inner city duplex part 29-36

[Sean Kollee]

With drywall complete, and the heat on, we can get some real work done on the inside.  This is big project milestone 

post 29 - drywall complete

The crew has been hard at work hanging the board, taping begins tomorrow. Hanging drywall in a 2000 sq ft house, plus basement, is a really tough job. It works a lot of muscles that don't tend to be used, especially when doing the ceiling. Having 10 ft ceilings makes it that much harder to do. A good drywall crew can hang a tremendous amount of board in a single day, but it wears out their bodies from the repetitive motions.

To do the two houses we have under construction has been about a nine day job for both. The taping will be orchestrated a little differently, because of drying time. The crew I am using is really fast when it comes to taping. I have always found taping to really transform the interior of a house from a hodge podge of small pieces into a continuous product.

post 30 interior selections

After significant hunting among my suppliers for the last few finishing details, I have been able to put it all together into a great design palette that will work very well for my duplex project. The trick here is to put it all together and try and stick with a budget. Tile in particular can be extravagantly pricey when you add the labour and setting materials.

This semi-detached project has some large tiled areas, so we are using some neutral light grey tile, and combined with an oak floor, darker walnut style cabinets, and white quartz counters makes for a timeless looking package that can suit many colours of paint and furnishings.

With the drywall project half done, it is time to really go back and take a hard look at the schedule. I have two unrelated jobs running now, the exterior work and the interior. The exterior needs to be tackled in such a way that I can get the garage done in time (can't start until frost is gone from the ground), landscaping, and all exterior material (stucco, siding) for the first owners to move in.

The interior work is moving along well, but I have yet to tie down a finishing package and the cabinetry production date. This should be organized no later than the end of the week. Once I redo my schedule I will post how it looks over the next month or so.

post 31 - taping 

I have many posts on taping on my website, a little too boring for here.  Lets just put up a photo and move on.

Jiggi is evenly spreading compound using the finishing trowel. Not sure what size he is using, could be 12 -14 inches. This is where the skilled hands show off their work. This task is a lot harder than it looks, and needs to be repeated countless times to fill every joint.

post 32 - dealing with city hall

In a recent post, I discussed how I was threatened with a $10-14k bill from the roads department at City hall regarding damage to the alley behind my project. While I could accept a minority of the blame here, based on bad judgement of my contractor driving down a soggy alley at a time they should have been more careful, the City over reaction is so typical of how it operates.

For example, the majority of heavy traffic in an alley is the City owned garage and recycling trucks, plus lighter traffic from residents. The alley was susceptible to rutting because the gas company has to dig a couple huge holes in the middle of it to expose the gas lines.

I had some heavy equipment in the alley, but this was when the street was solid with frost, so no damage was done (hauling out waste bins, etc). I won't have any more traffic in the alley until we put the garage in from here on - we have very few deliveries left that can't be from the front.

While the City cost to operate is so bizarrely inflated, it gives insight into how it functions. The City runs an operation with little regard to cost or value. It is a very blunt instrument. It seems like it will take any possible avenue to bill (exploit) as much as possible in an arbitrary way if they can find someone to blame, and bill. The best way to avoid this is to stay as far from any dealing with the City as possible. If the City would spend $14k to fix ruts in an alley (needing, graders, loaders, material, labourers, signage, street closures, managers, an engineering bill, etc), you wonder how much other routine City business must cost. No sane person would think fixing a few ruts in the spring time in an alley could cost that much.

One factor here is how crazy it is to blame someone for damage, but then not allow them to fix it. It is against the bylaw to operate on City property. The alley is a City owned property, so only specially certified contractors are allowed to work on it. So on the one hand the City is saying you need to fix the alley, yet at the same time the alley is not allowed to be fixed.

At this point we went ahead and fixed the alley despite concern that fixing it could be worse somehow. Maybe the City would come back and say the wrong type of crushed material was used and it needs removed (we used 25 mm road crush as we were told). Or the City will decide to come and fix it anyway, even though it is already dealt with.

A lot of this issue was created by the neighbours who like to complain about everything. If the complaints cease now that the alley is fixed, it is unlikely anyone from the City will make further trouble. Let's hope this is the end of the issue and we can move on with our work on the inside of the house.

The gravel truck departs and the alley is patched up looking better than it has in years. I am hopeful the nightmare of alley damage and restoration is over and my bill will be reasonable (delivery of road crush and bobcat time).

post 33 - ceiling texture

We have come to the end of the taping project, as far as what we can show in photos. The skim coat is complete and the walls are ready to get a final sand. The final sand will not be done until after the ceiling texture is complete (this can be a messy process, drips, overspray, etc).

The first side is getting textured today, the second side the day or two after the first. With this done and the sanding ready to go we can get the walls primed, then the interior door and trim package sent out (next week).

They drape the house with a masking roll and light poly. This keeps all the mess of overspray off the walls. The first step is to spray the ceiling with a priming paint. Next they will spray on a heavier texture material and trowel it down, thus the name 'knock down'. This replaced the old popcorn ceiling texture that has become very unfashionable.  

post 34 wall prime

The painters were in early today making best use of the sunny Calgary spring to prime the walls. They use a medium dark primer that best highlights drywall defects. After the finishers do the doors and trim work the walls can take a bit of a beating. We do the first Touchup after the finishing stage.

post 35 finishing begins

With the arrival of the material we can announce for certain that finishing is ready to begin. Since I have the schedule organized pretty tight we don't have many days to lose. The finishing trades can get busy quick and I know this is looking to be a busy year. I need to ensure my site is ready when the trades have space allocated.

post 36 - vagrancy issues

The state one of the properties I bought last year has finally gotten bad enough my neighbour is calling to request I clean it up. It looks like a trash heap that's for sure. I've got some time tomorrow to deal with it. My plan is to move all this crap into the garage. When the excavator comes he can haul it away. The inside of the house isn't much better. A cat was living there and someone was feeding it. Eventually the cat perished and it remains in the basement. This was ok during winter but I don't plan on going back inside again. Allowing people to salvage valuables from the house has been a real waste of my time. I need to get this place bulldozed soon.