May 23, 2008 Progress Report


Items Accomplished

GT Builders


Bear Dance Village
Continuing with the skeleton crew, we’re still keeping ‘em busy!

Pickup framing down in The Swan (no, not the valley). There was three days’ worth of work, including two decorative beams in the entry, a tub and shower deck in the upstairs bathroom, soffits in the garage to cover plumbing and mechanical, and a few remaining miscellaneous items. - Working their way through the five-plex, one unit at a time. Catwalks in the attics, fireplace surrounds, doorway arches, barrel vaults…these guys are doing it all!

Flathead Masonry

Finished applying stone to the chimney on The Swan roof. This is the first glimpse we’ve had of our experiment of combining different types of stone to achieve an Old World look, and we’re extremely excited about the result! The picture on the next page shows it somewhat, but until we’re able to wash the rock, we won’t be able to see quite as much color as the final product will show. Nonetheless, the masonry crew is gradually “learning their way out” of the mindsets that are so common in this area; they’re beginning to use the techniques we’ve tried to encourage, and with this chimney, it shows!

Continuing to work their way through all the chimneys on the five-plex. Most of these are going to be brick (with the exception of a couple of the bigger ones), so we’re taking care to make sure each chimney has its own unique design and character. As mentioned in last week’s report, there’s unlimited potential for different designs and ideas, so we’re thoroughly going over each one on its own.

Rainmaster


Bear Dance Village
Began installing flashing in certain areas of The Swan roof. Still haven’t received the composite slate for the finished product (apparently the manufacturing plant is in the Midwest, and this season’s tornadoes have hampered their schedule a bit), but everything is ready to go, and with the warm weather beginning to stick around, we’ll be able to hit this one in full stride very soon.

Arctic Heat

Continuing to work on termination points for HVAC in Swan. Also working with Ron Incoronato & Co to anticipate our venting requirements on the five-plex. Due to the complex framing structure of this building, we’ll encounter more challenges than usual for the mechanical rough-in process, particularly regarding vents that need to be exhausted to the outside air. Plumbing vents, dryer vents, and range hood vents all need a route to the outside, and you don’t want to just punch them out the nearest wall or roof – you need a place that’s a little more discreet. It’s a challenge because we can’t just penetrate the roof like we normally do. Normally, we’re able to find areas of a rooftop that aren’t as visible to people on the ground, giving us a place to “hide” these rooftop penetrations. But in this case, we have this wonderful rooftop patio (Gallatin), and we want to avoid having residents and guests looking out over a bunch of plumbing vents and dryer vents. Thankfully, the crew of Arctic Heat has worked quickly with us to provide materials and installation on short notice, before our route is covered up by masonry or roofing materials.

Touris Plumbing

Working on rough-in plumbing of Missouri.

JK Electric

Finished all the can lights and electrical boxes in Missouri.

United Drywall

Continuing to hang drywall in Boulder.

Ganz Soda Blasting

On site going around Swan and Flathead, blasting all of the exterior beams in the same way we treated the timber work of Boulder. This gives them a much more weathered look, and we’re working hard to finish them quickly, because we know the crew at Rainmaster is just days away from showing up to apply the finish roofing materials. Once the finished roofing is on, we can no longer use the soda-blasting technique, because of the potential damage to the metal drip edge.

CM Quality Insulation


Bear Dance Village
Sprayed urethane foam throughout Yellowstone. Unlike Boulder, this residence didn’t get as much urethane, because the main area of the attic is going to be able to breathe in a more traditional way, so we’ll be able to use the standard (and less expensive) blown-in insulation above the ceiling drywall. The walls, on the other hand, are the same: 2 inches of foam in the exterior walls, then fiberglass batts over that; and fiberglass batts on most of the interior walls for sound insulation between rooms. Even though we’re building condos, they’ll have all the quiet characteristics of a custom home way back in the woods.

Gembala Concrete

They’re back! Now that we have a design for the covered portion of the barbecue area on The Swan, we needed to get a footing in place to support the iron post which will support the roof. Of course, it’s never just as simple as pouring a footing; we want to make sure all the cabinetry and both grills will be supported, so we designed a way to span over to the existing grade beam supporting the building. The other end will be supported by a concrete pier that extends down below the frost line. This was also a time-critical project (aren’t they all??), as the water table was rapidly rising with the waters in Bigfork Bay, but we got the footing poured on Wednesday. The slab to support the cabinetry has been formed up and is ready for concrete, which will be poured next week.

Zavala Excavating

On site for a day to dig the hole for the above-mentioned footing, as well as taking care of some prep work for the upcoming visit to install our gas lines to each residence.

J&J Carpentry

Continuing to work through the five-plex – checking doors and windows at the early stage prior to sheet rock, plaster and paint.

Swan River Door


Bear Dance Village
Jeff was on site for a walk-thru with Ron of Boulder, Yellowstone, Swan and Flathead, to determine the size, swing direction and design details of all these interior doors and main entry doors. Having this meeting with the custom door manufacturer ensures that each door will be built exactly to fit the opening, and it also catches any small issues or problems when they’re easy to fix. If you notice that we’re incorporating a lot of checks along the way to fix mistakes as they happen…you’re right! In any construction project, mistakes are a given – the variable is how quickly they’re found and corrected. If there are plenty of checkpoints along the way, the quality control is much tighter, and fixes are infinitely cheaper and easier!

Ron Incoronato & Co

Worked on coming up with a better solution for the future irrigation of Bear Dance Village, as well as in our present watering needs. We’ve gone to all this trouble to find the beautiful stone that will be a part of the Swan – and perhaps parts of the five-plex – with all its moss and lichen giving it a very old look. But when the masonry crews are finished working on an area, they wash the stone to clean off dirt and grout residue, and their present source of water is the water line fed from the city-owned meter. This water has been treated like any other public water to kill bacteria, but guess what else it kills? Moss and lichen on rocks. So in order to avert a potential disaster – while at the same time providing a potential long-term solution – we’re working with a company to investigate utilizing a pump out of Bigfork Bay. This water is untreated, the permission still exists from the old Bear Dance vacation cabins, and if we’re able to use it for our irrigation purposes at the project’s completion, we’ll save thousands on not having to drill a well.

Next Week’s Agenda

Next week will be another busy one. We’re expecting all of the above crews back on site (GT Builders, Flathead Masonry, JK Electric, Touris Plumbing, J&J Carpentry, CM Quality Insulation, United Drywall, Rainmaster, Ganz Soda Blasting, Arctic Heat, Gembala Concrete, High Ridge Steel and The Metal Connection), but we’ll also add the crew of Smith Painting to begin staining the exterior of Boulder. In the latter part of the week, we’ll get a visit for a couple days from Rocky Mountain Contractors, hired by Northwestern Energy to come set up all our gas meters. This will be the final step in our process of getting all our utilities to each building. Yes, that’s fifteen different subcontractors. The beauty of this project is that, because of it’s size, there’s plenty of room for all these workers to spread out and give each other space. That’s also the curse of this project. But it keeps us on our toes, and with a project this fun to work on, it really doesn’t feel like a chore anyway!


Bear Dance Village

Selections/Decisions Needed

New: Meeting next week to determine style and structural needs for railing around upper driveways leading into main level garages on five-plex. Need to figure out how to transition between stone walls, stucco walls and railing, while also ensuring that the railing can stand up to the impact of a car at driveway speeds (which, for some people, is a bit faster than others).

New: Need to come up with a final design for the straps that will hang from the ceiling of The Swan and support the end of the catwalk. Meeting next week with Rocky (The Metal Connection) to discuss this.

Old: Need to pick the stone types for the entire five-plex ASAP. With summer coming up and demand being high, we need to maximize this large masonry crew we now have and get the material ordered.

Old: Need to go through each unit of the five plex and, in the living rooms and on the decks, determine the style of the surround of the fireplaces. These will need to be drawn up and finalized before the framing crew leaves the project for good, so it’s imperative that this happens in the next two weeks. Missouri is complete, Gallatin is complete (see Keith’s interior rendering), and Madison and Ruby are forthcoming from Carol Nelson and Keith Beck, respectively. Only Big Horn remains.

Old: Colors and finishes for units in the five-plex have been discussed, and we have a good start and direction now. Our meetings in the coming weeks will focus on ironing out all those details. Also will go through the five-plex and, using these decisions, pick out trim styles and sizes, flooring styles, and any final design details.

Old: Need cabinet drawings from Carol Nelson Design for remainder of five-plex. Missouri is done, so Madison is next.