My guess is $400 to fix the subfloor is far less costly than any custom border in the wood. And anyway…it goes along better with your initial vision.
Dang!! I just paid one of the guys to spend 6 hours to scrape off three layers of vinyl tile off the kitchen floors to try to even up the floors!!! Could have just got out a big chop saw and cut it all out!! Ohh well, another dumb mistake
The various different wood ideas are lovely. I’m not a fan of tile.
Wow, its really busy here today!!
My smart friend that did the stairs is back to help set the special ceiling joists that go under the deck and balcony upstairs. These have to be cut to exact measurements to provide a slope.
We’re setting the dumbwaiter and I find out that the fire rated metal doors I special ordered aren’t going to work with the dumbwaiter door locking mechanisms. Dang…luckily I can return them and start all over searching for the right doors
Framing crew is setting in ceiling joists. My carpenter is making the custom window sills that match existing window sills. He’s got 6 windows to build.
Heating guys are here and i have been planning all the duct runs because we are going to have to have drop ceilings to run ducting. Luckily my design works for them. Yeah!! Something went right
And finally, the scaffolding guy is here measuring and setting up for scaffolding around the house
Thing are grillin’!!! Love the progress, fingers crossed.
I agree with everyone else: for $400, fix the subfloor.
We are going to have two inspections tommorrow and we will see how it goes. We have an insulation and electrical inspection in the garage/basement level and I’m going to try to get framing/electrical/plumbing inspected for the existing portion of the house that has remodel and structural changes. I want to try to get moving in the existing portion of the house so that we can get to the point of sanding and refinishing the floors. Key issue is that kitchen cabinets are coming this Friday and we need to try to get the kitchen area drywalled so that we can install the cabinets and get them out of the way. I cannot get to sanding and refinishing the floors in the existing area because 30 boxes of cabinets would be sitting around somewhere!
I think I understand why the dang scaffolding costs so much money. It took 3 guys until about 2pm today to set up two tiers of scaffolding around the house. A whole other tier has to get set up for top floor next week. However, I think they are ‘union’ guys because one guy just stood around all day telling the others what to do and a 2nd guy stood around an awful lot of the day also. If they were getting paid by the hour I would have been pretty upset really quick. And we somehow lucked out… all of the scaffolding they put up was brand new with brand new special versalam extra sturdy planks
I loaded some photos of our progress.
Failed framing/plumbing inspection in garage and upstairs. Several issues in plumbing drain lines and I’m not happy with my carpenter right at this moment. But he is already all over it and is planning to stay all night to fix it.
Missed some sill plate nailing under certain shear walls. Easy fix. And we found out that you need countertop outlet every 4 ft on our long run and we were missing one
Uggh. First major fail. And it won’t be the last:)
I called for an inspection today and we will see if we are ready to go. Everyone stayed and fixed everything last night.
Had another major delivery from Home Depot yesterday, but for some reason the delivery was missing the major 4x12 headers needed for the top floor. Luckily we aren’t up there trying to finish the top floor yet so I spent time on the phone trying to fix the issue.
Right now we are dealing with a crazy issue that we are out of 3 1/4" gun framing nails and the local Home Depot is completely out of framing nails. I cannot imagine how they let that happen, customers cannot build anything 
So today I get to drive around the County trying to find a heavy large box of nails. And they have been out of stock on the 4" vent pipe we need to put in the dryer vent. We have to get that dryer vent installed before drywall installation on Monday because the vent has to drop down from laundry room on main floor and weave through wall and then underneath the stairs and out to the exterior. I want to make sure that we put solid pipe because I hate when the vent is that accordion stuff that catches the lint. It is going to be a really big challenge because we already closed up the stairs and we h ave to push the pipe through the walls under the stairs. Another stupid challenge. Might have to pull off one of the stair treads to reach down under the staircase to thread the pipe through
Our dumbwaiter shaft is totally done now all the way to the top floor. The scaffolding guys came and finished the 3rd tier of scaffolding and it looks really scary high!
Yesterday, during the inspection, the Inspector asked why we had lumber sticking up above the main floor. I explained that we were adding another floor. He was really surprised and he reviewed the plans carefully to make sure that I wasn’t anywhere near the 30’ height limit. He said “I hope you don’t make me get up there with a big tape measure and stop the project like I had to do over at the Emerson project”. The Emerson project is a huge mess that has been on the news where a developer built up the lot 10’ with retaining walls around the perimeter and the neighbors went ballistic when he started going up with a 4th floor. Mayor of San Diego had to get involved and stop the project. The developer had found a loophole in our coastal 30’ height limit restriction. CCers local to San Diego will know what I am talking about. This is the fiasco that was going on when I was trying to get my plans approved and it is the reason why the Zoning reviewers were stalling on my project and kept asking for ridiculous plumb lines all over the plans.
He confirmed that we are only 24 1/2 ft from our property high point so everything is good. I told him that i didn’t want to get anywhere close to the 30’ height limit and risk a topography inspection. He double checked the notes that are assigned by Zoning to the project. If a project is even close to 30’, the Zoning Department puts a note out for inspector that says ‘within 1 ft of height limit, check in field’. So, we are clear on that issue
You can always go “old school” and break out the framing hammers. 
Went to two Home Depots this morning. Both stores out of framing nails. Then I had a brilliant idea. The 2nd Home Depot had a tool rental section. Maybe they stock a couple of small boxes for people who rent nail guns? Yes!! Two boxes of 1,000 in there. Scored!!
We passed all our fixes this morning and I had a chance to discuss a couple of issues with inspector and he is going to let me do some things slightly differently than plans. He is such a nice guy. We don’t know one other inspector that helps with advice. Most of them say “it’s not my job to tell you how to do that”. And there used to be an inspector in Pt Loma who walked in, saw something and would turn around with “You’re not ready”. Could you imagine the wild goose chase going through everything trying to figure out what is wrong? No thanks
Probably going to write another letter to Supervisor again.
He said the nicest thing this morning. “You are doing an excellent job. Taking your time and getting it right. I know this is your first major build. You’ve really moved up since I met you at the Guizot project”.
Made my day!! Of course I shared that with the crew.
The framing crew just pulled all of floor plywood up to the top floor. They laid out some flooring and called me up. I thought something was terribly wrong. But no… They had created a platform so i could walk through and check the views from each room.
OMG!!! Unbelievable from every angle. Unfortunately there are posts sticking up through deck to hold roof up. Oh well, something has to hold roof up:)
How crazy that a box of nails can hold you up at this point! CB, it’s wonderful to hear that the inspector has acknowledged the quality of your work and is being helpful. And it’s equally exciting to hear that the views are incredible. You must be on top of the world (not quite literally, but almost). Tomorrow, a humble drain pipe or some other mundane matter will try to trip you up, but it’s clear that this project has taken off and is going to be a masterpiece. I am in awe of your ability to transform a vision into reality.
Thank you for the kind words. I needed that inspection pass and finally getting my feet onto the top floor. It’s been a really hard week with lots of issues with missing materials from deliveries
Any pics of the views from the upper level?
I’ll load some pics up tonight
Pictures loaded to the Flickr group. I’m afraid that the photos don’t do justice to how ‘Wow’ the views are as you stand up on the top floor. They look very distant in the photos but are actually very big in real life.
Also loaded some pictures of boring stuff that is all the daily details we are working on.
I forgot to mention that the inspector walked into the kitchen the other day and looked up and said ‘Absolutely awesome vaulting, this is going to be great’
If I had the money I would be buying this house now!
cb, I know what you mean about the views. They always seem distant, and their features diminished, in photos. I can tell that your house has gorgeous views. I can just imagine watching the sunset.
Unfortunately the Wow views have to get covered up with walls and I just hope that I placed all the windows correctly upstairs. There might be some tweaking of window locations when we finally get the walls up
I forgot to mention. As I finally got up to the top floor today I saw that we can see the top of the Sea World tower behind a tree. So, buyers will get a nice view of Sea World fireworks from the Master Bedroom and balcony nightly during the summer