Spiraling out of Control

Things seem to have reached a new state of completeness now that the spiral stairs have been installed and the outside patio has been finished. Maybe it's because I'm so happy with how it turned out, or maybe it's because it's the first large section that's "done"... but it really overwhelmed me.

The spiral stairs came in Tuesday in three pieces:


Wednesday I took the day off work to get some stuff done at the garage, and that just happened to be when they installed the spiral stairs. It took a bunch of guys and seemed a bit tricky, but got done.



It still is going to need to be painted (we just got it primed to save some money). As of now I'm thinking to just paint it black... I think it looks pretty damn good as it is.

Where to begin...

Since I last dropped some of this hot blog action so much has gone on. I might break this up into a couple posts for organizational reasons, but we'll see.

The biggest thing going on has been the flooring, which I last posted about. The more I worked with it, the more I understood it and the little things you need to do to avoid problems. The most important example of this is how exact the tongue and groove needs to be to fit together correctly. If the tongue smashes at all then it lifts the cork at the edge on one or both tiles. I didn't have a good grasp on how important this was until more than halfway through the process. Although I caught big mess-ups, there were some imperfections that I definitely would've liked to avoid.

Buuut, regardless of that it looks awesome :)

As of May 5th, here's where we were:

My parents were there assembling the kitchen cabinets too:

Towards the end of the day I slammed my finger with the hammer... it didn't hurt that bad after a few minutes, but the fact that a decent section of my finger was halfway disconnected from my finger, it made me a bit uneasy at first:

After cleaning, treating and wrapping it, it felt a lot better and looked better too (and the above picture doesn't show off how bad it was.

One more update to come tonight before I sleep.

And Then There Was Cork

Last night we started laying the cork (shown above unboxed). After figuring out the dimensions with Otto, we decided there was room for 19.5 rows of cork, so we decided to put 1/4 row on each side so that the pattern I'd come up with would still work.

The first row was the real bitch. It took forever because the wall wasn't perfectly straight and each tile needed to be cut a different size. Just determining that the wall wasn't straight took close to an hour, haha.

Once we got into the groove (no pun intended) with the first row it wasn't so bad... that is until we got to the second row. Hitting the full 1'x3' tiles into the small 3" wide tiles was not so easy. You'd hit into one, and the next 3" wide one would pop off. Then you'd have to go to the end and pound those in, etc etc.

Anyways, Otto and his grandson, Josh, left after about 1.5 rows was done. I then sanded the floors and continued on. I got the feel for it and came up with some better techniques for the second row I was completing. I was feeling real good about my progress so when I got to the end I figured "hey, what the hell, I'll cut the piece for the next row with the circular saw." (I'd never used one before). I did that, it went well... nice cut, good size for the tiles. So I started laying the third row and this was a LOT easier. I got 2.5 tiles in and realized I should start checking when I'm going to need to put one of the dark pieces in.... wellllllllllll, this is when I discovered that although I'd planned on starting in the corner with a 1/2 tile, and we'd done that, what I HADN'T planned on doing with starting with a 1/4 wide row of tiles. Basically that 1/4 wide row was extra to my design, and should have been started with a full tile!

Man, I was so pissed. After all the work we did doing the first and second row, there's now way I'm going back and re-doing it. I decided to call it a night and focus on the pattern.

I came up with a variation on the other one that I'd designed, and it's pretty nice too. I'm going to take some time at lunch today to work with the pattern a little more, but I think I'm fairly decided on what I've come up with.

Here are a couple pictures of the first row and the start of the second row:

I'm a Cork Dork

Alright!

The new Night cork arrived today. I went over at lunch to check it out, and as promised, it is the same height, width and length and has the same tongue and groove!

Otto (the site supervisor that's going to help me install it) is a beast. He's gotta be over 60, and after a full day of working is going to take a quick dinner break and then come back to begin laying it.

6pm tonight is go time!

w00t.

Check back late tonight for pix of the install process at Ash's request.

Keep Hope Alive

After talking with the cork company a few times today I think it's all sorted out for me to recieve replacement Night cork that should fit with the Stone that I have. The woman at the cork company was very nice about it and said she'd personally check to make sure what they were going to send me fits with the Stone cork that I have. They also said I could keep the incorrect Night which I received. I'd like to build some boxes/shelves and scratch protectors for the floor out of some scraps, so this will be perfect.

They sent the cork out overnight to me today, so I should have it tomorrow.

I'm really happy they were nice about all this. It would've been a pain to have to deal with some people that didn't care.

I'll post an update tomorrow as to whether or not what shows up fits or not! The suspense is killing me.

Time to Wait and Other Updaits

Well, after getting to the garage this morning and looking at the cork with Otto (the site supervisor who I'd hired to help me on the side), we decided that it makes the most sense to wait until I can talk to them on Monday. Otto said he could help after work if he had a quick break, so it wouldn't mean a full week's delay. He also pointed out that not only are the two types of cork incompatible because they have different tongue and grooves, but they also are different sizes! Strangely, the boxes with the Stone cork in it say "910mm x 300mm" printed on the side, but the sticker which the company I bought it off of has on it says "900mm x 298mm" (the same dimensions listed on the Night cork)! Anyways, we'll see what the cork people have to say about it.

A few things that I haven't blogged about yet:

I showed up Monday night to paint the first floor and discovered the steel beams this "lovely" shade of red:


They were supposed to be the same red as the siding, but there was some miscommunication and they were painted this bright red instead. It turned out they were planning on doing multiple coats, so it was fixed easily. The contractors got a new red mixed together, and it looks much, much better:

(the hook is still the other red)

Finishing of the patio area was begun as well. The back area had been cleared out, dug up, and gravel was poured. This was from when just the gravel was in, but now there are paver stones covering the majority of the area.


There seems to have been a bit of a mix-up between my mom and the contractors regarding the elevation of this. My mom had meant to indicate that the part now underground which was dug out and filled with gravel be sloped towards the house, but the contractors (and me too) interpreted what she said to mean that the ground level elevation of the gravel and paver stones be sloped towards the house. This may cause a problem with drainage and water run off in the future... but hopefully it doesn't because it looks really nice and I'd hate to have to lift large concrete slabs by myself and level out the gravel!

Lots of the lights have been installed and look really good. We're going to have to do some tweaking of the track lighting because some of the, just the kitchen ones just don't give off enough light.

I'm Pissed

This cork floor's been nothing but hassle.

I was planning on doing this:

Buuuut,
I was told they should, but

Houselog Shout-Outs

After being informed by a friend tonight that he was a loyal reader of my blog, I realized I need to send out a few shout outs to the people that read and comment on this houselog:

Tony - You closet houselog reader, you.

Ash - In it to win it.

Tara - "I feel like I talk to you all the time because of your blog."

Maranda - Oh so stealth with the M-Dahtness.

Oka - The cork's going in soon... I can't wait!

Frankie - This is the cause for me not visiting this spring :P

Oh yeah, and if you're a steady reader and I forgot to mention you, make sure to leave a comment yelling at me!

Score one for my property value

Yesterday as I was taking care of a couple things at the garage, I saw a couple guys coming out of the abandoned police station/fire station across the street. One guy was in a suit, the other in casual business clothes. I asked them what they were doing and got to talking.... to find out they just entered into a sales agreement on it!

Unfortunately, they plan on tearing it down most likely (which is too bad, cause it's a really cool building), but anything being done with it other than crappy low budget college housing will increase the property of my house significantly. It will probably mean 6-12 months of my sleep being disturbed here and there, but I think I can deal with it.

They said they plan on either putting town houses or condos in... hopefully they do townhouses, because that would mean not quite as many people in and out of my tiny alley. Either way though, I'm quite happy about that, and feel significantly more secure in my investment now.

When you need it hyphy, I take it to the Bay (Siding)

Just a quick update here, cause I wanted to post a picture of the wood siding on the small bay. It looks sweeeeeeeeet. I'm very happy with both the color and the proportions of it. Can't wait to see the bigger bay on the left.