Pretty Much Done

Major construction is done on the barn. But I just realized that I didn't have a current photo of it on the blog for reference. I finished painting and installing the front barn doors in September. We went with a barn red with brown trim to match the gutters. I still have some minor work to do on the second barn door trim and flashing. But that will wait for next spring. Inside, it is fully populated with my tools and a new 3HP dust collection system. I am about to order some spiral stairs to better access the loft. I will post more on the inside when the stairs are in.

Guilty!

Yes guilty, of abandoning my blog for over 3 months. I wouldn't be surprised if no one comes back. It was due to a number of factors.

The outside of the barn was covered with a black plastic to help with the drying of the siding. Not very attractive. And things were moving so slowly, there never seemed to be a reason to add something on any particular day. But now, with 3 moths passed many things have to be reported.
1) On the contractor front, I pushed very hard and got most of the subs done by the end of February, so we could start using the space for storage. But there were still may details to finish.

2) Since last reporting, the electrical sub reported that he also had not been paid by the general and is threatening a lien. Of course we paid the general for it, including a 50% markup.

3) The insulation contractor did a great job, almost on time and was paid by me with no problems.

4) The drywall contractor, originally one of the general's subs, finished the barn on time but was slow to finish the office. It turns out they were having financial problems. They went out of business after finishing our job and left two subs without being paid. They are both threatening liens on the house. Again, we paid the sub-contractor in full, on time. But he didn't pay his subs. So according to the law, they can come after us. (buyer beware!)

5) The drywall contractor primed the walls of the barn so well that I didn't think painting was necessary. So I just put up some trim and put epoxy paint on the floor, installed lights and electrical fixtures inside and called it done on the inside.
6) On the outside, I had a gutter subcontractor install gutters. The drainage plan and grading was done by a different sub, both of which I paid directly and it stuck. Unfortunately it was $6k more than the $4K the general had budgeted, granted I did more grading than had been originally planned. So now the carport is in use and the driveway is back to normal.
The whole drainage deal was a burn because it doesn't really do that much and yet is very expensive. This is another example of King County government out of control. I ranted on this topic before. But basically, they county extorts money out of you in the name of fish preservation which does absolutely nothing to help the fish, and by the way, they take a cut for themselves through exorbitant fees ($1000 for 2 hours of a guys time to pencil draw a plan that costs $10K to build and does nothing to help).
In the case of the barn, equivalent drainage could have been done for about $500. I would have rather given the money to a charity than to bureaucrats and gravel contractors.

7) Toni painted her office. I finished the plumbing in the bathroom myself, installing all fixtures and cabinets. I installed all the lighting and electrical inside and out. It was good enough for her to move in and start using it. This allowed us to turn her former office inside the house into an exercise/storage area. It is so nice now.
So there isn't that much to do now, but details persist.

1) We are currently having a painting contractor paint the barn. It will be the typical barn red with brown trim to match the gutters. it should be done by the end of next week.2) Then I need to install 4 outside lights on the barn. Two motion detector floods on the corners and two goose neck historical design fixtures over the front garage door.

3) Sometime over the summer, I will build some sliding barn doors to go over the garage doors to complete the look of the barn. I'll have to paint these myself.

4) There are several projects relating to the wood shop inside the barn. I don't know if I will continue with these on this blog, start another or not document it.

5) The office sprinkler system has a "back flow valve" to prevent sprinkler water from mixing with tap water. This is yet another example of unnecessary, bureaucratically driven expenses. There is no need for one. Yet before we can get our plumbing final, it has to be inspected. And there is practically no one who will do it. The only people we could get couldn't do it for 4 weeks. Once that is signed off, we can get the plumbing permit final inspection, and then the building permit final inspection.

6) The outside of the office needs to be stained to match the house. We are thinking of having the painting contractor who is doing the barn do this along with re-staining the whole house. The semi-transparent stain we use on the house looks great, but only lasts five years, which is how long we have been in the house.

I think that will be it for this project. And I'll be glad when it is over. So far, the buildings are fulfilling there purposes well. Toni's office is working out well. And I am ecstatic to have such a nice workshop.

General Contractor Quits!

It has been a while now since my last entry. Much has happened, little of it good. I was informed by my General Contractor on the morning of February 10th, that he would no longer be working on my project. This, despite a signed contract, he said he ran out of money and that he couldn't afford to pay people already.

This ended up being an understatement. Not only had he given bad checks to two different key suppliers, he had several outstanding bills for things which I had already paid him for. The total amount of these bills are still not known. But they are at least $25K. The project was 85% finished according to him. But it appears, monetarily, it is closer to 75%.

This has forced me to fill in as the general contractor, requiring that I take substantial time of work and resulting in less earnings.

So, I have been pushing hard to try to get this job done by the end of the month, so I can go back to work. But it has been difficult as obstructions keep getting put in my path. These obstructions have taken much of my time, and when I do have time free, I don't even want to think about the project because it is too depressing, so I watch TV instead of writing in the blog.

But this afternoon, I have some time free waiting for contractors, and I am thinking about the project, so I am going to try to bring the blog up to date.

First, let me cover what has happened in the past 2 weeks or so:

1) The immediate problem was that the 95% of the board and batten siding had been incorrectly installed so that when it dried, it would cup off the building. We had a couple warm days and it started warping and popping battens of the barn. I had given the instructions on how to install the siding to the siders since they had never done it before. The instructions I gave were correct, but the siders apparently did not know how wood dries, so they misinterpretted them. And of course, the general contractor was never around, so no one checked up on them.

So, I hired the siders to come back and pull allthe siding of the front and replace it. The cupping was worst on the fron, since that was where the sun hit it. We got extra material from stock at the general contrator's office, before he was able to return the remainder of the material for credit.

On the other sides of the barn, they installed reinforcing plates on the inside so that we could use some large screws to screw the battens down and straighten out the boards. Then, we hung plastic on the front of the building to keep the sun off until it dried.

The cupola also needed siding work, which required renting a large lift to get the workers up there, more money down the drain.

2) Next, we called for a framing inspection. Normally, the inspector we get is pretty cool and not too stringent. But he has not been available lately and they sent out a women how is a real stickler for matching the print, even if it makes no earthly difference.

She called us out, and I guess rightly so, on the total lack of any bolts holding posts and beams together. The general was supposed to have done this as part of the framing, which had been completely paid for. These bolts were very difficult to get in. They required renting a special drill and making our own bolts out of about $500 of threaded rod. The whole thing toke me and a helper 5 man days. Also missing were other bolts and details on the car port.

Last week, we finially got the framing inspection and could proceed with insulation.

3) The insulation turned out to be twice as expensive as the contractor had budgeted for as he had not provided for ventillation in the roof during framing. The advantage is that, because of this, the insulation will be much more effective. It is a spray in foam that hardens in place, covered by normal batts. A bonus in working with tem directly, they insulated the paint booth inside the barn for free. The insluation was scheduled and completed just Monday, Feb, 23rd.

Here is a picture of the equipment used to spray foam insulation on the inside of the roof:

4) Some time in here we ended up paying the roofer $5000 he was owed by the general contractor, that I had already paid him for. This was done to keep the roofer from putting a lien on the house. I had bargained him down from the $5750 he was actually owed.

5) Also in this period it was discovered that the sprinkler contractor had never been paid, despite me paying entirely for the work to the general contractor. This is another $4200. I could not get a sprinkler inspection without paying them, which would hold up wallboarding of the office.

6) We also discovered that the plumber and electrician had not been completely paid and that he was expecting more money.

7) We got the sprinkler inspection and ordered the wallboarding. It turns out that the quote the wallboarder contractor had provided to the general was no good and was $1700 less that it should have been. THis is because the wallboard contractor was not told about the working heught of the building and were promised other work from the general which fell through. The wallboard contractor delivered material yesterday and started hanging today. That is going quickly. But, due to waiting for drying time, it won't be done until Saturday for the barn and late next week for the office.

One nice thing about the wallboarding is that they are going to use a primer/sealer which will leave the walls in good enough shape that I won't have to paint them in the barn. Yeah.

8) We had planned on doing the drainage work ourselves, with the aid of a handyman and the general contractor's tractor. But, two things happened to stifle this. The hard-ass inspector was requioring that the whole plan be implemented despite some questionable usefulness. And, it was looking like the general contractor's tractor would not be large enough for the job.

So I hired the guy who installed the septic system to do the drainage for time and materials. Unfortunetely, the weather turned just then and it has been going slowly. The inexpensive fill material we tried to make work turned to quicksand and supposedly better material arrived with tire destroying rebar still in it.

And, the excavator can only work through Friday. So, right now, it looks like the drainage may not be completed this week as planned.

9) This morning the sprinkler installers came by to pressure test the sprinklers and discovered that the main water valve shutting off water to the office was broken. They said it was due to freezing. I called the plumber out and he said it was due to mishandling. Relacing the valve is taking a bunch more work (read $$$) than expected. And appearently is getting the plumber in trouble with another customer because it is taking too long. He is very unhappy.

10) The garage doors were installed and I managed to save $100 by finding a better contractor than the general had found. They couldn't complete the work on one of the doors because it would have been in the way of the drywallers and insulators. So they will come back to complete. But they look good and match the garage.

We are under deadline to get this finished because I am losing my storage space at the end of February, as well as a place to work on one of my clients work, which requires a bunch of space. Also, I can only take so much time off woirk before money runs out and co-workers forget you.

The outside hasn't changed much. But here are a few pictures:

Roof Done, Barn Almost Done Siding

Here is the current state of the barn. The roof is done. The cupola is done. The weather vane is on. The siding is almost done.
The end wall showing the new peak window. This window is interesting because it is fake. It lets no light in. It has been blacked out by painting its backside as otherwise, you would just see the truss members in it. It will be walled over on the inside. We gave up the ability to have a real window here as a compromise due to incorrectly designed trusses. The only siding that isn't done is just above the door.
Here is the car port. The roof is done. And, there is a whole lot of trash and crap under there. The support posts finally have a foundation block to sit un. They hung in mid air for a long time.
The peak window on this side is real.
The current state of the office is shown here. The exterior door and windows are in. So are the skylights. Siding starts this week. You can see the barn cupola towering over the office in the background.The backside of the office showing the septic pump tank.

Roofing and Siding Progressing

Roofing and Siding is moving along in Earnest now. Two more days and the roof will be done. The siding will be done by next weekend. That means it will be dry inside and I can finish the wiring.

Also notice that the cupola has been framed. Also framed is the mini-roof over the barn's side man-door. But this is out of the picture on the right side.

The cupola was not initially planned. I had wanted one, but was trying to control costs. However, I made a deal with the general contractor that I am hoping I won't regret. In exchange for pre-paying for some of the services to help with his cash flow, he got us the cupola.

It turned out the cupola was more expensive that he had planned as it was done too late, which caused the framers to have to work in difficult positions and without the correct tools. You should have heard them swearing about it up there. I feel for them as I am not comfortable working at height either.

We also have purchased a weather vane for the top. The top of the weather vane should approach 40' off the ground. Come on lightning!
Here you see the roofers, in harnesses working, on the steep 45 degree (12/12) pitch of the roof, up to 30' off the ground.

I admit to having thought in the past that it would be fun to work in construction. But I no longer feel so after seeing what these guys have to do.
I haven't gotten a shot of the office in some time. It hasn't looked like it changed much. But now the roof is done on it and the windows and outside door are installed. I would have taken a picture now, but it was raining hard and didn't want to get my camera wet. I took these from our front porch. Next time I will as we are expecting a week of dry weather.

...Mollasses in January

Siding is started. It is a little premature as we are still waiting on the roofers to start. It has been two weeks since I was promised they would start right away by the general contractor. Of course wiring is being held up by the lack of roof as well. I could have used this 3-4 day weekend or last week's for Christmas to get most of the wiring done.

The siding design is going to be very nice. It is a 12" board with 3" batten. We are trying to do as few seems as possible by using 16' wood and breaking it up with window and door trim. Some do a "belly band" which is a horizontal piece that wraps the structure. This always looks a little hokey. So we are doing a 45 degree splice with the angle so that water runs away from the building instead of into it.

There is a problem with the material which is mildewing badly since it has been sitting around outside for many months. If it was Cedar, it would have been better. But it is Fir for lower cost. It would have been fine if we could have gotten it up and painted soon. I am not sure what it will take to deal with now. Probably some bleach and some sort of mildew suppressor

The tar paper is being doubled up to improve moisture resistance. Seeing the building in black looks different. This is closer to it's final appearance of barn red with white trim.
We got quite a bit of snow over Christmas. It was the most I have ever seen around here. Old-timers say it has been worse, some time ago. Here is a shot from about the worst of it.

Roof Takes Shape

With the roof sheeting now on, the the look of the bard is becoming clearer. We have had lots of snow in the two days since this was taken. We are hoping enough will melt so they can continue work tomorrow.

The inside of the barn is starting to get darker know that the roof is on. Soon the remainder of the wall sheeting will be in place and I will have to get some lights out there. But you can start to see how the inside will feel.
The last of the wall sheeting will require a lift of some kind to install. The framers don't think they will be able to do it with ladders alone.
Last minute, we have decided to put a cupola on. We had cut this to reduce costs. we are trying to make a deal with the contractor to get it back in. It sounds like the framing crew will stay on to do the siding, windows and doors. They will also be adding a paint booth room in the barn. And they have an interior wall in the office are to complete as well, once it is dried it.