Sunday, February 1, 2009

Final Coat Applied

I just wanted to post a few more pictures now that the floor is finished. Some of these are taken from the 2nd floor mezzanine.



Posted by Picasa

Applying First Coat of Floor Finish

I don't know if I mentioned that three of the guys from System Three came to the site for the application of the first coat of floor finish. System Three manufactured all of the resin for this project and custom tinted it, too. I also used their urethane top coat for the columns, seats, and platforms. For the floor, they're chemist, John Bartlet, formulated a custom coating using the most durable, water-based urethane combined with robust UV inhibitors to protect the epoxy and pigments. He worked with my floor guy, Craig Munson from Seattle Floor Service, to make sure it was a top notch product. Below, Tyler is wiping the floor clean after sanding to prepare for finishing.

When we started applying finish, everyone grabbed a brush and started cutting in. Dick Anderson, System Three VP of sales, and John Bartlet, VP of R&D, are in the yellow hard hats. When I first met with System Three about 2 years ago for this project, John Bartlet tried to talk me out of it. Once I started showing them samples and getting serious about process, he and Dick jumped on board and gave me a ton of first class support. I couldn't have done this project so well without these two guys.


Here's Craig applying finish. I'm behind the post with my applicator desperately trying not to screw the finish up like I did with my hardwood floors in my own house.



Here's the team photo. From left to right, Dick Anderson, Craig Munson, John Bartlet, myself, and Tyler Cufley.

Posted by Picasa

Thursday, January 29, 2009

First Coat of Floor Finish

We put the first coat of finish on today. It was pretty satisfying to finally see the floor how it should look. We'll put another coat on tomorrow morning.




Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Floor Sanding


Here's a quick post about sanding the floor. My floor guy, Craig Munson of Seattle Floor Service, is running the buffer over the tiles. Before Craig came, the floor got about 30 hours of sanding using 6 inch orbital sanders to dial in all the seams. Craig brings levity to the job site.



Tyler is following Craig around with the shop vac in an attempt to keep the dust under control.


Here's a little video of Craig sanding. No big deal. Craig buffed the floor for 3 hours, which is about 2 and a half more than he would usually buff a floor this size.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Finish applied

We started brushing on finish this week. There are a lot of steps to do and they all take time, but the results have been really great.

Above, one of the seating areas is finished while the floor still looks like crap.

Here's a detail of how the counter and column intersect with a 1/4" cork joint.

Also, finished one of the exterior columns. I don't think I've blogged yet about tenting the exterior columns for finishing. I'll try to do that tomorrow.
Posted by Picasa

Sand and Cork

It's been a while since I last updated. I guess that's typical for people who start out with good intentions for blogging. I haven't done a great job photographing progress, but here's what I've got.

All of the 1/4" gaps between tiles, seats, columns, and platforms were planned to be filled with cork grout which is ground up cork and acrylic binder. It has the consistency and workability of oatmeal. It dries really slowly and isn't cheap so I'd always planned on using a 1/4" thick layer of cork with something else to fill the 1.75" beneath it. We ended up using sand (which was a great recommendation from one of the Howard S. Wright contractors) because it's inert and fluid enough to move if the tiles shift. We dumped 200 lbs of sand on the floor and swept it around until it was gone. Above is a picture after we got the sand in the gaps.

So after we got the sand in the cracks, we noticed that if vibrated, it would compact by about an 1/8". I didn't want it settling after we applied the cork, so we put down a blanket and stomped on the tiles for about 2 hours. We looked really ridulous. Many contractors came to watch and left shaking their heads. Above is Tyler stomping. I only had one blanket; so we had to share which made it look like we were performing some sort of ritual.


Then we spent a day and a half grouting the joints with cork which was really messy and made everything (temporarily) look like crap.
Posted by Picasa

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Seat blocks installed

On Friday and Saturday, we installed the 12 interior seat blocks. There are two sets. One that surrounds the above column, making a more intimate space.

And the other in the corner by the entry window.

Here's a picture of Dan, Tyler, and myself sharing an intimate moment in an intimate space.

Posted by Picasa

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Tile installation: Day two


Joe, Evan, and John came back on Thursday for the second day of installing tiles. Actually, it turned out to be their last day because they finished a day ahead of schedule. They credited the righteous sub floor making their job so easy. All modesty aside, I'd have to agree.


Here's a picture looking down from the mezzanine. The blue X's mark the locations of seating elements.

Joe provides a scale reference to the columns and platform.


The tiling crew, John, Joe and Evan, standing on top of their excellent work.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Tile installation: Day 1

Joe Boscacci and his colleagues, Evan and John, showed up today to install tiles. We spent the first half of the day figuring out how we would maintain our grid. They were very thorough in preparing before installing the first tile, pictured above.

This is what they got done in the second half of the day. They went way faster than anyone was expecting. They said it was due to having a really righteous sub floor (see previous post for more sub floor bragging.)

The blue X's are where Tyler and I will place the seat blocks tomorrow. The reveal between tiles will get filed with cork grout next week.
Posted by Picasa

Really nice sub flooring that will soon be completely covered up

We layed down 40 sheets of 15 mm Baltic birch plywood in two layers on Monday and Tuesday to create a floating sub floor for the tiles. Baltic birch is nice plywood that is usually used for making furniture, but it makes for a super premium, grade A #1 sub floor, too. The black sheet underneath the plywood is a vapor barrier to isolate the tiles from moisture.

Here's Tyler putting in the 1000th screw connecting the two layers of plywood.

Here's a picture of what might be the nicest sub floor man has ever created--not that anyone really cares.
Posted by Picasa

Saturday, January 10, 2009

2nd half of decking installed

I stopped by Rollin Street today to inspect the finished concrete work that my floor tiles will sit on. I took some photos of the upper deck that we installed last Tuesday. I hadn't taken any photos while we were installing because it was such a tremendous pain in the ass to install that there was no time for such frivolities.

This is a shot from the 2nd floor mezzanine that overlooks the lobby. While the architects have been great to work with and have done an excellent job designing the lobby space, they did accidentally forget about an HVAC register that ended up being placed right above the platform.

The concrete slab ended up looking really great thanks to Larry, HSW's concrete finisher. He worked on leveling it out for three days. When I saw it on Friday, two hours before quitting time, it looked pretty whacked. Somehow in those two hours Larry made it all happen.
Posted by Picasa