Monday, April 28, 2008

404 MBATH LURCHES FORWARD


Someone must have said that tiling is the most difficult part of the job. Especially when one is hoping to use up left-over tiles (green) from a previous job along with new tiles (red), only to learn, when the new ones arrive, they are not the same size.
What to do?
Off to the tile store and get yet ANOTHER tile (yellow). Which more or less matches the red ones in size and character. And put the green ones back in storage (maybe they can be used in some future project. Or sold on Craigs list...).


We got a price quote from a very good tile person to install our shower's crazy scheme. We compared that with the cost for marriage counseling, which may be required after doing it ourselves. The counseling would be cheaper.
 Zhufeng cleans off excess thin-set from a completed section of the back wall.



Although bought over a year's or so ago, the Ikea high storage, the medicine, and the vanity cabinets all fit together pretty well, in spite of their non-verbal instructions.
 Next is for the counter-top people to come and make a template, go away, return two weeks later and install it. 

ZCY: ONE PHASE ENDING, OTHERS ABOUT TO START

There are always junctions in the construction process. 
One part phases out with a flurry of clean up and sweeping; 
the next part(s) gets staged and laid out.

Here the ever industrious Jack makes his way
 through the future Southern Courtyard.
Re-bar, plywood, braces, scaffolding, etc. are being moved away.

The sidewalks of the Encircling Corridor's west side 
are poured and swept clean. 
The leak windows give a hint of what a
stroll down this corridor looking into ZCY will look like.

The metal plates in the walls and sidewalk
have been cleaned and marked, ready for the steel framing.
Jack shows what a multi-function tool a hammer really is:
here, a back scratcher.

From the NE looking at the East Wall's east elevation, 
the wall with leak window on the bridge 
over the pond is in place.
(Jack sure gets around.)

Here the same wall and leak window from the Courtyard.
We can hope that our finished leak window grill 
will be more refined than K-J's...

When a wall gets poured up against an existing wall, 
it is tough to get clean joints.  Peter chips away excess concrete, 
and has no need to go to Gold's Gym later that day.

Looking northerly from the SE corner of the courtyard, 
the initial drain and supply lines for the pond are on the right.
To the left, the last walls at the Main Gate 
are still wrapped in their plywood forms.


Meanwhile, "out back", on the west side of the courtyard, 
Stein moves ahead laying out the walls for the restrooms.
 Yeah! REAL toilets!!


Seen through squinting eyes, and a tree at SMT garden,
one can sense what the completed courtyard will be like.

And at least one of the denizens of the area has already moved in. A Killdeer plover has scratched a shallow in the gravel amid left-over re-bar.

When she isn't busy luring people away from the nest 
with her feigned broken wing routine, she gets some sit-time on them. But I fear nesting in the middle of a construction site is not conducive to successful incubation.

Friday, April 11, 2008

ZCY TIDYING UP THE MAIN WALLS

The various tasks of tiding up continue.


Seen from the SE, the East Wall's East side is the most complex of all. This is because various pieces, which will connect it to Gathering Together Hall, are getting started: the ends and the gate in the middle all reach out to the right. In the future they will continue to form the courtyard to the west of GTH.


Same wall from the NE shows the preparations  for the surrounding walkway continue on the left, and the bridge over the water element on the right. Look at Frank, working  in two places at the same time!


Here in close-up, we can see the men standing on a bridge, actually on the form-work for a concrete bridge, which will span the water element flowing from the courtyard to this side. They are setting the form for the last piece of the east wall, which, along with a couple other small wall elements, will be shot-creted. The small rectangles, embedded in the walls...sometimes light colored, sometimes dark, are the steel plates to which the steel cores of the roofs will be welded. 


Meanwhile, back-filling, and, here preparing for small concrete slab at the south gate, as well as for the large slab in the courtyard itself, continue all around the site.


Forms and re-bar are being set where ever sidewalks and ramps will be poured. Here pieces of fiber-board are being attached to form expansion joint between walk and wall. In the summer concrete can expand enough to crack adjacent walls or walks if such joints are not placed between them.

What's missing? No container! Still tied up in port, clearing USDA (Agriculture) inspection (bugs in the wooden crates?) and customs. Someday soon we hope it will be released.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

404 MBATH GETS A FLOOR

Meanwhile, back home, progress is slow.

But, progress there has been.
The glass blocks are all grouted and caulked.
The ceramic tile pavers have been cemented to the floor.


Still need to be grouted.
When  they are, they will show why one should not drink beer while laying pavers.
Here are the first lines between my feet. Ain't they nice and neat?

And here are the last lines: things have gotten out of hand!!
But nothing a nice oriental rug won't cover up.

Friday, April 4, 2008

ZHICHUNYUAN BARED

What a splendid day to visit! Dark clouds, spitting rain, streaking and staining the exposed walls....like ruins in Ankor rising from the jungle!


But ruins not! The forms are gone, the NEW walls stand firm and tall. We all know this view from the gazebo. Can you recall looking out and trying to imagine where the first courtyard would be and how big it would be?


Our good old standard shot: 
Looking north from the SE corner.


A new panorama: 
Looking west at the East Wall from the future site of the Gathering Together Hall.


Looking south thru the Main Gate.
Forms from various low walls are being removed, and large drain pipes are being added. The rain waters will drain north, under the Main Gate to a retention pond in the Future Welcoming Courtyard. I suppose in the future, they will drain into the Pond and down to the Lake.

With a couple kicks, and a forceful pry on the crowbar,
another section is jammed into position.


Meanwhile, another major piece of the pie is getting underway.

Matt of TurnStone is working the smart end of the survey equipment. That is KJ site supervisor Robert on the other end....

TurnStone will turn this area (the NE corner of the site) into a water feature which will flow from inside to outside of the courtyard. 

A concrete cutter has just bored a hole between outside and inside.


In the SE corner, the best part of this phase of construction has begun: backfilling.

Grading, shoveling, raking, tamping...covering the foundations, the drain pipes, the electrical conduits...creating a smooth, level surface. After weeks of climbing up and down into holes and ditches, all are ready for the completion of backfilling.


Meanwhile, another country is heard from:

The first of some 40 containers arrived today on the Cosco Antwerp, the bow of which we can see from our apartment. So, maybe that one there...on the right, two over, three up???