May 30, 2008 Progress Report


Items Accomplished

GT Builders


Bear Dance Village
We’re down to just two carpenters (although it may jump up to four for next week), and they continue to take care of all the little necessities and design details. A few examples:

Opening things up in the upper floor of Gallatin and converting the two small bedrooms into one large suite.

Utilizing space next to the elevator mechanical room on the lower floor, adjacent to the stairway, for an additional landing and coat closet.

Adding depth to the doorways for the elevator.

Adding design details such as arches between each of the columns supporting the upper roof over the rooftop patio.

Next week we’ll be adding two more chimneys on the south facing roof of the five-plex. They’ll be decorative only, but after all the character that’s been added to the north face with the chimneys, we felt it was too critical an element to pass up for a person’s first impression upon driving up to the project.

Flathead Masonry

Continuing to get brick installed on five-plex chimneys. Some of the designs we’re coming up with for the brick are really going to make these things stand out!

Getting ready to begin applying stone to the Flathead and Swan. We’ll begin with the west wall of Flathead, working to come up with just the right style and perfect what they began on the chimney of The Swan. This wall will be our “example wall” throughout the rest of the masonry process, for the masons to come back and reference every day and make sure they’re continuing the theme and character.


Bear Dance Village

Received shipment on all our clay pots for the chimney tops. Went through and noted which pot goes where, and how much pipe was needed to get up through the top of the chase and the clay pot. The Yellowstone patio chimney had been lacking a clay pot and thus hadn’t been poured with its concrete cap and sealed in; they completed this task on Friday afternoon. We have a crane coming on Tuesday afternoon of next week to swing each clay pot into place on its respective chimney (these things are way too heavy to lift by hand!).

Rainmaster

Received shipment on Saturday of all the synthetic slate for Swan and Flathead – a full semi-truckload of material. Next week will be the beginning of installation of this material.

Arctic Heat

Continuing to work on duct termination points in The Swan, while also providing short-notice assistance in areas of the five-plex that require exhaust through the chimney chases. Will finish up all work in The Swan next week, then begin setting up for rough-in work of Missouri.

Met on site with Ron and John Mark to discuss alternate options for installing our air conditioning units on the lower levels. Ron and Mat Jaeger (owner of Arctic Heat) had been told in a product sales meeting more than a year ago that these groundbreaking new air conditioning systems could fit easily between the floor joists above,with no duct work whatsoever, and look exactly like a regular grille covering a forced air duct. But when we received the product on site, it’s actually too wide to fit between the joists, so we had to come up with alternatives. By utilizing the high ceilings (9’-6”), we’ll be able to create a space in each closet for the unit. Most importantly, each bedroom and living space will be able to be zoned on its own individual thermostat, instead of an entire floor like most forced air systems! Yet another little perk that makes Bear Dance Village unique and ahead of the others.

Touris Plumbing

Continuing to install the rough plumbing in Missouri.

Met on site with Ron, John Mark and Eric Smith of Northwestern Energy to discuss options for setting up our gas meters for each residence and for all the public use boilers (snowmelt). Came up with an effective way to comply with their requirements while disguising the meters behind decorative stone walls.

Working to devise a solution for tapping into an existing plumbing drain to allow us to put a powder room in the west storage area of the five-plex. This is the powder room that will service those residents utilizing the future exercise room. Also planning on beginning setup next week of boilers in our converted root cellars for the radiant snowmelt on the lower portion of the property.

JK Electric


Bear Dance Village
Working on miscellaneous necessities around the project, such as electrical requirements for the boilers that have been set up in the lower buildings. Also setting up the common-use sub-panels in the storage areas of the five-plex; these sub-panels will support the boilers for the upper driveway snowmelt, common-area and landscape lighting, and electrical requirements in the exercise room (gotta have those TV’s while you work out!).

Hope to be placing boxes and can lights in the Madison by next week.

United Drywall

Finished hanging drywall in Boulder; ready to begin in Yellowstone. Finished a bit ahead of the insulation contractor, so they’ll have a couple days off before they begin in Yellowstone, but they went ahead and ordered the sheet rock anyway. They should be starting to hang drywall in Yellowstone on Tuesday, so everything will be ready and waiting for them.

Ganz Soda Blasting

Finished the work on all the Swan timbers, and now they’re ready to begin on the five-plex. It’s been several months since they did their work on Boulder, and we had forgotten how good their finished product looks! We’re very excited to see how things turn out in the five-plex, and we’ve got them on a schedule that will keep them out of the other subcontractors’ way, and vice/versa.


Bear Dance Village

CM Quality Insulation

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

Finished the small project we started them on last week (Barbecue area for The Swan patio). The guys came in and poured the small slab that will carry the steel post, which will carry the roof over the cabinets and barbecue grills, which will be carried by the small slab.

Zavala Excavating

Roberto was here to discuss the upper area of the project with John Mark. We want to finish setting the majority of our stacking stone for the upper driveways leading to the suspended slabs, which will create more parking for the workers and free up space along the road. With summer beginning to bring in the boat traffic down to the launch ramp past our project, we want to keep things as open as possible and not block progress along the road. We want every bit of conversation amongst our neighbors and passers-by to be only positive, and we intend to make sure that happens.

J&J Carpentry

Continuing to work their way through the five-plex, checking all the exterior doors and windows. They’re not doing anything to the interior doors, though, since we’re still not completely finished with all our little framing/design tweaking.

Swan River Door

Jeff crashed our Camel Committee meeting on Wednesday to take advantage of everyone being present to get some decisions made (doesn’t he know anything about committees???). We were able to decide on the door style and materials for Boulder, Yellowstone, Swan and Flathead. We’ve deleted the idea of transom windows above the interior doors of Boulder (decided it just didn’t fit with our theme in here – might use it somewhere else), and we’ll be using reclaimed materials to match the beams in the entry hallway, but with mixed colors to give them their own look.

Yellowstone’s doors will be knotty alder, stained and glazed to make them look old and complement the reclaimed beams. Each interior door will be two-panel with an arched top.

The Swan doors have pretty much been decided with Marilyn already, but we still needed to decide on a few details. We’re going to match the style and material of the cabinet doors to give the whole place even more of a custom look.

Ron Incoronato & Co


Bear Dance Village
Met with Keith Beck and Hank Fontecilla to discuss options for our railing around each of the upper driveways, and how to make it look Old World. It’s a difficult scenario, because the cantilevered driveway isn’t exactly something that was common in Old Europe, so it’s a bit of a challenge to keep it from looking too contemporary. But with the use of heavy wrought iron and old plaster & stucco, we’ve come up with a solution that not only achieves our look, it also is structurally sound and provides a safe protection for drivers.

Met with Vernon Smith of Smith Painting to determine all our siding details and finishes for the south face of the five-plex. We’re going to mix up some of our wood applications and colors, while also adding some decorative shutters around a few of the windows to contribute to the Old European look. We expect to have some samples from Vernon early next week to approve the look and get the material finished.

Spent several hours of three days last week just walking around the whole project and discussing design details and making sure we were staying true to our theme. No single wall or room will be exactly like another, and nothing is being taken for granted in any area of the project.

The Camel Committee was on site Wednesday (after Jeff at Swan River Door crashed our meeting) going through the living and dining area of Ruby. We refined our design for the powder room, with a barrel-vault ceiling supported by Corinthian-style columns in all four corners (two of them bracketing the toilet, and two on either side of the pedestal sink). We also dropped our door heights from 8’ to 7’ on the main floor, to allow for a few decorative soffits and better overall flow. We discussed the overall look of the living room/dining room/kitchen area: we’ll be adding wood planks in the vaulted ceilings (not tongue-and-groove, but rough-sawn material to match the porch soffit), but instead of a natural stain, we’ll be using a whitewash for a very unique look. This will also complement the large, curved stairwell wall with its thick stone look. These and several other minute design details were concluded in a four-hour-long meeting that was quite productive.

Next Week’s Agenda

Busy! See above section for agenda items under each subcontractor.

Selections/Decisions Needed

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. 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 and Madison are completed, and Gallatin is nearly finished; Ruby is next, then Big Horn will be last.