Day 26- Footings

today marked the first day of inspection rounds. Although the great Oz at the City of Maplewood refuses to come out behind the curtain and shake my hand; he at least gets to the jobsite at the request of the architect, and signs off on the footings. We are ready for concrete.

Day 15- slab gone

 

Note to self: the crew really enjoyed the Amighetti's 27" sub.... whistle while we work boys!

Starting Over from scratch

Day 13- My first change order

Mom, put it in the baby book... I have just issued my first change order.
This pretty little Cisterne is changing the foundation from limestone to concrete, total rebuild from the bottom up.

Day 12- Fake Foundations and Cisterns

Just got a call. Not exciting, at least its easier to swallow then fire.....

"Claire you're not going to like this......".

As the double wall foundation gets pulled down to make way for rebar reinforcement....a mystery is revealed.
A Cisterne under the ground is discovered. Whats a cisterne?
A Cisterne is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. Cisterns are distinguished from wells by their waterproof linings. Modern cisterns range in capacity from a few litres to thousands of cubic metres, effectively forming covered reservoirs.
These were common in 1900 buildings....so were short walls. And shortcuts.

So Killen reveals the double wall foundation that we were psyched about is actually a band-aid, and the east and south foundation walls are short.
          - Limestone only goes 2ft under grade (should be 30" min)
          - Block foundation is sitting on concrete slab floors- (not good)
         - House was originally built with a crawl space; so to make way for a basement they just lego-ed  the     walls together (maybe this is why it was haunted.... baby spirits in the crawl space)
          - Frontenac Engineering is removing their seal of approval on my plans as the foundation is not sound.

So what do I win Bob? You win an extra cost of $9500 to replace the foundation.

heavy sigh.

Day 1- Friday November 11th, 2011

Day 1 has begun. Plumbing is the goal today. We are gonna rip up the cask iron main water line, cut it out, replace and patch. Next on the list; reinforce slaggin foundation walls.

Yesterday I picked out more insane deals at Colt Industries. I found Greenleaf granite sheets imported from China (booo).
9x3= 27 sq. ft of granite for a counter
Retail cost- $55 per sq. foot ( $1485)
Claire's hussling cost: $80 per sheet, saving $1405

We were able to purchase the kitchen, main bathroom and master bathroom for a grand total of $1900, which shaved $ 7000 off the construction allocated budget for these jobs. With that money saved I was able to upgrade from a plastic vinyl- exterior shingle to a real cedar shake exterior! Sorry mom I know you wanted this your whole life.....

My contractor also offered me a job to be his buyer due to my insane hussling ability.... let the games begin.

pics of progress!

Design team- Joe Pupillo, Contractor and Inas Warfield- deal coordinatior at Colt Industries, buying Granite

You know you are close to starting when the architect puts the sign up!