Category Archive for ‘market’ at Beside the Stream

Archive for the 'market' Category

The last pour

Published on December 29, 2008 in market. 2 Comments

This is 8AM on December 22, the date of the last pour. The floor is nearly ready–all these screens get propped up on the little pieces of brick, and then the Putzmeister starts pumping.

The first wheelbarrow of concrete is dumped beside the building,

and then the pour begins in earnest. Except that the concrete is too thick. They need 20 more gallons of water in the concrete truck, and it’s in the middle of a snow storm.

The batch plant is so close that it’s easier for the cement truck to go back there for the water than for these guys to work outside with a hose and bucket. I left, and returned at noon.

The entire slab is poured, and it looks finished to me.

But it’s not done by a long shot. These guys worked the surface of this slab until nearly 11PM.

They did a beautiful job.

Pour #2

Published on December 20, 2008 in market. 2 Comments

We’ve had a lot of snow

but the market keeps moving along. The sliding glass doors are in,

and this guy is just finishing the surface of the last corner of the second pour.

The site dog is wise to concrete, but I asked Jessie to leave.

They’re getting ready for the third pour on Monday.

Also, (thanks to your helpful poll responses) no urinal in the unisex bathroom.

A bathroom poll

Published on December 17, 2008 in market. 11 Comments

The market will have one handicapped-accessible unisex public bathroom, and one unisex employee bathroom. Both bathrooms are made for one person at a time.

Our partner Jim wants a urinal in the public unisex bathroom: it uses less water, keeps the bathroom cleaner, and is easier to clean. This sounds reasonable to Bob.

I think it’s a terrible idea.

Since the vote on this issue is 2 to 1 and I’m sure they’re wrong, I said I’d take a poll. I keep forgetting to bring up this topic in pleasant conversation, so I thought I’d ask you instead:

Do you have an opinion about urinals in unisex bathrooms?

Here are the urinals at the Stockholm-Arlanda airport. Not bad…

They keep the toilet seats cleaner.

This urinal is Clark Sorensen’s California Poppy - Part of the 2005 “Nature’s Call” Collection. But of course, the urinal up for discussion is more like

this Kohler commercial urinal. I can put something nice on the wall behind it, like they did in the Stockholm airport. Your opinion, please?

Pour #1

Published on December 14, 2008 in market. 1 Comment

The floor will be poured in three stages, and the first pour was last Thursday.

The site dog oversaw the pour all morning and all afternoon. Here he’s in the lower right-hand corner

and here he’s half way up on the left. These guys worked until 10PM finishing this slab.

The guy who owned this truck didn’t want me to take pictures because an oil leak has left one end of the drum looking messy. The hose truck on the right pulls the pumper

which is curiously named the Putzmeister. In the German/English dictionary Putz = plaster, so this would be a “plaster master”. In English, though,

putz n.

Slang A fool; an idiot.
Vulgar Slang A penis.

intr.v. putzed, putz·ing, putz·es Slang
To behave in an idle manner; putter.

[Yiddish pots, penis, fool.]

(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.)

I’m hoping he painted that name on pumper himself; I’ll ask at the next pour.

When the cement is flowing, this hose is like a living thing.

The ceiling is coming along too. The electricians are working as fast as they can because the main floor’s going to be poured next week.

Bob loves a good project.

A Ghost of Projects Past

Published on December 13, 2008 in market. 2 Comments

We’ve taken out the market’s glass door until the floor is done, so Bob’s old drop cloth is serving as a temporary door. Age and experience changed this drop cloth into a beautiful piece of fabric. Mike suggested it’d make nice shades; I thought it was enough to appreciate it on the job site.

Market Progress

Published on December 10, 2008 in market. 3 Comments

Bob and Paul primed the new sheetrock on Saturday; Sunday the concrete cutters were there to cut in one more drain. You can see the ceiling is entirely gone: first we were replacing the ceiling tiles, then the lights as well, and now we’re replacing the grid too.

We’re still working on colors. Red, yellow and orange are colors that make people hungry. Believe it or not, we are staining the concrete a color called ‘Tangerine’. Since you never know exactly what color the concrete will turn, we’ll wait to finalize the wall colors until after the floor is done.

The ceiling and lighting was removed, so the electricians propped a few overhead lights against the wall. The new ceiling grid is set by laser,

straight as straight can be. Today is the last day for Mark and Paul, our carpenters. They did the interior framing, and the exterior post and beams; they replaced the exterior panels where necessary,

and they just finished the soffit, that nice tongue and groove cedar under the roof. That was their last task.

Nice soffit.

Pandemonium

Published on December 3, 2008 in market. 1 Comment

There were five separate trades at the store today: there were plumbers plumbing, sheetrockers mudding, electricians wiring, carpenters carpentering, and glass door installers putting in doors. For Bob, it was like juggling cats.

The sheetrockers are nearly through mudding,

and the job has gone without a hitch for them.

Is mudding the only job where people routinely wear stilts?

A man on stilts is both masterful and vulnerable. Agile. Well-balanced. The sheetrockers were finished by noon.

The plumbers were not. Ed literally found the main to the building which wasn’t the “main” that had been used for the last fifty years. He also took out a tank that had been walled in, another little surprise.

Ed was raised in the far West.

When he showed me where the tank came from, he said:

That’d be what you call dead space, Ma’am.

Mike got the soffit ready for tongue and groove cedar.

This is the frame for the front door. It fits except for the upper left corner,

so Paul takes a swipe with a saw, a chisel and a planer,

and when Bob helps ease it in, it goes like butter.

Working on the facade

Published on November 30, 2008 in market. 5 Comments

We’re redoing the walls, ceiling and floor of the market, so the inside will look fine. The exterior is more problematic.

We have a faded Kelly green metal roof with a poorly painted plastic tube along the ridgeline, cheesy railings and posts that are falling apart, and the front of the building is sided in a deteriorated 60s wood-product painted in a peeling grey. Around back the building is sided with metal panels, also grey.

Here’s the plan: replace the green roof with rusted corrugated as soon as there’s some cash flow; paint the front a barn red with brown trim and paint the sides and back next summer; use some of the wood Bob and Sam stickered last summer to give a more substantial feel to the facade.

Here Paul and Mike are setting a crossbeam.

It doesn’t quite fit so Paul jacks the roof up a little more while Mike holds the beam in place.

Paul worked as a wildlife biologist for the government for years, managing Nevada’s wild horse herds. He quit because of his blood pressure, and now he’s a smart, quick carpenter with a herd of horses at home. He was the guy who was going to capture Thankful, if Suzy had permission. And he always has a good story.

At the end of last winter, his old mare had a stroke. Paul said that after such a hard winter, there was no way he could put her down: she deserved a nice spring and summer, and he was going to make sure she got it. And he did. She was an invalid for a bit, and then she limped around, and now she still has a droopy lip and a drool and is a little slower perhaps, but she had a very nice summer, he said. Very nice.

Here are the new beams in place. At this stage, every step forward illuminates another ten steps that need to be taken (or: Gee, it still looks awful).

A busy weekend

Published on November 24, 2008 in market. 2 Comments

It has been a really busy weekend.

The framing is done, the insulation goes in Monday, and the sheetrockers start Tuesday.

Plumbing is underway, but there’s some earth that needs to be moved.

This is a job for 17-yr-olds. Guistino and Sam have been friends since 6th grade, and they’re happy to work on Sunday. Guistino is wielding the pick, and Sam has a shovel. I’m doing site clean-up and thinking how adorable the boys are