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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Floor mock up in studio

I mocked up the floor tiles today for the entire lobby so that I could figure out where everything will go ahead of time. Below is Tyler helping layout tiles. He's helped me fabricate this project from start to finish. I doubt I could have done this project as well without him.

Here's a spot for people to sit.

The tiles look frosted or foggy now because the tops are sanded. Once they're installed, the floor finish will turn them clear again.

All of the tiles were cut from three of the salvaged timbers. They've been kept in the same order from cutting and book matched to make the mirror image pattern.

Counter Installation

I installed this counter height chunck of decking at Rollin St yesterday. The 2x6's were salvaged from the former building on site where they were nailed together for floor decking. I pulled the 20 foot long boards apart, denailed them, planed them, graded them, glued and screwed them back together, filled the voids with blue resin, sanded them flat, applied clear epoxy all over, cut a hole in the center and slotted it over this 9 foot tall column.

The architects have designed a really great space for my work. I feel really lucky to have them on this project.

The tradesmen on site are a great group as well. I've borrowed three different tools from the guy whose face you can see in the above picture. They all want the building to look good and are proud of their work.

Here's a shot of the space with most of the interior columns visible. Today, we delivered and installed the bigger chunk of decking. We worked 10 hours without taking a break and barely got it done. Didn't have time to shoot pictures, but I'll go back later this week and follow up.

Rollin Street timber salvaging

After nearly three years since I got my commission to make a work of art for Vulcan's Rollin Street Flats at the corner of Westlake and Denny, I'm finally installing the work. This is how the fabrication stage for my Rollin Street Flats project started on a sunny in February of 2007.
Here's some images of my studio as I worked with those 100 year old timbers after salvaging them from the Rollin Street site during demolition of the former buildings.Installation for the project started at the end of November with anchoring 8 tall timbers into the structural slab. Fabrication Specialties handled the heavy lifting. The next phase of installation starts next week and continues for about 4 weeks. I'll try to update with photos as it happens.