So we’ve been making some upwards progress the past few weeks. My dad, Kyle and myself have the steel ’skeleton’ up for the stairway; we’ll be putting plywood (leftover from the subfloor and roof) stair treads on initially and then later, as construction nears completion, we’ll replace them with treads made of the old 2x lumber (salvaged from the original house) that we’ll laminate up into one piece.

Kyle and I have begun putting up the interior walls (see the rest of the flickr set here). It’s rejuvenating to see the space start to take shape again—first the exterior walls and now the interior. With each step a visible and tangible transformation follows—this is the exciting part about building, this is what rescues (me at least) from the monotonous turning of thousands of screws and other such bland tasks. On the agenda for tomorrow: take out the bottom and top track for the South wall of the bathroom, because it’s interfering with a window, which was incorrectly placed by a few inches (blast!).

after a week and a half of fabrication and installation the mechanical room stairs are complete. dad and i welded them up (check out the flickr set here) and then installed them. it was another lesson in constructing ‘all things not quite 90 degrees’—we have the concrete guys to thank for this one—they promised us the use 1″ thick forms and i wish i’d noticed that they weren’t fulfilling their promise – the walls are anything but plumb and square thanks in part to the forms bulging and of course they didn’t quite get them 90 in the setup either. regardless of stairs’ less than 90 existence i’m quite pleased with the way they turned out. we chose the alternating tread pattern in order to give a full depth tread but requiring half the overall run if we hadn’t alternated the treads.

A big “Thank You” to Donna and Kevin of Snelling Investigations for helping us find and serve Will Speakman, CEO and representative of Reserve Steel*. Donna and Kevin did an excellent job finding and serving him quickly. We hope we can get our money back, it’s been a frustrating process to say the least.

In other news, we’re still waiting (naively?) for a dry spell to put the waterproofing on the building and in the interim Dad and I have begun constructing a steel stairway into the mechanical room. We’ve also begun wiring lighting and power into the mechanical room.

*Reserve Steel promised us sponsorship that included the offsite manufacture and erection (including labor) of our house walls. We paid for the steel upfront and they walked with our money. They delivered a few walls, in time to be on our episode of Renovation Nation, but they were constructed incorrectly and we had to take them apart in the end.

the roof is on. this entailed sheeting it, putting down a last layer of waterproofing defense (peel and stick membrane), FSC cedar furring strips, then 2″ of polyisocyanurate insulation between the furring strips and lastly the metal roof – check out our feed for more pics. we’ll later be putting a 10′X10′ self-contained, intensive (8-10″ of soil) green roof in the middle of the roof.

our latest task was wrapping the house up in a bunch of plastic sheeting (great for the environment – we know. ) in order to keep it dry enough to put the adhesive on for the waterproofing membrane. but we can’t put the membrane on until we’ve passed inspection for the shear walls, so we have to keep the dry in the interim.

the next steps:

1. pass shear wall inspection
2. waterproof outer walls (SAM – Self Adhered Membrane – yet it needs a primer/base adhesive)
3. polyiso insulation (7″) over the waterproofing
4. put in windows
5. rainscreen/siding
6. somewhere in here we should build a stairway

pictures forthcoming…

Since our last update we’ve made some significant progress on the house. After being set back over a month by Reserve Steel (they took our money and ran), we’re finally getting somewhere. In our down time we did some redesigning of the wall system; we’re going from a double stud wall to a single with insulation hung on the exterior. This should decrease costs and actually improve performance, a double win. So I guess with lemons we make lemonade.

Anyway, we’ve got a second floor and even a roof (ok, it’s only plywood so far). All very exciting. It’s amazing how much the look and feel of our project has changed. It certainly feels much more tangible now.

This picture is about a week old, we’ll get some new ones up soon.

We’ve also been attempting to deal with some privacy issues. A few of our neighbors have voiced concern over our second story looking into their backyards. We have no desire to look into their backyards, so we thought this a wonderful opportunity to use a light shelf. The idea is that windows can be frosted, or somehow obscured without cutting lighting below the eye level. At eye level, a shelf can be hung on the exterior of the building making it so you can’t peer over the shelf. We then paint the shelf white and more light reflects into the building. Yay, for double wins.

Remember to check our photostream, it’s updated far more often than this blog. We’ll try to keep posting as changes happn.

exciting news: today we stood the first interior wall up—the first wall since we’ve been on a six week holding-pattern (note the hops growing on the exterior walls in the picture below, evidence of a slow time-table) due to a failed sponsorship.

so finally, after *six weeks* of waiting (we’ve encountered some difficulty with our ex-sponsor Reserve Steel), we’ve taken delivery of studs from Steeler and will start laying out and hopefully putting up walls on Monday!

Good news. Creative Gateworks’ Cade and Abe came out to measure, cut and start the fabrication process for a steel railing on the shop roof surround, donating their work time. They were great to work with and adjusted to the hectic schedule of Dustin and his Dad. The brothers also have a great relationship with the window supplier who is working with meeting the passive house requirements for window R-Values.

Rachel, the intern, completed her academic quarter with an excellent job on the interior and exterior rendering of the house and a constructed wetlands type design for the house’s grey water (getting it through the city will of course be the difficult part). Dustin also researched steel framing contractors, sheet metal fabricator contractors, sustainable and durable plants and concrete blocks for the neighbor’s driveway. He worked on plans for the house steel frames adding current figures and dimensions.

Dustin also found a very reasonable steel sheet metal fabricator (Rusch & Sons in N. Portland) to bend the steel after his Dad resurrected the galvanized metal from the original house board pile. He and his Dad were able to put in walls on the shop shower. No easy task. Dustin in fact turned a chalky white grinding the aggregate flooring before the install.

They also got the shop window frame in. During the evening hours, Dustin talked with the neighbor and is trying to figure out a permeable driveway solution that combines a hardy plant that will withstand driveway activity and have low maintenance. Garrett has been working full time in his job and also working on automated hardware and software systems for the house. He is learning more about automated systems and the complexity of the the task. [Mom's plug: In any spare moment the brothers are trying to secure sponsors that believe in the project goals and will help defray costs. They need sponsorship for driveway materials, steel studs, roofing and siding.]

Some anonymous benefactor has uploaded the segment from Renovation Nation that we were on to YouTube. I’m not sure how long they’ll last, so check it out while you can: