfan...
Any news from him? Anyone in touch with the guy? I really hope he's doing fine, just too busy to spend time on this forum...
I agree it's been a while, but sometimes life happens...
Hard to say. I wish him the best!
He hasn't been around lately, but I'm sure he'll chime in when he's ready.
Last Activity: 12-08-2014 11:31 AM
zedXmick
Member
I joined this site to do research on garage floor options.....what an absoulte jem of a garage build thread this is. Took me three days to get to this point. Congratulations Doug on building your true dream home. 
WOW!!
WOW!!
Well guys, I'm not sure what to say. I've obviously been absent for quite some time. I've checked in from time to time and sincerely appreciate all the comments. The reality is that you haven't missed much. Progress has been very slow for reasons I won't bore you with here.
For those of you hoping that after this time I'd dazzle you with an amazing update of our progress.........ummm, sorry. There just isn't a lot of progress to share and much of what we've done is pretty mundane.
Nevertheless, let me bring you up to speed on where we're at and try and share a few details you might be interested to see. If I recall correctly, I left off with the limestone floors going down. I hate to start off with a negative but we had a little problem with lippage;
We got our concrete floors pretty flat but not flat enough for 36" long limestone planks
You can really only see the problem when the sun is low and shining across the floor. Still I couldn't live with it so;
Yup, I took grinders to my brand new high dollar limestone floor. The floor is covered with Ram Board at the moment so I can't show you pictures of the finished product but it looks 100% better. I still have a little work to blend the color but I think it will look great.
So you might be wondering why I'm putting down floors before sheetrock. Well I'm also hanging doors and putting on baseboard before drywall. The reason is that we have a trim detail where the drywall is flush with the trim.
Here is the finished look;
The Guest Bedroom over the garage is further along than the rest of the house so I took these pictures up there. I've finally abandoned the camper and moved in up there. It's still a little like camping but a bit warmer.
Here's a wall up on the second floor that is in progress. You can see we've installed 1/2" thick poplar baseboard directly to the studs
Here's a closer shot showing some of the stuff we built into the wall including central vac
After we hung the drywall we glued on corner beads and 1/4" x 1/4" shadow bead tear away;
We used the same detail up the sides of the door flush door frames. More on the custom doors later
We used Durabond for the first coat on all the trim to improve adhesion and durability. Here's a shot of the Master Bedroom after sanding
And in primer;
You might have noticed the grilles. They are for a future geothermal powered HVAC system. I used a frameless grille that gets mudded flush
Here is the grille itself;
Let's see? What else? How about the shower valve rough in;
As with everything else in this castle, the shower is over-engineered. You can enter the shower from either side (his & hers) so we have two temp valves that can be set to the desired temp and left. You then have three on/off valves thst control the flow to one or all of a overhead rain head, a wall mounted hand sprayer or water fall head.
How about the Instant hot water heater that supplies the Guest Bedroom and Garage.
We've also installed the vanities. This is the beast in the Master Bedroom shower.
I'll get some better pics of this. Its a custom unit covered in rift cut oak with a stained called mink. It has some interesting features.
Finally, how about a shot from the Master Bedroom to remind me why I am doing this in the first place.
So to summarize where we're at;
Floors, doors and trim are done
Drywall is about 70%
We are painting right behind
We have installed the vanities and the kitchenette in the Guest Bedroom
They measured for counter tops yesterday
We hope to start installing the kitchen as soon as drywall and painting is done in the main space
We have most of our issues behind us and are finally picking up some momentum. I should have the whole thing done by the end of April. I'll do my best to keep you all up to speed as we finish this thing up. There should be some things that are a little more interesting than drywall.
Finally I'd just like to thank you all for your patience and in some cases concern that I'd met an untimely end. I especially appreciate all the PM's. Cheers everyone!
For those of you hoping that after this time I'd dazzle you with an amazing update of our progress.........ummm, sorry. There just isn't a lot of progress to share and much of what we've done is pretty mundane.
Nevertheless, let me bring you up to speed on where we're at and try and share a few details you might be interested to see. If I recall correctly, I left off with the limestone floors going down. I hate to start off with a negative but we had a little problem with lippage;
We got our concrete floors pretty flat but not flat enough for 36" long limestone planks
You can really only see the problem when the sun is low and shining across the floor. Still I couldn't live with it so;
Yup, I took grinders to my brand new high dollar limestone floor. The floor is covered with Ram Board at the moment so I can't show you pictures of the finished product but it looks 100% better. I still have a little work to blend the color but I think it will look great.
So you might be wondering why I'm putting down floors before sheetrock. Well I'm also hanging doors and putting on baseboard before drywall. The reason is that we have a trim detail where the drywall is flush with the trim.
Here is the finished look;
The Guest Bedroom over the garage is further along than the rest of the house so I took these pictures up there. I've finally abandoned the camper and moved in up there. It's still a little like camping but a bit warmer.
Here's a wall up on the second floor that is in progress. You can see we've installed 1/2" thick poplar baseboard directly to the studs
Here's a closer shot showing some of the stuff we built into the wall including central vac
After we hung the drywall we glued on corner beads and 1/4" x 1/4" shadow bead tear away;
We used the same detail up the sides of the door flush door frames. More on the custom doors later
We used Durabond for the first coat on all the trim to improve adhesion and durability. Here's a shot of the Master Bedroom after sanding
And in primer;
You might have noticed the grilles. They are for a future geothermal powered HVAC system. I used a frameless grille that gets mudded flush
Here is the grille itself;
Let's see? What else? How about the shower valve rough in;
As with everything else in this castle, the shower is over-engineered. You can enter the shower from either side (his & hers) so we have two temp valves that can be set to the desired temp and left. You then have three on/off valves thst control the flow to one or all of a overhead rain head, a wall mounted hand sprayer or water fall head.
How about the Instant hot water heater that supplies the Guest Bedroom and Garage.
We've also installed the vanities. This is the beast in the Master Bedroom shower.
I'll get some better pics of this. Its a custom unit covered in rift cut oak with a stained called mink. It has some interesting features.
Finally, how about a shot from the Master Bedroom to remind me why I am doing this in the first place.
So to summarize where we're at;
Floors, doors and trim are done
Drywall is about 70%
We are painting right behind
We have installed the vanities and the kitchenette in the Guest Bedroom
They measured for counter tops yesterday
We hope to start installing the kitchen as soon as drywall and painting is done in the main space
We have most of our issues behind us and are finally picking up some momentum. I should have the whole thing done by the end of April. I'll do my best to keep you all up to speed as we finish this thing up. There should be some things that are a little more interesting than drywall.
Finally I'd just like to thank you all for your patience and in some cases concern that I'd met an untimely end. I especially appreciate all the PM's. Cheers everyone!
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Modern Jess
Well-known member
So happy to see an update to one of my favorite threads.
Welcome back! Hope all is well with you and yours.
Welcome back! Hope all is well with you and yours.
Boosted1
Well-known member
Thanks for the updates.
That's looking fantastic.
That's looking fantastic.
1949 caddyman
Well-known member
It was great to hear from you again! Glad all is well & house looks amazing! Thanks for the post.
madoc1
Well-known member
wow, looking great! so, keeping warm I guess. the bedroom view is dynamite!
jim
jim
Great to see you post again, we were getting worried.
I'll second that.
I third that.
Grinding limestone. Should have went fairly quick at least. Installer should have addressed this prior to install. I would kick my guys *** if he did that. I doubt that it was the concrete fault.
And that snow shot, that view, damn man, so jealous.
shortykorte
Well-known member
Glad to see updates on your beautiful home. Love the style. Never heard of installing Sheetrock/trim that way. Clean, I like!
william.m.hamilton2
Well-known member
I finally got around to reading this thread, and over a course of a week- it was the only thing I read. I am super glad you are back online and sharing more progress on your wonderful home! Welcome back and thank you for taking the time to share with us.
Bib Overalls
Well-known member
It just gets better and better.
tinbender 66
Well-known member
Yay!!
Thanks for all the nice comments. I definitely missed all of you, my GJ friends. Between all the distractions and the lack of progress I just couldn't find the motivation to update the thread. When I finally got back on track I was surprised how long it had been.
I've regained my focus and am looking to get this thing finished up! I'd like to keep the duration close to 3 years at least. lol. I've replaced an uncooperative sub or two and have good people onboard. A lot will be happening in the coming weeks. I wouldn't feel right about finishing this journey without all of you. Thanks for your patience and encouragement.
If you think about it, getting a concrete floor as flat as plywood on engineered joists is pretty difficult.
The floors look fantastic until the sun hits them at a low angle. The fact that I face West and have floor to ceiling glass makes the problem worse. I suspect most homes don't have such demanding conditions.
There was really only one area of the house I couldn't live with. I'll probably do a little hand grinding here and there for lippage that bothers me.
The grinding did go pretty quickly and the floor looks great.
There were some areas where the concrete contributed to the problem but there were also workmanship issues. The installer I hired, wrecked his back two days into the job and ended up in the hospital. His guys finished the job. They did their best but came up short in a few areas.
The stair railings are the last major design decision I need to make. Restraint is definitely the intent. I'll keep you posted.
Once again, thanks for your comments and continuing interest. It's good to be back!
I've regained my focus and am looking to get this thing finished up! I'd like to keep the duration close to 3 years at least. lol. I've replaced an uncooperative sub or two and have good people onboard. A lot will be happening in the coming weeks. I wouldn't feel right about finishing this journey without all of you. Thanks for your patience and encouragement.
If you think about it, getting a concrete floor as flat as plywood on engineered joists is pretty difficult.
The floors look fantastic until the sun hits them at a low angle. The fact that I face West and have floor to ceiling glass makes the problem worse. I suspect most homes don't have such demanding conditions.
There was really only one area of the house I couldn't live with. I'll probably do a little hand grinding here and there for lippage that bothers me.
The grinding did go pretty quickly and the floor looks great.
There were some areas where the concrete contributed to the problem but there were also workmanship issues. The installer I hired, wrecked his back two days into the job and ended up in the hospital. His guys finished the job. They did their best but came up short in a few areas.
The stair railings are the last major design decision I need to make. Restraint is definitely the intent. I'll keep you posted.
Once again, thanks for your comments and continuing interest. It's good to be back!
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It does make sense just never really thought that it would show that much I suppose. At least you made lemonade out of lemons.
Cemoto
Well-known member
Looking great Doug! It won't be long now . . . . .