Michael McDaniel’s Dawning Awareness

Main floor framing
Originally uploaded by mdm.

The main floor framing is now pretty much complete. This week, we
get steel and trusses delivered. We’re 2-3 weeks away from having a
roof over our heads.

UPDATE: Oh, blogged too soon. Got word that the steel will be in tomorrow, but the trusses can’t be delivered for another week! Guess they lost the order. Sigh

I’m trying out a paperless office solution. Lots of people use Yojimbo as their db of choice. I actually have licenses for EagleFiler (I was a winner in the Daring Fireball membership drive) and KIT (part of some MacZot bundle, I think), but integration with the Fujitsu ScanSnap document scanner is what put DEVONthink Pro Office over the top for me. It scans my documents, does OCR, and automatically puts searchable pdfs in my database. Pretty slick. I thought of trying to put together something with AppleScript, but coordinating three applications (scan, OCR, database) is too brittle.

My goal is to eliminate most of the paper (which takes up space and isn’t searchable) from my filing system. Obviously, legal documents can’t be tossed out, but most stuff can be scanned and shredded. Key features of any such system include effortless scanning, reliable searching, and some sort of auto-classification would be nice. Having to type keywords for each thing entered is one step it would be nice to eliminate, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen.
I’m still in my 30-day trial period for the scanner, so if anybody has advice on this score, please chime in!

We’re just floored!
Originally uploaded by mdm.



We’re just floored!
Originally uploaded by mdm.

At the end of last week, the main floor deck was added, so our basement has a ceiling now. That makes it seem very much more like a reasonable size place. As you can see in the picture, without the walls, the main floor seems tiny!

This week is about the basement. Here’s where we were Tuesday afternoon. You can see most of the basement rooms here, including door headers and the openings in the front for the sliding glass doors. The room nearest us in the picture is the office. Today, they’re putting beams and joists in for the floor system. We should have a complete floor by the end of the week and maybe a start on the exterior walls upstairs!

We drove up to Mt. Vernon for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival this past week. The tulips were all ablaze and it was a great day to go - not too sunny and not raining. Lovely soft light for taking pictures. Of course, with the kids along, there wasn’t much of THAT to be done. Still, we had a fun time, and the kids like their tulips, so we HAD to go!

I thought the internet knew everything. One thing it didn’t know is the usable space in the three ovens we’re considering for our new place. So, I found ‘em at various dealers and measured them. So that the internet will now know:

* Height is from the top of the bottom-most possible rack to 1/2″ below the broiler element
* Width is the narrowest area above the bottom-most possible rack
* Depth is from front of rack to first obstacle higher than rack surface (usually a backstop on the rack)

When we left our story, the house had foundation walls, but a dirt floor. In today’s exciting episode, that floor becomes concrete. But it there’s more to it than you might think!

As he was working on the foundation, Frank noticed that groundwater was seeping through the soil at one corner of the foundation. So, he waterproofed the outside of the foundation (the grey rubber coating in the picture) and installed a drainpipe system at the base of the foundation to carry water away and to the street.

Next, gravel was added to bring the dirt up to the level of the old slab. The little wooden box in that picture is the basement shower drain. Different tubs have slightly different drains, and since it’s on the floor, the placement has to be just right. Using the box leaves a little hole in the foundation so we can move the pipe around. Gravel also is used to fill around the outside of the foundation when lots of dirt is removed. It settles a lot less than dirt, and also encourages any water to drop down to the drain below instead of hanging out next to the foundation.

We’re pouring a whole new slab because we wanted radiant, in-floor heating in the basement, and tearing up the old slab was more costly. New slabs are insulated underneath to prevent “cold basement syndrome” so the next thing is a layer of foam insulation on top of the old slab/gravel. Our in-floor radiant system is stapled to this insulation (to keep it from moving during the concrete pour). If you look closely, you can see the white plastic pipes snaking all over the place.

Finally, the concrete goes down. Ian thought the boom/pumper thing was really neat. You can see the guy with the remote control around his waist controlling it. 26 cubic yards of concrete later, the workmen used “riding trowels” to smooth it out. The curing process goes better if the concrete stays cool and moist, so Frank watered the slab a few times a day for a day or two after that. Also today, the big dirt pile is used to backfill around the rest of the foundation and the remainder is hauled away.

In the next exciting installment: After a few days off, framing begins next Thursday, assuming our framer isn’t further delayed on his current project.