August 2-23, 2007

The building of the studio ....

We want the studio to be as green as possible, in part to assuage the guilt we have over using so many resources in our back yard. Ken found an idea out of the upper midwest to create a large thermal mass underneath the studio slab. We will create the largest sandbox in south Seattle. An insulated sandbox no less, with vapor barrier and pink foam on the bottom, well insulated stem walls, and lots of sand to soak up the heat produced by the solar collectors on the roof. In theory the 300 tons of sand and concrete will only lose one degree of heat per week during December and January.

If we tune the collectors right and wear enough sweaters we can get by without any outside heat source. Plus we will tune it so that Adele's side of the building will get any heat produced by the panels in midwinter, since painting is less active and requires more heating than sculpture. We reserve the right to wimp out and add backup heat next year.

The stem wall is being created here, and you see Adele laying the vapor barrier before the pink foam is installed.

August 23- September 2, 2007

The pink foam is all in, and now it is time for us to put in the first layer of sand. 9 inches of sand in the bottom of the bathtub, which we will compact with a borrowed plate compactor (thanks George Ramos!).

On this first sand layer we placed a welded wire mesh to act as our guide for installing the PEX radiant tubing that will put the heat into the sandbox. After we have the PEX tubing installed we dump yet more and more sand, filling up the sandbox to within 6 inches of the top (Ken's side) and 4 inches of the top (Adele's side). At the entrance to Ken's side we leave a deeper depression in the sand to create a very thick entry floor for heavy trucks.

Thankfully we did not forget to install the half bath plumbing before we put in all the sand. We also put in a drainage lines for both studio's floor drains. These drains will actually go out to the garden, since it will be runoff from Ken's stone carving water and Adele's greywater dump.

September 2-4, 2007

Getting ready for the slab pour. We put in Ken's trench drains, which are pre-formed structures that get poured into place with the slab, and will hopefully end up capturing the water from carving stone and send this water and debris to a collection tank in the floor. After running through three different compartments we hope the mud will have settled out a bit.

We had the choice of one system that involved placing foam negatives in place, and then removing the foam after the pour. However, this would have created a significant amount of trash, and Ken is trying to keep from doing a single dump run during this project. That goal has been given a significant challenge by the concrete contractor. After pouring the stem wall and plinths he piled the forming lumber and plywood on the side of the property as he left. We thought about making him take it with, but realized forcing others to take our construction trash would be cheating. We are using the good wood to create other things and gradually throwing out the junk.

Meanwhile at Girlie Press

We spent FREE? days, nights, weekends... removing a 20 bridge crane from a business on Capital hill. Our first job was cutting out concrete and removing it around the columns supporting the crane. Since the crane (originally built by a Portland Company) was designed for a stone sculptor it was begging us (Ken) to liberate it and bring it here so it can once again function to it's fullest. At Girlie Press it was used to change light bulbs. We'll call the crane 'Girlie' when re-installed. Re-use of this crane is very exciting for us, since it both saves us money compared to purchasing and also doesn't require new items to be manufactured and transported. Cutting out the concrete was much less exciting because it is hard work. We used a concrete cutting chain saw that studio-mate Karl Hufbauer owns. One or more shop vacs kept the water under control. We couldn't let the water go downhill into the power trench. Each column is going to get a name of the person who helped us liberate it from the concrete. Adele had an ongoing dream last night that while whe was vacuuming up the water from my concrete cutting she needed to dye the color of the water to match some woman's hair. I was dead tired and slept like a rock. Verena helped two days.

Sore hands

We had to excavate the cut concrete as well as the gravel layer below the concrete. Adele says she never wants to get any closer than this to mining. Verena calls the the job SUCKKEE...

lots of steel

Contrary to Ken's natural tendencies. He nor We could remove all this steel ourselves. It was a shocking dissappointment to him but the big guns had to be hired... The presses kept running the whole time. Thanks goodness these rigger guys knew what they were doing...

Then 'Girlie' came here

Lots of toys to put all the pieces back together again.

The Parthenon

All digging, all the time

The rains started earlier than normal, leaving our various utility trenches a mess. Ken complicated matters by pulling our new water service off of the water main with the little excavator he rented. The public utility guy in orange was not amused.

Ken borrowed Garth and Lisa's tractor. He rode his bike to their farm and then drove it back with the bike in the bucket, much to the amusement of other drivers on the roads. George (on the right below) hard at work scraping our new driveway.



Success celebrated with a beer after cutting into and replacing our sewer line. The plumber wanted $1,300 to do it once I got the pipe isolated from the ground. It took me 5 minutes to cut out the old and put in the new once I had isolated the pipe. Heck of an hourly rate.

Baby steps on the structure

The new rain garden has been put in, after the rains gave us a little break. We used the excavator we rented to dig down about 4 feet and send lots of clay offsite with George. We brought in 7 yards of compost and stirred it in with the excavator, and put in overflow drainage for the garden. The sand path runs through the middle of the rain garden. G-Pa (Bob Barnes) below is fastening track to the ground that will form the base of our walls.






G-Ma (Carol Barnes) above uses her cutting torch skills to cut and bend rebar for the start of the wall reinforcement. Adele starts the first of many walks around the site with rebar. Ken and Bob put in the first corner of Quadlock.
The Quadlock is an Insulating Concrete Form (ICF) system that is both the concrete form system as well as the exterior and interior insulation and vapor barrier. Another manufacturer listed "bulletproof" as a selling point for this type of system, since it is solid concrete poured between the two foam layers, reinforced by concrete. There is virtually no air infiltration with this type of construction (except around doors and windows) so the thermal performance is much better than a typical wood frame building. Plus, Ken's crane requires structural ties to a masonry wall that could not be achieved with stick framing.

Finally assembling walls

Elliott mugging for the camera, view of our first 3 feet of wall, and Buckout Betty showing her stuff. At bottom, Dai Dai (truck crane) gets put to work installing the 14-foot tall window buckouts.

Buckout Betty goes to town

All 9 nothern window buckouts (frames to exclude the concrete during the pour) have been put together, stood up and braced. Now we can start putting in the rebar and foam forms between them.

Seems exciting to be at the 5-foot level. The rebar between windows looks somewhat like stained glass if you have been working too long.


Ken and Elliott agree to split some ice cream.