The Remodelogue

Today they installed sleepers on the sunroom floor. We thought the saltillo tile was going to come out, but I guess not. they are just putting the floor on top of it. Special pressure treated wood touches the tile. I think this is wolmanized wood. Treated with CCA, or chromated copper arsenate, a insecticide and fungicide. Then little strips go on top to make the bolts flush.
They have yet to do the levelling — making sure the floor in the living room and sunroom are seamless. They are doing that down the road.

They also took out the beam above the old sliding glass door.

They spent all day in the attic today. It looks great! You can actually move around up there pretty good.

These cross beams were at about 5 ft so you couldn’;t walk around upright. now you can. It feels so spacious up here. Originally, we were going to go up, but it would have been cheaper to tear down the house and start over because of all the foundation work that would have needed to be done. Although I don’t know, a lot is going on as it is.

This is the sheer wall that they need to take off the roof to connect from above. It essentially slices the attic in half. Hopefully there can be a doorway to get to the other side, where the Air conditioning unit is.

Someone fell throught the ceiling today. The contractor was over, and we were eating burgers when we heard the loud crash. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

Oops

they also put up part of the master bath walls. So you can get an idea of the size of the rooms.

The master from the west. Shower area in the background

The big beam goes right over the master shower.

Looking out to the backyard from the east. There is going to be a door sized window there.

From the back yard.

The living room looks larger now that the ceiling joists are in.

They installed the big beam the will span the west end of the living room today. Below it will be the telescoping doors. they also installed the ceiling joists back in the Sunroom area today. It makes the living room area look larger. They used old wood that were joists in the bedroom I think. This old wood is stronger and cut bigger than what you can get today. So if an inspector has no problem with it, I don’t.

The ceiling joists.

New Beam, reinstalled joists.

The north end of the beam. This is where the living room ends.

Don’t like this too much. Little pieces of wood mashed in there. They had to bend the anchor bolt a little so it could be attached. I asked if this was a permanent thing and they said yes. He was off by 1/2 inch. “Happens all the time.” Hmmm…

Long Shot

They also took out the ceiling in the master bedroom. Here are pix of that:

Another temporary support.

This shows the original roof and behind it, the roof for the master closet addition.

Looking up from the master closet.

Or me anyway. Such a load off.
The big beam shows up and this time it is the right size and everything! the label said it was 25 feet and it was 25 feet. Didn’t get a picture of the label, because it went up before I could get to it.
They got it into place so quickly. The thing I had been fretting about more than anything else is done! I just couldnt figure out how they were going to do this while not letting the entire house cave in. Well on with the pix.

Here it is in place in the far (south) end and being supported by a 4×4 on this end.

Another view.

Where is is on top of a 4×4 which is anchor bolted.

Running along underneath it. They are making sure it lines up exactly with the ceiling joists meeting it. After it is in place they will secure it to the joists with brackets.

I’m glad I’m not up there. This tree is basically being held up by 4×4s while they get the other wood around it

They built the south wall of the master bath to support the big beam.

A straight on view.

This is the beginning of a sheer wall that goes up to the roof and be atached from above the roof. I mentioned they have to take the roof up afterall.

This is up in the attic.

the beam is scured with brackets to the existing ceiling joists that span the living room.

Looking north.

This is the south end of the sheer wall so the roof will not be ripped up south of here. Not sure where that anchor bolt goes to. I dont think it was inspected.

The north end of the beam. Man, that looks shaky.

Back on the first floor, the larger living room is beginning to take shape! They were able to take down the support wall so you can see the new space. A nice big room with great front to back flow.

So now that the plumbing inspection is done, it can be covered up. First went the insulation and then the plywood. The insulation I guess is a new rule. Kind of funny since there is no insulation under any of the other floors. But the inspector wants to see a picture of it to sign off, so they took one. And so did I!

Once that is in then the plywood.

This took them a long time because they had to measure where every pipe, drain, etc. is coming thru the floor, and then cut the holes to line up with all the new plumbing.

The work area.

Another inspector came today to check out the epoxy for the anchor bolts for all of the new 4″x4″ and 4″x6″ posts. There are a bunch.

See the epoxy oozing out?

So anyway, that was successful too.

New footers are going in so there has been a lot of drilling for the anchor bolts and holddown bolts. All day. Very noisy.
Fortunately, we are going to a friends house for the afternoon and dinner.

In the master closet

In the master closet.

In the garage.

I was off to do a spinning class early this morning and on my way out, I see the guys show up with the beam! YAY!
Here it is:

That’s a big chunk of tree flesh.

So it was looking like it was going up soon. In the meantime, they had taken out the old wall between the sunroom and the living room. Hope there isn’t an earthquake today!

The wall with the window opening is gone.

Another view. The wood structure to the right is temporary and is just stopping the ceiling from falling in while the other wall is removed and the big beam is not yet installed.

And from the attic there are new supports in. We found out on Saturday that they have to take off the roof along this strip because these supports need to be attached from above the roof. The contractors don’t want to do this and we aren’t too keen on it either. We called the engineer to see if there was a way around it, and he said no. It wouldn’t be up to code and the cement footings would be wasted effort. Okay then. The roof comes up. That’s more work and more time than we thought. Of course, it was in the engineering plan from the beginning, but who reads those things?!
Here are some pix from up in the attic:

the vertical beams are new. On the right is over the livingroom, to the left over the old sunroom. Looking toward the master.

Another view. The diagonal beams are new too.

You can see the sumroom below.

So remember the “but…” part in the title of this entry? They casually mention to me this afternoon that the supplier gave them the wrong size big beam. They wanted a 25 footer and got a 20 footer. I say, “You are kidding!” And I am thinking, “wait a second. You picked it up this morning and drove it all the way here and got it in the house before you realized it was the wrong size?”
It is even correctly labelled as a 20 footer. DUH!

They put in this support structure so the ceiling wouldnt fall in when they remove the wall between the living room and the sunroom. There is a lot to this!

This is the view from the living room.

This is the view from the Sunroom. The wall that is coming out is in front of the temporary support structure.

We are waiting for the 12″x6″ “tree trunk” which will be suspended above the ceiling line and supported by 4×4s to the floor and also by the roof. This is a bummer because the engineer insists that we take off the roof along this stretch and also on the new bathroom walls so that the supports can be attached from above the roof instead of below the roof.
Nobody wants to mess with the roof, but the engineer says that if we don’t then all that cement poured for supporting the new walls is for nothing, and that it won’t pass code.