I Hate Drywall

2006-04-03T22:05:00.000-07:00

Let's hear it for Spike! He's little but he thinks big.

2006-04-03T17:51:00.000-07:00

I grew weary of posting but here's where things stand, with carpet and Ikea furnishings:

2006-03-28T09:50:00.000-08:00

Wilderness - Emergency

2006-03-26T21:48:00.000-08:00

It really does look better after it's grouted.

2006-03-23T17:42:00.000-08:00

Oy gevalt! I wasn't going for rustic but henceforth, that will be my story. Tiling sucks eggs. It felt like a slow motion train wreck. I could plainly see that it wasn't going well (the tiles on the wall kept sliding around so the joints don't line up very well) but I couldn't stop to do some online research -- which I should have done before I started -- because the thin-set motar would harden and if I just stopped altogether, I knew I would have to resume the job eventually....so I kept going. If I stand back a ways (difficult to do since it a bathroom) and squint it doesn't look too bad, I guess. Maybe when I grout it'll suddenly look totally awesome.

2006-03-22T21:05:00.003-08:00

This shower thing is a lot tougher than I anticipated. My "how difficult could it be?" approach to this whole project has given me a general idea just how difficult some of this stuff can be. I installed a new "p-trap" and drain assembly, put up cement board in the enclosure and floated a two-stage mortar bed with pvc membrane. I will set the tile tomorrow.

2006-03-20T22:05:00.000-08:00

Figurines - Rivalry

2006-03-20T22:01:00.000-08:00

I ripped out the shower. Ripped the hell out of it. All that's left is a hole in the floor. I'm gonna put up cement backer-board, float a mortar-bed base and lay ceramic tile.

2006-03-16T18:33:00.000-08:00

Envelopes - Sister In Love

2006-03-14T22:27:00.000-08:00

Castanets - All That I Know

2006-03-14T19:02:00.000-08:00

New stairs to the sleeping loft.

2006-03-11T17:48:00.000-08:00

I was framing-in the sleeping loft when I had a design epiphany. Sometimes my powers of mental-spatial-relation-imaging fail me and it's not until three dimesional things are in front of me that sensible solutions become apparent. WTF? Anyhow, I came up with a new loft access layout that will allow for a single ladder/stairway (instead of two sections and a landing) that will free up more floorspace on the main level. Roberto suggested a spiral staircase and I punched him in the mouth. Okay, maybe I didn't but it's just a matter of time.

It's cold (only got up to 52F at the beach today), blustery and periodically rainy here. There was snow down below 2000 feet in the local mountains over night. Jeepers.

2006-03-11T17:44:00.000-08:00

I hope this works....Built To Spill - Goin' Against Your Mind

2006-03-10T21:11:00.000-08:00

Grizzly Bear - Fix It

2006-03-07T22:58:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, people used to say I made the best beer in the world. As unlikely as that may have been, who's to say it wasn't true? Were you there? Anyhow, apropos of not much at all, Dungen (a kick-ass band from Sweden -- much of the tunery I have posted on here is Scandanavian, in case you haven't noticed) is touring North America and, while they're skipping LA, will be playing "The Downtown Brewing Company" in San Luis Obispo up along the central coast of CA.

I have been occupying myself with a lot of really fiddly drywalling for the past few days. Cutting around joists and up into skylight wells and around vent pipes. It has been almost therapeutic. Tonite I applied some gnarly stripper chemicals to the block wall that will be left largely exposed in the main room. It previously had wood paneling glued to it and had been painted prior to that. I want to paint it anew so I figure it's best to take it down to bare concrete. This may have been therapeutic too but it might have just been the fumes.

2006-03-06T08:15:00.000-08:00

Website of Mark Hoppus of Blink 182. I'm not a fan of fake punk music (punk was over in 1978) or fauxhawks but this guy is funny. He does a podcast (I can't get it to play) and blog. The unicorn, figure skating dream is beautiful and poignant.

2006-03-04T19:21:00.000-08:00

Sambassadeur - "Between The Lines"

2006-03-03T15:23:00.000-08:00

I have a cold and I'm crabby. Roberto came by this morning and offered to help with taping and mudding. I told him I was sick and was going to go back to bed so, thanks but no thanks. He said he'd be quiet. I then told him I wanted to finish every last bit of drywalling before taping and mudding.....then I realized that I had already taped and mudded the bedroom. The truth is that I want to do it myself. Oh, and I also think Roberto knows less about this stuff than I do. He means well but I'm having a hard time explaining that I appreciate his help with cleaning up and such but that I want to do all the building alone. I'll try to think of something else for him to do when he returns tomorrow.

2006-03-03T07:43:00.000-08:00

It's raining like a sonofabitch here.

2006-03-02T10:05:00.000-08:00

Collection of early 90s music videos from the likes of Swervedriver, Ride and My Bloody Valentine.

2006-03-02T09:47:00.000-08:00

Neko Case - "Hold On Hold On"

2006-03-01T23:25:00.000-08:00

"Pervert/Expert" from Strip Squad.

2006-03-01T21:04:00.000-08:00

I was paid a visit today be Roberto Chavez, a former employee, all-around man friday and, increasingly, thorn in my side. He brought with him his youngest child (he has 4), uhhhh, I don't remember his name. Cutest kid pretty much ever, though. Roberto, true to form, commenced to point out all the errors in my work (I think he knows just enough to recognize poor execution) and, in a combination of english and spanish that is turning more into just spanish as time goes by, suggests the craziest, MacGyver sorts of alternatives to what I'm doing. I was trying to describe how I'm leaving some of the ceiling joists exposed in a sort of deconstructivist design kind of thing and he's just shaking his head the whole time and I realize it's easier just to tell him I ran out of drywall and will, of course, be covering up those joists later. He then walks around the room, picking up tools and materials and asks, "Where you get it?". The answer almost every time is Home Depot but he keeps asking.

2006-02-28T20:52:00.000-08:00

Return trip to the coast mostly without incident. It was really windy because of the storm that rolled through last night. The trailer, which is heavy and large, served quite effectively as a drag chute. I looked at the truck's fuel efficiency reading at one point on a long, gradual incline and it said 3 mpg.

I'll strive to finish the drywalling this week.

2006-02-28T09:07:00.000-08:00

I'm in Las Vegas again. I came to pick up my trailer, which I just left here last week because I didn't think I needed it. Maybe I need a personal assistant to tell me when I'm making bad choices, "I think you will regret that decision, sir." Anyhow, the 4 hour drive from LA took 7 hours because there was a major storm moving into the area and traffic on the freeways (all of them) was moving at a crawl. Once I got through the Cajon Pass and into Victorville, things opened up and it was 80 mph the rest of the way. I'll head back tomorrow.

2006-02-27T13:20:00.000-08:00

I have used 28 sheets of drywall so far. This amazes me. Since I'm working primarily inside the apartment, I'm using the biggest sheets possible to minimize the joints. I probably have the equivelant of several 4x8 sheets in remnants, but I'll use them in the upper reaches of the structure where funky joints won't be visible.

2006-02-27T10:33:00.000-08:00

The Knife - "Silent Shout" video.

2006-02-27T10:10:00.000-08:00

Liars - "The Other Side Of Mt. Heart Attack" video (streaming).

2006-02-26T18:51:00.000-08:00

I think the solution will be to apply texture to the walls. I generally don't like the look but it's an effective way to cover up visible seems. Besides, I've seen it done before (topping compund loosened with water sprayed on with air gun of sorts) and it looks like fun. I'm going to assume that there's no real trick to it and this couldn't possibly result in things being buggered further.

2006-02-26T18:29:00.000-08:00

I taped and mudded the bedroom in a successful effort to remind myself that I don't know what I'm doing and I'm in over my head. I shall press on, however, and simultaneously come up with some believeable excuses for the shoddy workmanship.

2006-02-23T21:57:00.000-08:00

Dig the drywall jack. It makes drywalling the ceiling almost enjoyable.

2006-02-22T16:59:00.000-08:00

Jeepers, there's a lot to do here. I was in Vegas for 5 days and got back last night. I shall finish drywalling and get the electricians back to do the wiring (surface mounted rigid conduit and receptacles, industrial-style) next week. My man Roberto Chavez (of the Zacatecas Chavezes) is helping me drywall the ceiling manana (there's no squiggly-topped "n" on this editor).

2006-02-14T09:10:00.000-08:00

Valentines cookies for breakfast.

2006-02-13T23:36:00.000-08:00

The new doors were installed successfully. Drywall makes its first appearance. Good times.

2006-02-12T18:52:00.000-08:00

My Speech to the Martians by Jack Handey

2006-02-11T22:02:00.000-08:00

Ariel Pink- Helen

"...Ariel Pink blends Lite FM and warped lo-fi pop into something beautiful and confusing..." and that's from his record label's website. He plays the instruments and makes all the sounds, from his home studio in LA.

2006-02-11T14:41:00.000-08:00

Trespassers William- Safe, Sound

2006-02-11T12:38:00.000-08:00

I have been working on the project.......but got tired of writing about it. When there's a significant development I'll report it. New doors will be installed on Monday.

2006-02-08T19:59:00.000-08:00

Construction ground to a halt as electricians re-wired most of the building yesterday and today. I'll be back at it tomorrow.

2006-02-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

I won't go into detail but I think I must be the most emotionally fragile "carpenter" since Jebus.

2006-02-04T19:19:00.000-08:00

Brutality redux. A smaller concrete saw plus bigger jackhammer equals precisely the same pain and suffering as last time. I got the doorway cut, though, without any hectoring by the locals. I think it looks pretty good and I hope the door installers think so too. I'll give them a call on Monday and see what their schedule will allow. (I just noticed that in photograph on the right the doorway looks crooked. It isn't.)

Once I was finished with the door, I moved to the back of the building to begin taking up the concrete floor in the shop bathroom. That's some hard concrete. Hard concrete with wire mesh imbedded in it. I cut a perimeter through the slab, which averaged about 4 inches deep. Once that was done I started breaking up the concrete with the jackhammer. It took about an hour and a half to render the floor truly fugged up but, due to the reinforcing wire, I'll have to track down some wire cutters to actually remove all the rubble. I wasn't too concerned about hitting the cast iron waste pipe that I need to access for the shower, but I was worried about the water lines because they were soft, flex copper that simply emerged from the slab. Sure enough, they were just laid on the sand right under the concrete. I didn't damage them but easily could have. I really think I'm going to have to re-do the water supply into and throughout this building. Copper pipe embedded in concrete without any sort of protective wrap will eventually fail and this isn't the only place where it was installed this way.

2006-02-03T23:14:00.001-08:00

Okay, here's something else to read. This is a story I started to write several years ago and, of course, abandoned because that's what people do, isn't it? Well, I pulled it up this evening and re-wrote most of what I had written and added the beginning of a second chapter (I like short chapters). I don't really know where I'm going with it other than a nebulous story line without a resolution. Oh, and I don't know what I'm doing so be kind.

Shore Breaks

When you live next to the ocean for a while the ocean smell kind of goes away. Visitors take a deep breath and say how it must be nice to smell the ocean all the time, but it’s actually nicer when you’re just visiting…

He awakes with a start and is immediately gripped by panic. “Shit!” he says as he lurches clumsily from the couch. “I should have set the alarm, I’m late. There’s no time to take a shower. Gotta brush my teeth…..what time is it?” The wall clock reads 7:45. “Dammit!” He looks for a hat, shoes…. “Why’s it so dark?” he thinks. He goes into the bedroom. The clock radio says 7:44 but, wait… He realizes it’s quarter to eight at night and he’s not late but 12 hours early. “Jesus Christ, what am I doing?”

He walks back to the living room, slumps onto the couch and, his ears reddening, tries to remember the day. He’s passed out drunk before but this is particularly disconcerting. Everything’s backwards. Blind drunk by mid-afternoon and now fuzzily sober at 8 o’clock in the evening. “I need a drink”, he says out loud. Kitchen cabinet? No. Maybe the hall closet under the towels. He rises, clears his throat and goes to the linen closet next to the bathroom and retrieves a pint bottle, sees by the dim light from the bathroom that it’s three quarters full. He opens it, tips it back, swallows and shudders. The gag reflex comes… and passes. He shakily wipes his mouth, breathes in and out, tips back the bottle and, in three gulps, drains it. Shuddering again he shakes his head like a cartoon and wipes his mouth with his sleeve. He screws the cap tightly back on, returns the now empty bottle to the bottom of the closet under a stack of sheets and thinks he’d really better take it and the others from under the bed to a neighbor’s recycling bin around the corner and down the alley. “That guy’s got a problem”, he imagines saying to no one in particular as he passes by on pick up day. He chuckles and is enveloped by whisky-warmth.

“I’d better go to the Golden Lion for provisions”, he thinks. “They close at …9:00?” Unless Ray, the night man, has something better to do in which case they may be closed now. “Uhhh, how about the King’s Cellar? No, it’s too far to walk, and there will be no driving tonight. Besides, I don’t like the way that guy’s face lights up when I walk through the door. “My best customer!”, he’ll call out. You’d think he’d at least be familiar with discretion in his business. “Where are my shoes?”, he mutters. He picks up his cigarettes from the floor, flips one out, raises it to his mouth and pats his pockets for his lighter. He sits back down on the couch and leans forward to feel around on the floor for his lighter and finds his shoes. He pulls them on, gets up and walks to the kitchen. He opens the drawer by the stove and finds a book of matches, pulls one out, strikes it, raises it to the cigarette and draws in. He shakes out the match, throws it in the sink with the dirty dishes. “Now where did I park the truck?”

Down at his apartment in the back of a funky old beach cottage on 5^th Street, Cam Watkins is just settling to watch the start of the third quarter of the Clippers game when there’s a knock on his door. After initially deciding to ignore it, he rises, walks to the door and opens it to see a smiling Dwight Harris before him, a large paper bag under his arm. “What the hell were you thinking this afternoon?” Cam asks. “What? Where?”, Dwight responds, his smile fading into apprehension as he squeezes past Cam into the room. “Out in front of the Mermaid,” he says incredulously. “Yeah, what was that anyway? I was a little, uhh, indisposed,” Dwight replies, sheepishly, as he sets the bag on the kitchen counter, and reaches inside to retrieve a 40 ounce bottle of Jim Beam. The Mermaid is an old men’s, serious-drinking bar on Pier Avenue at the Strand. It is staffed by serious-drinking, old bartenders who don’t tolerate loud talking, wild gesturing , outlandish boasting or any of the other traits Dwight Harris can be counted on to exhibit when he has long-since abandoned any hope of accomplishing anything on a Tuesday afternoon and is in the middle of a reeling and haphazard tour of the many watering holes in downtown Hermosa Beach.

2006-02-03T22:03:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow should be a rather strenuous day. I'll be heading back to the rental place to pick up a gas cut-off saw (the smaller one this time) and a jackhammer. I hope to finish the door cut without interference from the neighbors.

This is really boring, isn't it? I wish I more to say about something but I'm tired and I can't think of anything.

2006-02-03T21:25:00.000-08:00

I put up the walls surrounding the sleeping loft this afternoon. It was kind of a fiddly job since space is limited (a little less than 4 feet from the top of the apartment roof to the bottoms of joists on the roof of the big building) and the only part of the apartment roof I have sheathed is the floor of the loft which measures approximately 9 feet by 8 feet. There's also huge wooden carrying beam running through the middle of things. Its location has dictated where the end wall of the loft will be. I hauled my beloved Bosch 4410, 10" dual bevel, sliding, compound miter saw up there so I could cut the studs and plates with out having to climb up and down the ladder. I also laid out the wall sections in place and nailed them together with my cherished Porter-Cable FR350 pneumatic framing nailer.

It all went pretty well and, as I expected, once I could see the walls in place the next steps to closing in the space, while incorporating some cool design elements, started to become evident. I'm going to install two skylights in the building so that natural light will flood in to the living room and the kitchen, on either side of the sleeping loft. This will mean leaving two significant sections of what was the ceiling in the original space uncovered, but I think I might leave the old joists in place to give it a deconstructed sort of feel. I reserve the right to change my mind, though. I also came up with a concept for the stairway/ladder to the loft that will include a small landing and a 90 degree turn between two sections. It'll be tight but kind of ship-like and the sort of thing that kids will really dig.

2006-02-03T21:17:00.000-08:00

The weather has been great here lately and for the next 10 days the temperature should range from the upper 60s to the mid 70s. Why did I move away from here again?

2006-02-03T10:18:00.000-08:00

No electricians this week but they will be back next week to move the circuit panel and, if they have the time, start pulling wires in the walls for outlets and switches. I went out and picked up another truckload of lumber last night and will begin framing in the sleeping loft today. I'm not quite sure what the exact layout will be but I have found that if I start with one wall, the rest will follow. I don't know what that means either.

2006-02-02T16:43:00.000-08:00

I get excited about the strangest things these days. I went out in search of the 3/4 inch, t&g, OSB sheathing for the sleeping loft today. At Home Depot they didn't have it. At Lowes they told me there's no such thing. Since I have used it before I was pretty sure there is such a thing, but I didn't see the point in causing trouble so I left. Next I tried an independent building supply place nearby. Evidently they weren't aware that "there's no such thing" because they had it in 3/4" and 3/8". I ordered up 8 sheets, went out to the yard and found a stack of the stuff but it looked like it had been sitting there, in the weather, for 5 years. It was faded and water stained and dog-eared and certainly not suitable for this application. I told the yard guy what I needed and why this stock wasn't going to work for me. He called over the boss and, after some discussion, which I think included the raising of eyebrows over the notion of leaving OSB exposed in a living space, he told me about a special order that hadn't been picked up and I could take it if I wanted it. Alright then. And there it was.....it was lighter in color than most OSB and the pattern formed by the chips and strands of wood was more subtle. I didn't know that this was what I had been looking for but there was now no doubt, this was it.

I took some photos but they didn't do this product justice so use your imagination. In its place, here's an art photo of the corner of the bedroom. It's art because it's in black and white.

2006-02-01T22:51:00.000-08:00

I might go to see Stars (with The Elected) in LA next week:

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/news/06-02/01.shtml

but probably not.

http://www.arts-crafts.ca/stars/

Update: Okay, I'm going.

2006-02-01T22:38:00.000-08:00

Today was mostly about riding my bike, running errands and eating lunch. I did install the ceiling structure over the laundry room and remove the raggedy sheathing from the top of the main room. I intend to replace it with tongue and groove, 3/4 inch oriented strand board for strength, sleeping loft-wise, and because I want to leave it exposed on the underside and like the way it looks.

I had in mind some sort of interesting looking siding for the exterior (galvanized, corrugated steel, for example) but since it'll only been seen by the tenants of the industrial space, I think I might just have it drywalled and painted.

2006-01-31T21:42:00.000-08:00

And now there's a laundry room. I was going to set this wall back 16 inches (closer to the washer/dryer in the photo) as part of an overall design concept that this dwelling be a grouping of cubes. As it comes together you will see that there are subtle variations in heights and alignments of walls to achieve that. On this wall/doorway, however, I framed it out a little snug (to fit between the bedroom and block walls) and it was all I could do to hammer it to where it is (and will stay) with a 10 lb sledge. Seat-of-the-pants construction at its most, uhhh, pragmatic.

2006-01-31T19:02:00.000-08:00

Roofed

and sheathed.

Now to frame in the washer/dryer and water heater area, incorporating a door to provide access to/from the shop.

2006-01-31T11:52:00.000-08:00

Can I wish nothing but bad things upon Elton John for his lifetime of crimes against humanity, but still like something about this cover by Bonnie Prince Billy & Tortoise?

http://www.julseas.com/mp3/TortoiseBonnie-Daniel.mp3

2006-01-31T00:04:00.000-08:00

Not much to say but I got some walls built today/tonite. Finished the 2x6 framing on the old structure and decided to go with 2x4s on the bedroom addition. Tomorrow I'll put up the ceiling joists on the new room.

2006-01-30T15:20:00.000-08:00

I'm back at it after a short trip to Las Vegas (that drive has long-since lost any of the charm it may have once had) and have been finishing up the replacement framing on the original structure and beginning new framing on the addition. Working around the water pipes and gas line has been tricky but will turn out fine, I think.

2006-01-27T16:50:00.000-08:00

The electricians rewired a bunch of stuff so I have lights and heat again. They will be back next week to move the panel and address some code violations. I framed some more walls but didn't have any electricity for saws, compressors, etc. for much of the day. I'm really not into this right now and have decided to drive to Las Vegas for a visit. I'll return on Sunday to resume construction.

2006-01-26T22:09:00.000-08:00

Rogue Wave:

http://www.gloriousnoise.com/mp3/Rogue-Wave-You.mp3

This is ancient but great from The Thermals, c. 2004:

http://67.88.217.34/downloads/free/How_We_Know260.mp3

An even ancienter Sufjan Stevens video, c. 2003:

http://www.creativearson.com/sufjan/

2006-01-26T21:45:00.000-08:00

And another thing, I asked Jose where he takes demolition waste and he told me that the dump is in the valley (San Fernando) near where the 405 freeway meets the 101 freeway. Hmm, I'm gonna look into that for future consideration.

2006-01-26T21:29:00.000-08:00

Since it is all about the power tools, here they are:

2006-01-26T19:23:00.000-08:00

Jose and his crew came through for me. I now have space to work (and to put more junk) so things are looking up.

I just learned that the electrician will be here tomorrow to re-route some wiring and move the circuit panel. That'll help too.

2006-01-26T11:59:00.000-08:00

The Elected:

http://67.88.217.34/downloads/free/Not_Going_Home358.mp3

Chad VanGaalen:

http://flemisheye.com/music/ChadVanGaalen-ClinicallyDead.mp3

Constantines:

http://67.88.217.34/downloads/free/Soon_Enough361.mp3

Okkervil River:

http://www.scjag.com/mp3/jag/forreal.mp3

Minus Story:

http://www.scjag.com/mp3/jag/littlewethead.mp3

Parts & Labor:

http://www.scjag.com/mp3/jag/agreatdivide.mp3

2006-01-25T19:07:00.000-08:00

Because it's really all about the power tools, I went out and got a Remington .22 caliber nail driver today. I need it to fasten the walls to the concrete floor. Home Depot was out of the recommended #4 shot, though, so I'll get to that tomorrow.

2006-01-25T18:12:00.000-08:00

At the current rate, this thing will be done round about Halloween. Trouble is, I'm leaving for Canada in mid-March and won't be returning until.......Halloween? Maybe I'll hit some sort of rhythm one of these days. Meanwhile, Jose rescheduled until tomorrow night so I'll have another day of working around the pile. I replaced the framing on the north wall with 2x6 studs. If I'm to continue with the west wall tomorrow, it'll require moving the junk pile........since it's encroaching. The air compressor problem turned out to be a electrical system problem. I thought a 20 amp circuit would run a compressor with a 15 amp motor, but as soon as it reached about 75 psi, the breaker would flip. There's one outlet in the building on a 120v, 40 amp circuit and I found it this morning. Problem solved. It's a good thing too because I'm lost with out my pneumatic nailer.

2006-01-24T21:22:00.000-08:00

Mount Dustmore has grown to a dangerous height. It's cracking and groaning over there as I write. My new friend Jose is coming with his crew tomorrow night at 7:00 to take it away. He tells me that he does a lot of evening demolition waste pick-ups. Funny. It's gonna cost $450 but I figure it's a bargain since it would take me two trips to the dump with the trailer. I don't know where the dump is anyway.

I picked up a truckload of lumber at Home Depot. I would have taken the trailer and picked up more but it's kind of concealing the boarded-up hole in the wall.... I started disconnecting the wiring in the office walls but it turns out that the wires servicing all the ceiling lights run through the walls of the office (that's where the switches are). If I cut the wires, I have no light to see what I'm doing. I'll go pick up some job-site lights in the morning since the outlets around the perifery of the building are still live. I have the first wall frame section laid out and ready to nail but the air compressor for the nail gun is malfunctioning. It occurs to me that just about everything that could go wrong has gone wrong so far. Whaddya gonna do?

I finally started to think of an actual layout for the apartment. I had originally intended to keep the master bedroom in the main part of the room and the secondary bedroom in the addition, but I don't think there's enough floorspace for that. Now I've decided that the master bedroom will go in the addition and the second bedroom will be in a loft over the main space.....which will be a living room, of sorts. I don't think this place will serve as a practical vacation home without somewhere to hang out, watch tv, etc. If it's just bedrooms it'll seem more like a motel. Anyhow, here's a preliminary layout:

2006-01-23T18:47:00.000-08:00

I've arranged for an electrician to come in later this week, move the circuit panel and disconnect the wiring to the outlets, etc. I called about having Mt Mesothelioma hauled away but the guy never showed. I'll call someone else in the morning. Not too much progress today.

2006-01-22T21:20:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I shall set about finding an electrician to simplify the wiring situation in here so I can start framing. I also want to get this mountain of demolition junk (drywall, lumber, carpet) out of the middle of the room. I need the space to lay out and construct the walls. Either I load it in the trailer and drive it to the dump (not so good) or I hire someone to take it away (gooder).

2006-01-22T17:44:00.000-08:00

Oh, the brutality! It was one thing after another. First, I'm laying out the doorway opening and I figure out that the slab outside is 2.5 inches higher than the floor inside. Now, it's not unheard of to have a step down into a building, but 2.5 inches is not so much a step but, rather, a stumbling point. Okay, it is what it is and I'm confident that I'll come up with a solution. Then, once I have the cut lines marked, inside and out, I take the cut-off saw outside, connect the water hose (dust abatement and it makes it cut faster too), fire it up, lift it into place, start cutting and quickly realize that this is going to take longer than I had estimated and I SHOULD HAVE RENTED THE SMALLER (read lighter) SAW! This thing is a 50 lb, noisy, mud spraying, unweildy, accident waiting to happen. When I used one of these things before I was 7 years younger and I was cutting a concrete floor. This job requires that I hold this thing up over my head, sideways, while I'm trying to maintain a straight and level line. I don't think I did so good. But fine, I just bulled ahead until I had the perimeter cut to a depth that varied between barely a scratch on the surface to the saw's 5.5" maximum capability. Turns out that rebar wasn't so expensive when this building was put up because they used a whole hell of a lot of it. I then took the saw inside to repeat the process (this is an 8" block wall so it requires cutting from both sides). The story was pretty much the same inside except that all the dust and exhaust fumes (2 stroke, by the way) didn't disperse into the neighbohood. By the time I'd replicated the half-assed cuts inside, I could barely see across the room. By the way, if I had been able to see daylight through the cuts (ie the inside and outside cuts were actually lined up) I would have been surprised, but it would have been nice. No such luck.

Now it was time to begin breaking away the blocks (from the inside because of the noise). Having done some jackhammer work before, I was familiar with a trick for working on a vertical surface. You create a rope sling and suspend it from the ceiling. With the ceiling joists exposed I was able to hang the 60 lb jackhammer, horizontally, about 3 feet off the floor using a cargo strap. Using the ratchet on the strap I could adjust the height with out too much effort. Now this part actually seemed to be working as planned. I was slowly able to chip away fragments of block and mortar grout until I broke clear through to the outside. Then my progress slowed and I was just kind of drilling holes into the wall and getting the chisel bit stuck. It turns out that the rebar was criss-crossed vertically and horizontally every foot-and-a-half, or so. This was going to be a slow process. I pounded away at it until I had a good deal of material removed and I had successfully adjusted the strap to work higher and lower on the wall. Then, as I paused to catch my breath, I heard someone outside calling to me. "How long are you going to be doing this?", the snarky yuppie asked. "Um, I'm just finishing up", I replied although I had intended to finish the jackhammering today. This guy had rat-bastard written all over him and I knew that if I pissed him off, he'd call the Man on me. "You're not supposed to be doing this on Sunday........this late", he said as he walked away. I don't know if that's true but I do know that I'm not supposed to be doing this without a permit, so I packed it in for the day. I cleared away the incriminating rubble outside and boarded up the hole in the wall. I had hoped to have this job finished this weekend and get the door installed on Wednesday but, under the circumstances, I think it might be best to lay off until next Saturday so as to avoid detection by the authorities and not rub the neighbors the wrong way.

2006-01-21T22:57:00.000-08:00

That was so lame. It took me an hour and a half to get there (should have been 45 minutes) because of traffic on the 110 (isn't it Saturday?), then I couldn't find the place because I didn't really know where it was, then, when I finally got there, I found out that they were having technical problems and the show wouldn't start for another hour. I walked around the neighborhood (Chinatown) and stared thru windows at people in cavernous Chinese restaurants. When the show finally began, there were about 250 people there to watch several big motorized machines lurch around belching flames and knocking each other over. Fifteen minutes later it was done. The nerds in coveralls and hardhats from SRL went around high-fiving each other while the LA hipster/art crowd clapped less-than-enthusiastically and dispersed. The exception was the odd hybrid sub-set of not-so-hip art nerds (no doubt Mythbusters fans) who were declaring it "crazy!" and "unbelievable!" as they crowded around the now idle machines. Doom indeed.

2006-01-21T17:11:00.000-08:00

Maybe the feeling of doom I was feeling this morning has something to do with the SRL show.......

2006-01-21T16:49:00.000-08:00

I picked up the saw and jackhammer today (being Saturday the rental place was only open till 1:00) but I won't get to any cutting/busting until tomorrow. I removed the rest of the drywall from the ceiling, took some old paneling off the south wall (it was glued to the block wall) and took up the horrifyingly filthy carpet exposing a fossilized linoleum (?) floor with a quaint red brick pattern. It's glued directly to the concrete and some exploratory scraping with a shovel indicated that that's where it's going to stay. I had toyed with the idea of putting down wood flooring (maybe bamboo) but I need to check on the use of floor adhesive over old linoleum or vinyl or whatever it is. In another shocker, I discovered that the roof isn't fastened to the block wall in any way. I had assumed that it was bolted in with the rest of the load being carried by the frame walls. No such luck. The roof seems to be a modular structure that's sitting on top of the walls and bathroom. This presents a new issue insofar as I was going to tear down the bathroom and rebuild it but I'm worried about removing any of its walls for fear that the roof will slump (oh, and fall on my head and kill me). I guess I should have anticipated this but I don't know what I'm doing. Well, I'm going to go to the Survival Research Laboratories show downtown tonite and think about this tomorrow.

2006-01-21T11:42:00.000-08:00

Although I haven't made as much progress as I would have liked in three days (3 hour lunch with SB yesterday didn't help) , I can't help but notice that things have gone pretty smoothly. But I've been entertaining a feeling of impending doom today. It's pretty unlikely that an entire block wall would come down because I cut a hole in it, though, right?

2006-01-20T18:15:00.000-08:00

Here's my makeshift campsite at the back of the building. I ran the cable back here for the tv and internet so it's not too bad at all. Upon further review, it's not too good either. I think I'll be moving into a hotel soon.

2006-01-20T17:08:00.000-08:00

New plan....the roof structure is fine so it would be a shame to tear it down only to rebuild it. I think I'll take out sections of the wall and replace them while leaving the roof in place. Luckily, there's no one here to tell me what a bad idea this is. Before I get to it, though, I need to cut the door opening in the exterior wall. It's a sufficiently noisy, dusty job to necessitate doing it on the weekend to avoid roving building inspectors. Since I'm renting the gnarly concrete saw and jackhammer for the weekend, I'll bust out the bathroom floors too....did I mention there's another bathroom in the back of the building? It's pretty rudimentary (toilet and laundry sink) and too small so I'm expanding the footprint and adding a shower. The floor isn't level so I'm going to rip it out and re-pour.

2006-01-19T22:05:00.000-08:00

Alright then, I laid a beating on the drywall today. Once the framing was exposed, I could see just how inadequate it is. This thing was built shoddily and then was apparently altered (shoddily) to install the windows. The biggest problem is that it's 2x4 framing with 2x6 ceiling trusses and 1/2 inch sheathing on top. There's just too much weight for 2x4s to carry. Clearly I'm going to have to tear it down and start from scratch. I'm bummed about wasting lumber, but I really have no choice. I am stoked, however, about being able to lay out the space exactly how I want it. I also met today with a cat about having a door installed to provide direct access outside from the apartment. If I cut the opening in the concrete block wall, he will intall a commercial hollow steel door and frame for $1200. I think it'll be boss. I need to rent a gas cut-off saw to cut
the opening as well as to cut into the bathroom floor to access the sewer line for the new shower. I've done some work with one of these saws before and they're right up there with jackhammers for overall violence, noise and mess making. It should be pretty awesome.

2006-01-19T02:16:00.000-08:00

Okay, I moved the cabinets and boxes and stuff from around the office. In the morning I will start ripping the drywall from the exterior. The fact that I'm still using the space to sleep in is going to soon be a problem. I will be gutting the place in a couple days and will either have to set up a makeshift "campsite" somewhere in the main building or get a hotel room.

2006-01-18T20:10:00.001-08:00

Uhhhhhh, I can envision stages of this project but I don't know where to start in order to get there. This place is a mess. Ideally, this building would be empty, but it would take a week to move everything out......and besides, where would I move it to? I just drove a trailer-load of miscellaneous stuff to Modesto last week and Vegas is out of the question cuz there's enough clutter there now.

Let start with a little of the back story:

I lived in southern California from 1991 until I moved to Las Vegas 2 1/2 years ago. My business partners own this industrial building in coastal LA County (the name of the town shall not be disclosed due to the illegal and, frankly, irresponsible renovations I'm doing to this place). There's a freestanding, 275 square foot, frame structure (sheathed in drywall!) standing inside the larger structure. It was originally meant to be an office and was indeed used for that until a couple years ago. Since then, it has served primarily as a place to crash when my partners or I have been visiting town. It's got a queen-sized bed, a bathroom with shower, cable tv and hi-speed internet. There's a wall heater that cycles endlessly in winter due to the poor insulation both in the office and the main building.

Although the main building has several skylights and the office has 3 windows, staying here for any length of time gives one the feeling of living under the sea. The lack of substantial natural light leads to depression and malaise. The general circumstances are pretty cool: good location on a quiet dead-end street, 4 blocks from the beach and 6 blocks from lots of restaurants and shops. What it lacks, though, is adequate space for an extended stay or for a family, kitchen facilities, direct access from outside and sufficient natural light to keep suicidal thoughts at bay.