Updates

So, we passed the footing inspection.  DBC construction came out and stood up wall forms.  We passed the wall forms inspection.  They poured concrete walls.  DBC stripped the foundation panels and we were left with pretty and shiny new concrete walls!  I had pre-placed some ABS pipe in the wall to act as pass throughs for conduit, sanitary sewer and low voltage electrical.  We used two of the four.  Long story, but the short answer is the holes just didn't work where I put them.  Here we are with fresh poured walls:

Fresh poured walls.

Here we are with the forms stripped off:

After this point, we spent the better part of a day back-filling the hole.  This is where I failed my basic human 101 class.

I decided to not eat dinner, because I'm sort of lazy like that.  The next day, I poured my usual coffee in, and started working.  It got to about 85 degrees F in the sun.  I kept shoveling.  I skipped lunch because I was 'Just too busy to eat'.  At about 5 pm, I sat down to take a break.  My body turned into one big cramp.  I mean a big one.  I couldn't open my hands, couldn't drink out of a bottle and couldn't stand up. Brian and his wife Kendal stopped by to see the progress.  Brian left Kendal with me, and ran to the store for, not Gatorade, but Pedialite.  It was that bad.  No pictures of that, thankfully.

Now that we're full swing, things are moving quickly.  Marty Weathers (Weathers plumbing) was out today doing 'Groundwork'.  Thats basically gluing and burying the ABS drain line in the dirt.  This will soon be covered with a concrete slab, so I had to make sure all my dimensions and locations were set.  No going back at this point.

If you've ever wondered what happens to poop, above is a schematic.  It goes down this vast array of pipes, and out to the street.  These guys make sure it makes it to the street, and I'm happy to pay so that it does make it to the street.  Jerry (left) and Marty (right) were great.  Knew their stuff and had this knocked out in less than a day.  All this pipe gets covered by 5" of concrete, so decision time was over, and doing time had started.  If you've ever had to UN-burry something from a concrete slab, you know that it's much easier to do it right the first time.... This is why the drain in the lower left hand corner (behind the box) is there.  It will be used for an outdoor wet bar one day.  Hey, easier to put it in now, and not use it than try and put it in later.

Thats it for now.  As always, you can view all the ugly gory details (saved for both documentation purposes and fun purposes) Here:

Project Photo Gallery

Time to get some rest.  Good night.

Passed Footing inspection

Had a great chat with the building inspector.  One nice thing about Seattle DPD is that they are sort of under staffed, so I get essentially the same inspector for most of the project.  First impressions are important, so a good meet-up and discussion about the project goes a long way.  Next step is to mix concrete, pour it into a pumper truck and put it in the ditch.  I understood the planning and preparing was the hard part.  I was right.  Now there are sore muscles and some mechanical pain in the ass stuff, but not nearly the troubles of trying to get the permit.  Scheduled radiant flooring installers to lay PEX for next friday.  I'll be absolutley shocked if we get finished slab by then.

 

View from 12' above grade, standing on the studio.  This is essentially how high the Master Bedroom deck will be.  Glad the trees have grown up over the last 9 years.  I get a clean view of sunsets through silkwood trees, a Cherry tree, Hemloc tree, Italian cypress and a huge Dogwood facing west, and a (getting bigger) magnolia to the south along with lilac, grapes a Japanese maple and a Privet hedge.  East looks over the bamoo grove in front of the studio, and into my neighbors house.  Once the bamboo reaches 16 - 20 feet, the view will be obscured, but that's not for a few more years.  Getting excited about standing on the deck with a Martini instead of standing in a ditch with a plumber and excavator operator.  No offense, guys, but the 'It's really happening' has kicked in along with the 'Are we there yet?'.  Knock Knock.  Who's there?  Bending nails in 2 weeks, that's who.

Foundation footing dig complete

They fixed the machine.  DBC construction came out and did a days worth of bucket scooping and hand digging.  They then finished the footing forms.  This thing is extra thick and extra wide (TWSS) due to the overall shape and height of the structure.  This is NOT the final wall thickness, just the footing the wall sits on.  Notice on the edges that meet the house, we're pouring 'neat' or directly against dirt to avoid leaving form boards stuck under the house.  This is approved by the structural engineers as long as we add the notated width to the footing.  I know 2 things about concrete:
It will crack.
Nobody will steal it after it hardens.
This is comforting if even in the smallest measure.  Also note the blue vent stack for plumbing.  It was placed there to trail up the wall and out the roof to maintain the P-traps once the plumbing goes in.  That was placed almost 2 years ago, and we're pretty much right on the mark.  Nice to see the dimensions starting to line up.
Also note the black Sanitary Sewer line coming from the studio.  It, of course, is exactly the right depth to penetrate (TWSS) BOTH the footing and the wall.  Not sure if a plumber could do that with a set of prints if they wanted to.  It gets wrapped with a space age polymer to avoid being cracked due to the concrete contraction and expansion.  At least the fresh water is entirely outside of the new construction.  Yeah us.
Now I'm waiting for the footing inspection and the plumber to come by and talk.  About dogs, daughters, no big whoop.  The footing is neither a foot, nor is it 'ing-ing'.  discuss.

 

View from studio roof showing foundation footing forms, Sanitary Sewer from studio and new Vent Stack in wall.

 

Wow.  Plumbing exactly mid way between top of footing and bottom of foundation wall.  Elbow misses the pour by 6".  This was laid in 2 years ago.

What the hell was I thinking?

So, I decided that I would like to experience the American Dream.  No, not rollin' on dubs or jockin' the beetches and slapping the ho's as one would expect from watching MTV.
I wanted to build a house.  I've done plenty of contracting work in the past.  A little foundation work, a little roofing work, a little electrical work and a lot of framing work.  I, however, felt the need to do the entire Design-Build process, because I obviously don't value my marriage, sanity or physical body.  I bought a CAD program, learned it, sketched out my design, turned it into a set of prints, had the prints OK'ed by a structural engineer, took them to the City of Seattle and got a building permit.  That was the hard part, and took the better part of 3.5 years.
Here is the East Elevation:

Our goal was a house that had a minimal footprint, maximum efficiency, great views and was completely ADA accessible.  On top of those things, it had to be the buzzword of the day; Green.  While most people think green is the buzzword, the environmental design of this place was a first consideration, and the anchor for the entire process.  From the small footprint, to not demolishing the entirety of of the old house, to the non-toxic materials to the planted green roof to the natural light to the radiant floor, it's meant to be the most comfortable place to live, not a green product showpiece.  Everything in the process was held against the question "How does this decision effect us, the building envelope environment or the outside environment?"

Here are some of the folks that were instrumental in helping me out:
RFA Structural Engineers (Mike Chamberlain, Jennifer and the entire team at RFA) -
RFA Structural Engineers Home Page
VectorWorks BIM/CAD/3D design software - Especially local Architect Tom Greggs -  While he might not remember it, he first suggested VectorWorks to me in the Universtiy Village Apple store.  I was a long time AutoCAD LT (and back to R12) user and was sick of dealing with Autodesk and my PC.  I wanted a good 3D system that ran on a Mac.
Tom Greggs' blog
Vectorworks product page
Brian Gardner, guitar player, bartender and extreme help extrodinare.
Adrian Malatesta, legal consigliare
Pete Stewart, displaced musician and producer as we live in the recording studio.
There are plenty more, and I'll update as I can here.

Day one of 'construction'.

I'll back post some of my prep notes here, but for now, we're starting the construction blog.
Prior to this, we did a lot of prep, a lot of paperwork, a lot of design and a lot of cursing.  Then we did a lot of demolishing of old house.  That was awesome and fun.  However, we looked like criminals:

 

Two Friends building a house together.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ikicjR7ecY

Yesterday, the Sunday of Labor Day, we started in Ernest.  The rental company delivered a mini-excavator to dig out the footing trench.  I worked the previous night at the UW Husky football game.  I ended my broadcast and got home at about 3:30 am.  Slept for a few, then got up at about 7:30 am to prep for Team DBC to start work at 9am sharp.  My guys at DBC construction showed up an hour late on to start due to a blown out tire.  This should have been an omen.  Yes, I did see the tire, and no they weren't making it up.  These guys are really good.  They've been about the best contractors i've dealt with, well, ever.
We get rolling.  We decide to re-route the fresh water supply to the studio to avoid hitting it with the bucket.  The plumber was not on site due to my missing 3 voice mails from him (thanks ATT.  This was squarely an ATT iPhone voice mail failure.).  Instead, I cut some pex, bought some shark bite connectors and shut off the water supply to the house.  DBC started the archeological dig.  After about 2 scoops of earth, we discovered there was no way all the dirt removed from the footing trench would fit on site without some creativity.  So we piled dirt everywhere we could as we dug.
DBC carried on around the footing until they came to the money corner.  this is the South East corner of the foundation.  This is approx. where the fresh water and waste water trench will cut under or through the foundation out to the studio.
As we very carefully scooped bucket after bucket around the now exposed sewer main and fresh water main, we were prepared for one last bucket move to clear out to the corner.  Everything was lined up, everything was good, and all of a sudden there was a loud 'shhhhwwwhh' sound, the operator, Derek, jumped up out of his seat and yelled what I guess were curse words, but I couldn't understand him.  A main hydrolic hose from the arm had blew and sprayed him with hydrolic fluid.  However, he was very clearly under the impression it was raw sewage from the sewer main.  Funny now, not funny then.  Note to Caterpillar mini excavator design crew:  put a damn shield on the floor board where the lines go into the body of the machine.  When they break, they spray directly up into the operator.  Here is the view from my front door:

 Sewer gravel bed on the left, fresh water PEX on the right.  It's a tight fit.
So, now we wait for the machine repair team before we can move the machine.  The machine that is parked directly in front of the door of the studio, of course.  Day one of positive motion!  Delayed by at least two days.  The theme of this project was created by my friend Brian (more on him later) -  "Knock Knock.  Who's There?  Two friends building a house together"
Now it's "Well, it's always something, and thank god that something isn't raw sewage".