At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

Obed, the flatwork looks very good from here. Must be a great feeling to have that in place. You get to stop staring at a hole in the ground I don't see j-bolts. What's the plan for those?

Did they use screed bars for the troweling?
Dave.

I'm very pleased with the flatwork. Monday evening, David, the flatwork guy, had me run my hands over the concrete to see how smooth it was. He also had me look at the concrete at floor level to see how level it was. He was showing me these things because he was very proud of his work and enjoyed showing it off.

J-anchor bolts were installed after the slab was poured. I'm not quite sure what screed bars look like. I think the pictures show most of the tools in use.

Obed

 

[dave1949]

I'm very pleased with the flatwork. Monday evening, David, the flatwork guy, had me run my hands over the concrete to see how smooth it was. He also had me look at the concrete at floor level to see how level it was. He was showing me these things because he was very proud of his work and enjoyed showing it off.

J-anchor bolts were installed after the slab was poured.

Obed

I think he was right to be proud. Wish he had done mine

Are you thinking of doing any acid etching and color staining? Looks like you have some nice smooth floor to do that on if you wanted. It can be quite attractive if it is to your taste.
Dave.

 

[dcyrilc]

Wednesday the framing began.

You better be careful or you'll have a house before spring! LOL

The work looks great, you're going to have a house to be proud of.

 

[Obed]

Some Reflections
I'm glad the concrete is done. I'm hoping I can relax a little moving forward. Most things from this point can be redone if there is an issue. But concrete is forever (for all practical purposes) so we went through a lot of gyrations trying to get things right before pouring the slab. My relationship with the construction manager was very strained during this stretch as I pushed for some things to be done in a way that I would accept.

A lot of comments have been made in this post regarding how to do the concrete job. In an ideal world, I do agree with most of the comments made here. Unfortunately, I don't live in an ideal world. If you remove people out of the equation, you could get a perfect job done exactly how you want it.

However, I'm finding that building a house involves a significant "people" component. On one end of the extreme you can end up with poor quality workmanship if you don't confront the workers and hold them accountable for the quality of their work. On the other end of the extreme, you can badger the workers to a point where they won't do "the extras" because they think you are a horse's rear end; quality can also suffer on this end of the spectrum. Somewhere between these two extremes there's a sweet spot where you will get the best quality job. Finding that sweet spot requires a lot of discernment and a knack for working with people. I have yet to find that sweet spot on this project.

I've been closer to the horse's rear end on the spectrum through this phase. Once the construction manager fully understands how I want the project to be undertaken and accepts my standards, then perhaps I can back off of him a little; I'm hoping we're getting close to that point. Only time will tell. Where people are involved, there must be some give and take on both sides. You have to choose your battles. It makes no sense to win the battle but lose the war. I could just fire everyone who doesn't do everything exactly how I would do it. But then I'd have to fire every person I hire.

 

[dave1949]

Obed, I think you summed up single-shot residential construction pretty good there. My son has friends who contracted a house and never have lived in it, and probably never will. Horror stories abound. I hope we have given moral support.
Dave.

 

[Obed]

Are you thinking of doing any acid etching and color staining? Looks like you have some nice smooth floor to do that on if you wanted. It can be quite attractive if it is to your taste.
Dave.

Hadn't really thought much about that. The basement will eventually be finished to be available as a mother-n-law apartment. The concrete below the apartment will be covered with carpet and vinyl.

Obed

 

[dave1949]

Hadn't really thought much about that. The basement will eventually be finished to be available as a mother-n-law apartment. The concrete below the apartment will be covered with carpet and vinyl.

Obed

Here are some pics. I suppose it's one of those things people either love or hate.

Concrete Floors - Photo Gallery - The Concrete Network

Dave.

 

[Obed]

We sloped the main floor garage slab so that we can rinse the floor and have the water run outside.

 

[Obed]

Here are some pics. I suppose it's one of those things people either love or hate.
Concrete Floors - Photo Gallery - The Concrete Network

Wow. Some of those pictures look really nice. We plan on stamping the concrete floor of the front porch to give it a stone-like appearance. I've never seen the stuff shown in the pictures. Quite impressive. I'll show the wife. That's her department.

Obed

 

[Obed]

Here's the winter view we will have from the back of the house. Just over the tops of the trees in the hollow you can see the Cumberland Mountains to the north. Interestingly enough, we did not pick the house site on our 30 acre plot to get this view. We picked the house site when the trees had leaves on them. I didn't know you could see the mountains from the house site until several months after the house site was cleared and the leaves were gone. I'm really looking forward to sitting in front of a warm fireplace and being able to look out the back windows and see this view. It almost makes 12 years in a camper seem worth it.