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.

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.