Construction Journal

Here is a journal of the progress of the house, listed in a "most recent first" format.

January 13th, 2001
Tito's been doing some great work at the bar while work on the rest of the house has been taking a short rest. Here he is putting in some of the trimwork on the front of the bar. The rest of the bar will probably be finished within a month or two, I'll try to keep these images updated as work progresses.

September 2nd, 2000
Things remain relatively quiet, with progress on various areas coming relatively slowly at the moment. One thing that came in recently was the iron grillwork for the front door. I was really impressed with the quality and attention to detail that Ballard Ironworks did with this. I guess I should have taken a closeup photo as well to show you the detail that they achived in the raven.

Near the end of this month, I'll hopefully be getting the stucco and stonework finished on the outside of the house. This will be a big step, as it will essenttially finish up the entire exterior facade. The only things left on the outside then will be some final ironwork and gutters.

July 9th, 2000
While there has been an overall work slowdown for the last couple of months to allow everybody to take a deep breath before finishing the project, it doesn't mean nothing has been going on. Several major items have been finished during this time.

For one thing, the range hood has finally been installed. This little beauty has been the topic of many conversations trying to figure out exactly how best to design and implement it. One thing that was important for me, is that the bottom of the hood is high enough off the ground that I won't feel trapped by it as I cook. I'm 6'3" tall, so I told them to make it start at 7' off the ground. The end result is fabulous. Even though the hood is -big- it doesn't really dominate the room at all. In fact, I didn't even know it was there for the first few moments I was in the room.

Another one of the major design issues that has been (almost) finished, is the front door. I had found a picture in a design magazine that I felt captured the spirit that I was looking for in just the appropriate European fashion, so I had a door custom made to match the photo. Here is the door just waiting for the glass and wrought iron work to be installed so that it can be finally put into place.

The shower doors have also been installed in the Master Bathroom, as well as in the excercise bathroom. Here is the Master shower, I think the results here really shows things off well. The door presents as minimal of frame/hardware as possible, making the show feel that much more spacious. Since the shower includes a "Steam" generator, the doors had to totally enclose the shower area to keep the steam in.

And while we are in the Master Bedroom area, here is the finished Master Closet. I had California Closets come in and design/install the shelving here. I like their modular format as well as the nice look they provide. Hopefully this will provide me with enough room for all my clothes.

May 11th, 2000
One of the last big things to go into the house is the Kitchen Cabinets. Ok, the -real- last big thing to go in will be the bar, and Tito will be getting started on that in a couple of weeks, but right now, the kitchen cabinets are a big thing... This was my first time to see how the kitchen would really feel like once it is complete. The counter tops and appliances are still needing to go in, but the layout, organization, and the color choices that I made so long ago are finally where I can actually touch them. Wow. It works. It really, really works.

And that's not to say that work isn't going on in other parts of the house. Here is a shot up in the bar where the the floor installers have set up shop to work on the cutting the chestnut to install on the stairs leading up to the bar.

April 20th, 2000
For the last couple of weeks, they've been working on putting down the flooring in the Lounge and in the Kitchen. Both of these rooms are using the same 'reclaimed' chestnut. This is essentially old chestnut boards, of varying widths, that have been milled down to a smooth finish, but still have visible nail-holes, as well as wonderfull worm-holes in them that make them look very old (because they are!). Everybody agrees that this wood looks really great in here and will really lend some character to the history that the house is presenting. Now the kitchen cabinets can start going in, and Tito can finally start work on the bar!

Several of the other rooms are pulling together as well. Here is the sink from the Guest Bathroom. Not only does the sink have a very special look to it, but in this picture you can also see the wall design that I worked up for this room. The walls are covered with what is essentially the same tile that is on the floor, which is the same tile from the Conservatory. But I am using two different shades, and had them stacked in a way that sort of reflects the stone detail on the ramparts of a castle. I'm really pleased how this turned out.

March 30th, 2000
As a child, I remember always being fascinated by hedge mazes that you would often see in European gardens. So of course there was a desire to attempt this at Ravenwood. However, not only does a true hedge maze eat up a lot of space, but it also presents a continuing maintenance issue. So I thought perhaps I should instead consider designing a maze into the surface design of the formal patio. Browsing around on the web, I ran into Adrian Fisher, who is a world-renowned expert in maze design and fabrication. For almost a year now, we’ve been evolving this maze concept, and it is now far enough along to show you where it is going. This design incorporates two different underlying themes, it started out with a desire to capture the organic, energetic, and mystical premise from "The Nine Princes of Amber" by Roger Zelazny. In it, there is a form known as the "Pattern" that plays a role in forming the basis for the abilities of the royal family of "Amber". Since there wasn't ever any true physical description of what exactly this maze pattern looked like, we borrowed from the visual concepts presented in the movie "The Dark Crystal", by Jim Henson Productions. I think the results here are looking very exciting.

February 17th, 2000
The wrapping that protected the conservatory finally came off, so you can finally see what this is looking like. The glass is almost completely installed now, and this is looking really nice. There is still a lot of work left to do to finish off both the inside and outside of this final part of the house, but it should go pretty quickly now.

This is one of the workman installing some of the final glass panels on the roof of the conservatory. Hopefully I won't ever have to climb up here myself, but it is good to know that the glass is strong enough to hold some weight.

The Electrical Vault was also installed this last week. Look at the size of this sucker! You'd think I was powering a small town, rather then just a modest dwelling for just one person. Ok, so perhaps not quite "that" modest...

February 5th, 2000
The marble tile in the floor of the Tower Stairs is almost completed. The pattern here works really well. We are using two different shades of essentially the same marble to form a circular band around the outside, as well as add the little "drops" throughout the field. While from this view (taken from the top of the stairway) you can't quite make it out, in the very center will be an electrical outlet covered by a brass plate.

January 21st, 2000
There is a lot of activity going on in the Master Wing. The marble for the master bathroom finally arrived, so that is being installed around the tub deck, in the shower, on the floor between the tub and shower, and around the sinks. I think the choice I made here is really going to work well, there is a lot of character to the "Silver Travertine" that was chosen, and the installers from Art Tile are doing a wonderfull job at getting this character to express itself.

December 17th, 1999
The copper caps went up on the two towers today, as well as the caps over all of the chimmneys. To honor the occasion, a "Topping Off" ceremony was planned for this afternoon, and all of the folks working on the house were invited to attend this great little party that was pulled together by the Builder (George Piano), Architect (Dennis DePape), and Land Consultant (Troy McGuire). They put together quite a spread, some pictures of this actual event can be seen in the Gallery section.

The first shipment of interior doors also arrived this week. These pictures don't quite do them justice, in real life you can see the very impressive molding that surrounds each of the panels. These three panel doors, while quite common in Europe, are so uncommon here in the States that none of the door companies that I checked with carried anything even remotely similar. So these had to be custom made.

The wine cellar is also getting ready to be drywalled. The ceiling is going to be arched slightly to give it a sort of cavernous feel to it that should be quite impressive.

December 11th, 1999
The fireplace in the Great Hall is finally starting to take shape. It's been sitting all boxed up in the Garage for many, many, months now just waiting for the rest of the room to be ready for it. Here we see only half of it up so far, and the joints have yet to be filled up. It should provide a very impressive anchor for this end of the room, and weighing in at 7,000 lbs. makes it a nice heavy anchor as well. The drywallers have been having a lot of fun in the Stair Tower. The walls are all curved, and then when the get to the ceiling, it is a dome. The dry wall is now perhaps halfway finished. Virtually all of the master wing is complete, and most of the formal wing is finished. As soon as they finish taping and patching the formal wing, its on to the kitchen wing to start drywalling there.

September 28th, 1999
Ok, ok, so it's been a while since I've added any new pictures on what is going on with the house. Trust me, I've been busy.
          At a meeting out at the house today, Adam showed me the Gargoyle that just arrived. These will be used on the two roof valleys that are in the awning of the formal patio. And these aren't just for show. A lot of water will be diverted into these two gargoyles, they should put on quite a show when the rain comes down.
          And this won't be the only place these gargoyles get used. They will also find a home in the cocktail lounge. We were needing something to help hold the drop lights over the bar top, and since the center of the bartop was not under anything that was easy to hang lights from, I had the crazy idea of using gargoyles, and having the light hang from its mouth. The moment the idea popped into my head, I just knew it was the right thing to do.

September 18th, 1999
The drywall is underway. Most of the master wing has now been drywalled, and is now getting prepped for painting. I suppose that should mean that its almost ready for me to move into, but not yet, there is still a lot of work to go.
          In these two shots, you can see the fireplace that will be in the wall that lies between the master bedroom and master bathroom. Of everything in the house, I probably like this fireplace the least, ok, perhaps I even hate it. But unfortunately this appeared to be the best fireplace for this situation based on the building codes that it needed to meet. My only hope is that eventually somebody will make a fireplace that can be used in this fashion without all the ugly venting above and below the glass front. Until then, I guess I've got to try to make the best of it.

August 30th, 1999
A lot of the exterior stonework has been worked up. Just a little bit more, and the stucco can get started. That's when things will really start looking finished (on the outside anyway.) That is also when the landscaping folks can start coming in and doing their work, since they really can't do much with all of the scaffolding up around the house.
          Compare this shot, to the Panorama shot in the March 23rd entry. You can us the chimmney as a reference to see that you are looking at the same part of the house.

March 23rd, 1999
Here is a panorama shot of the west wing of the house. These are two different pictures that I stitched together. I didn't originally take them with that intent, but once I looked at them on my computer, I realized that the angles worked pretty well and this gives a much better impression of what this looks like then either picture by themselves did.
          And here is a shot of what the roof is looking like over the Garage/Lounge. There are some pretty interesting roof lines going on there, plus when it is all done, there will be 8? skylights in the roof to help bring room into the lounge.

March 6th, 1999
As I write this, it is actually April 1st, but I realize that I haven't added any new pictures for a while, so I'm going back and updating things so you can see how things have been progressing over the last couple of months.
          The exterior of the "MockUp" has been finished, with a wide variety of stone colors and textures. This allows us to get a better idea of what colors and stone choices we want to finalize on. This is important because unlike a 'normal' painted house, we won't have the option of going back and changing the color later if we change our minds. These pictures only barely illustrate the variety of choices that were applied to the mockup. Some of the color variations aren't noticeable in the pictures, nor does it show someof the mortar joint choices that were applied. Add to this the fact that there are several different styles that are going to be applied to the finished house, and trying to figure all of this out made our heads explode... fortunately a cleanup crew was on hand to take care of the resultant mess.
          The light today wasn't quite right to get a good shot of the front of the house, but hopefully this helps you see how the roofing is progressing. To the left of the tower, the master wing is outside of the picture, but its roof is pretty much in place, and most of the concrete tile has been installed. As you can see here, the trusses and plywood sheeting has been installed on the center section, and things are progressing on to the kitchen wing. The part here that you see with no roof on it at all is the cocktail lounge. While an "open air lounge" might seem like a nice idea on such a beautiful day as this, I think I'll put a roof on it anyway...
          The light on the back side of the house is a lot better. This shot is taken from the patio off of the master bedroom, and is looking towards the tea room (on the right) and the conservatory (on the left). Once the roofing is finished above the conservatory is when they will install the glass panels for it. They really didn't think it would be a good idea to be installing concrete shingles above a solid glass structure. I think I agree with them.
          And last, but not least, here is the status of the pond. In the back you can see the faux rocks that have been built. From this distance you really can't make out the details of these. They really look great. Jenner has done a wonderful job at setting these in and crafting them to look like natural stone. There will be a water fall coming down one side of this once everything is finished. While it looks like we've filled this up with Latte's from Starbucks, it really is just a result of all the mud washing into the pond during construction. Troy assures me that it won't look like this when everythign is finished. If it does, I wonder if I can find some giant marshmellows to float in it?

January 31st, 1999
The roof is progressing nicely. In this shot, we are looking toward the stair tower from the back of the house, standing in what will eventually be the formal garden. To the far left of the picture you can see the roof over the guest bedrooms. The white triangular bit is where the glass conservatory will be attached to the house. Next, you can see the chimmney rising out of the roof, followed by the roof over the Great Hall. This roof is fairly tightly pitched. This particular day was fairly interesting weather wise. As you can see in this picture, there was a nice blue sky, but this didn't last long as soon we had wind, rain, hail, and snow.

Work has also been progressing out at the pond. Here in this picture you can see the stonework for the far wall of the pond. This is all formed concrete, designed to look like a natural outcropping of stone. If you look carefully in the far left/center of the picture, you can just make out a couple of holes where I believe water will be pumped out to form a little waterfall. I'll have to try to get a better picture of this.

January 7th, 1999
The Roof trusses started going up just before Christmas. Here we are a couple weeks into it, and the West Wing has all of its trusses up and they are starting to lay down the plywood sheeting. The trusses for the Stair Tower have been started, and as work progresses they will continue to move on to the rest of the house. As the Truss and Sheeting work moves from one section, a watertight skin will be layed down on top of that, and this will be followed by the concrete tile. This phase should move relatively fast.

November 6th, 1998
The only major wall section left, is to add another 18 feet to the "Stair Tower", plus a couple other minor sections in the back of the house (ok, so there are no "minor" sections in this house :-).
      The roof trusses are on their way in, and they will be installed next, hopefully starting to go into place the end of this month.
      While I was out at the property I also got a chance to ride up on a big "bucket" lift so that we could examine the roof of the mockup closer to try to determine which color recipes worked better. There are lots of choices in exactly how to finish off the roof, in addition to figuring out the right color, there are also choices on how best to stagger the roof tiles to get the desired effect. The picture here hopefully provides a good idea of what the final roof might look like.

October 17th, 1998
I've been out of town for a while, so it's been a few weeks since I've been out to the property to take any pictures. During this time the crew has continued work on the mockup, and has gotten the roofing completely installed as you can see here. It really helps to see how the variations in the tile coloring will look when laid out on the roof the way we have it designed. The real test will come when the stucco and stone details are added to this so we can see how well everything works together.

We had a slight respit from the fabulous weather we've had all summer long. I apparently rained for most of this week which resulted in a lot of mud and standing water out at the property as you can see in this shot of how the entry way is shaping up. Perhaps the crew won't be needing to stack things in such a way that it obscures this angle, this will be a great place to take future shots to show how the various aspects of the house come into place.

September 26, 1998
With some of the customized surfacing and exterior treatments we are doing, it became important that we not experiment on the actual house itself. So instead, we are having a fairly small structure built that incorporates a number of different aspects of the exterior components of the house itself. Roofing, stucco, stone, windows, doors, all of these can have fairly interesting effects on one another as they are developed. We will also get the chance to try some experiments with stucco and stone coloring to see what we like best. Unlike normal "wood" surfaced housing, we won't really have the option of changing the color of these once they are in place.

And just to show you how things are going from a construction standpoint, here is a shot of the stairway that leads up to the cocktail lounge. At the moment it is just a stairway to heaven, but soon the walls of the lounge will be in place and finally allow this room to start building its own personality.

August 21, 1998
While we still had access to the "below grade" portion of the quadlock walls, we took the time to have some sample patches of the stucco surfaceing applied. This did two things for us. First, it allowed us to see some color and texture choices, and it also let us see how well the Dryv-It covered over the Quad-Lock surface.

In this picture, you can see the colors we think we are going to use. A sort of fleshy beige color for the stucco fields, and a slightly contrasting grey stone for any of the stone surfaces. The stone has a little bit of beige highligts in it, so it appears to blend well with the stucco.

August 8, 1998
The sub-flooring for the first floor is now complete, we can actually walk around the entire house and get a feeling for how it flows. They've started setting the walls for the "East Wing". Here, you can see the library, it's tall windows on the left are formed out, and they are getting ready for the next pour.
      In this shot, you see the Exercise room going up in the background, and the footings for the patio in the foreground. I took this standing in what will one day be the "Tea Room", which will have nice large windows that look out over the patio, and the formal garden area.

July 19, 1998
The retention pond is taking shape. This will serve as the drain collection for the entire site. Since we cover about 2.5 acres of land (that includes the area cleared for landscaping as well as the driveway and road), there will be a lot of drainage gathered even during a light shower. The retention pond is where all of this water will be contained so that its eventual return to the groundwater system can be done in a controled and even manner. Eventually, this drain collector system will take on the appearence of a reflecting pond, with a garden path leading up to it.
      The foundation for the conservatory is being formed. In the shot I show here, you can see the bracing that is in place to hold the Quad-Lock styrofoam panels rigid and secure as the concrete is poured into place. This bracing might be a little over-board, but my job foreman felt this was necessary to make sure that the walls formed up straight and true. They had to experiment a little before they were able to work out a system that appeared to meet the needs of the project.
     The floor joists are going in now, and soon the sub-flooring for the first floor will be all installed. This will then allow us to actually walk the footprint of the house for the first time and get a better feeling for its layout and flow from room to room. Hopefully, at this point the rest of the structure of the house will also start moving along a little faster because there will now be several different jobs that can go on simultaneously.

June 28, 1998
The form of the foundation is slowly lifting itself out of the ground. A lot of concrete has been poured, but from day to day, the progress appears somewhat slow even though I know a -lot- of work is going on. We now have almost all of the crawlspace fully formed. There is only a couple extra feet of height that needs to be added to the east wing to finish it up.

June 5, 1998
We had a big pour today, I think I counted four cement trucks coming in to dump their loads. At the end of this pour, we had virtually all of the foundation footings done, there is only one small section of footings left to do in the East Wing.
    In the picture here, you can see them working on the footings of the Gallery Hallway, as well as in the Tea Room off the the hallway. In the background, you can see the footings for the Conservatory, which were poured a couple weeks ago.
    Getting the wine cellar done was holding things up a bit, because the excavation was preventing the footings around it from going in. Hopefully things will be moving faster now. Next week they plan on getting the Quad-Lock walls brought up across almost the entire house, this should go a long way in increasing the definition of the house.

May 23, 1998
The concrete pour of the wine cellar went off great. There was one small blow-out where a strap was missed in preparing the Quad-Lock, but it was caught in time to prevent it from causing any problems. Here in this shot, you can see that the water-proofing barrier has now been applied to the outside of the wine-cellar and electrical room, and the flooring is starting to go in above that. Once the floor joists are all in place, they can back-fill around this section and the continue on with the footings of the rest of the house.

May 10, 1998
While getting the forms for the wine celler in place has been where most of the activity has been taking place at, it doesn't mean the rest of the site as been sitting idle. The forms for the footings for the other parts of the house have also been worked on. Here in this shot, you can see the big arch of the conservatory taking place, and below that the two guest bedrooms. The footings for the offices as well as the garage are also being worked on, and once the wine cellar area is backfilled to bring it back up to grade, the footings for the rest of the house can be completed.

May 7, 1998
This trip out to the property was originally planned to be after the pour, but the Tuesday pour got delayed until the following Monday, there was a little more trimming out and bracing to do, and we wanted to make sure that this first pour came off perfectly. George said that the curves involved in the Tower Stairway that extends down into the wine cellar makes this part of the forming the most difficult, but at least with the Quad-Lock it goes up relatively smoothly, while a normal plywood form would have been far more time consuming. I'll make sure to head back out next week sometime to check things out post-pour. However, since all the concrete will simply be going inside of the foam, I'm not sure if there will be much "different" about what things look like, except perhaps the cellar will be all back-filled into place.

May 2, 1998
Went out to the property with a couple freinds of mine, Matt and Nadja. They had heard about the house we were building, but hadn't yet had a chance to see where it was, or what it was looking like.
     The Quad-Lock forms for the Wine cellar are almost in place. They are scheduled to be poured next Tuesday, it's pretty exciting to start seeing this level of form staring to take shape.
     The footing forms are being built for the great hall, guest bedrooms, conservatory, and offices. They need to finish off the wine cellar, backfill and regrade before they can do any of the footing forms in that area of the house.
     Troy is working on the retention pond, which will deal with handling all the runoff from the property. In addition to just normal runoff, it also has to handle the little underground spring that cropped up when we dug out the garage. What started out as a very little water holding area, is turning into a full fledged water feature.

April 24, 1998
Had a meeting with a prospective landscaper out at the property. It also gave me a chance to take a look at how the wine cellar was shapping up.
     The footings have been poured, and they were getting ready to spray a vapor lock sealent onto the concrete before the Quad-Lock forms are put into place. It's getting a little easier to make out the shape of this part of the house, I can't wait until even more of the house starts to get formed up.
     The meeting with the landscaper went well. We walked the property and I pointed out some of the features that we had specific ideas or visions on, as well as those areas that we were totally open to suggestion on. He seemed quite interested in the project, and had some very good ideas on what would work well.
     I also was able to spend some time talking with the site foreman, Adam Greisz, and discuss aspects of the house, both answering some of his questions about what we were planning for different areas, as well as getting some input from him on how some of this stuff was all fitting together. Adam seems like he's got a very good grasp of this project, and I'm glad he's on board.

April 19, 1998
Finally, the hole for the wine cellar is dug, and there is actually some construction happening. They've cleared out and leveled the hole, and have put in the forms for the wine cellar footings. This really helps start to give me a sense of the size of the house. However, with everything still totally open to the surrounding nature, the house really does seem a lot smaller then it was in my mind.
     It was commented that the footing forms look like some sort of "crop circle" that aliens deposited into the ground. Perhaps things were getting to hectic for them over in England.

March 16, 1998
George called his first "all hands" meeting at the job site. With real construction schedules finally in the foreseeable future, it was important to quickly have a meeting where all of the principles were available to discuss various aspects and timings regarding how each of their pieces would fit together. The meeting went quite well, with a few very usefull issues resolved.
     While the meeting was going on, Rob Lee was helping Troy get the wine cellar dug out, a project that originally was supposed to take only a couple of days will end up stretching out to a couple of weeks due to some of the rock that they ran into, and the need to chip through it in places so that the claw could leverage it out.