Plaster - first attempt

Here I am applying plaster to the plywood shear walls with a steel trowel.  The plaster is a setting joint compound typically used for sheetrock taping, it contains plaster of Paris and the mix sets in about 90 minutes.  I mixed 2 cups of mason's sand with each 18 pound bag of joint compound.

Putting the finish surface on the plaster with a "mag" trowel.  I am trying to get a fairly flat surface without a lot of texture.  The grains of sand keep the trowel away from the plywood and gives the surface a nice rough texture.

Here is a close up of the texture. 

I told Carol I would do 4 walls approximately 12' long by 8' high in one day.  She suggested that I give myself two days.  I completed all four walls on Thursday.   Each wall took a bag of setting joint compound and about 90 minutes to complete, including set up and mixing the compound.

These are the plastered walls in the engawa (sunroom).  Not bad for a first attempt at plastering!!!

Tomorrow I am going to plaster the north wall in the great room.  Pictures will follow.

Ides of March

Today, the 20th of March, I threw down the tiling trowel... not in frustration, although I think I was pretty close to totally freaking out... Carol says I have been grumpy as hell lately, but anyway, today I completed the tile floors in the main part of the house.  See the smile on my face above!!!

This afternoon, about 1:00 pm, I complete grouting the floor in the east bedroom.

I started this project four weeks ago, thinking I was going to complete it in 2 weeks... boy, was I off.

Anyway today I completed the east bedroom.

Last week I discovered that I laid out the lines through the bedrooms incorrectly, they should have been parallel through the bedrooms, I measured 3 or 4 times and I was 2 inches off.  The only solution that looked correct required me to tear out 3 rows of tile in the east bedroom... if you have a keen eye you might see it.

The tile floors turned out beautifully. 

I have a new respect for tile layers... it is a LOT of work and extremely hard on the knees. 

 

It has been colder here for the past few days; while I have been working on the tile floors, Luke has been hanging doors and installing trim. 

 

We started framing up the masterbedroom suite last week during a short warm up - we had temperatures in the high 50s and low 60s.  I had Luke work on framing up the master bedroom suite.  I worked inside for the whole week setting tile but occasionally I got to go outside to help.  Here Luke and I set up the west wall in the den.

All the walls have been set up at this point.  In the picture below we are setting the ridge beam.

This is Luke's office...

This is my office... minus the water buckets.

The ubiquitous 5 gallon buckets, not pictured here, as noted above are missing from this picture.  I have three buckets that have been filled with water and used to mix thinset and grout, most every day for the past 4 weeks.  As of today they have been reassigned to new duties.

This week I started to stain the trim with a neutral stain.  It doesn't add much but it brings up the color of the light wood and looks very rich.  I stained both bathrooms yesterday and varnished them today.

Tomorrow I am going to learn how to plaster a plywood wall, I have never done it before, it will be an adventure for sure.  I am hoping to complete two sections tomorrow. 

 

11

It is Saturday, the 2nd of March 2013.  The 11th month of construction.

I have been installing tile for the past two weeks.  It has been a heck of a workout, hands and knees, pushing and pulling thinset and grout, for about 6 hours a day.  Another 4 to 6 hours a day moving boxes of tile, cutting tile, cleaning up.  While the long hours have induced fatigue they have created a thing of beauty.

Here is a picture of the heating system in the east bedroom.  The subfloor consists of a layer of 3/4" plywood strips, heat transfer plates, PEX radiant heat tubing, and a layer of plywood (not shown in the picture).











 The orange stuff is a decoupling membrane called DITRA.  It is plastic and about 1/8" thick.  The underside is bonded with a cloth like material, I don't know the composition but it is similar to fiberglass cloth.  The top side is formed into small square recesses.  The plastic is somewhat flexible and the small squares are hard on the knees, worse than tile.  The DITRA is glued to the floor with Thinset.

Decoupling mechanisms were used in construction of medieval buildings.  It is a method to allow the sub floor to move in relation to the tile to allow differing rates of expansion and contraction, thereby reducing cracks.  It takes half a day to lay the DITRA in one room.

Room by room, the tiles in the center of the room, the field, are laid first.  The thin set is allowed to dry for 16 hours... then the perimeter pieces are cut and set.


















Here is the tile after it has been grouted.

While I was tiling, Luke was trimming out the windows on the south face of the house.



















All the windows in the greatroom and sunroom are complete.





Here you can see the trim on the "arrow" windows along the north side of the house.  We had to leave the top piece unattached; the wood is still pretty wet and we were concerned about the wood shrinking and leaving a gap so we are going to let it dry out for a few weeks before we nail it in place.

Luke does nice work, don't you think?

We spent one afternoon with a string and tape measure setting up for the framing for the master bedroom suite.  The contractor that I hired to install the concrete walls on the storm room/closet did a very poor job, the top of the wall is almost 3" out of plumb.  I should have had him tear it out but I was worried about the weather and made a decision to make it work... anyway it took us about 90 minutes to come up with a plan.  Luke spent the afternoon framing up the cap on the storm room/closet.

We worked inside on Friday morning, Luke was hanging doors and I was cleaning up after grouting tile late into the evening the night before.  We had planned to go outside to work on framing up the master bedroom in the afternoon but Luke got into a rhythm hanging doors and I told him to keep going.  By the end of the day he had hung 5 doors.

I decided to give my knees a break and do something different for the day, so I installed half of the shower/tub surround, the toilet and the vanity.

I took Saturday off, watched Power Block (Xtreme 4x4, Horsepower, Trucks and Musclecar), washed clothes, practiced Jodo outside for about 90 minutes - dancing over the foundation, thru the house, over the rocks and thru the woods - cleaned up my computer work station, added 20 Cds to my I-Pod and made a nice supper of steamed cod and white rice.  Started re-watching James Clavell's mini series "Shogun" with Toshiro Mifune - I am perhaps more interested in the sets than the dialog -  I noted some very interesting details that I will find a home for in our home.

 

This next week, Monday looks chilly so we will stay indoors.  Luke will work on trimming the doors he installed on Friday and I will once again dive into the world of tile.  The weather is forecast to be mild on Tuesday thru the end of the week so we will be framing up the master bedroom suite.  I will continue working in the evenings, hopefully completing the tile by the end of the week.

 

Everyone have a great week.

 

Van