day one hundred seventeen // forty three.

today was somewhat awful. robert told us yesterday that all we were doing today was moving drywall and cleaning the site. so i was prepared to be done by 12, maybe 1 at the latest. shortly after we got to site, a lowe's truck arrived with 5 stacks of drywall, plus we had one stack left to move in from the last delivery. fortunately, we were able to put the stacks right by the entrance, so we didn't have far to move the drywall. so it took us maybe 2 hours to relocate all the drywall, so i thought we were in good shape for leaving site by 12. HOWEVER, cleaning the site was WAY more involved that anyone initially thought. we cleaned outside fairly quickly, just picked up all the random wood & trash that was strewn about and threw out the trash / piled the wood very haphazardly by the shed. it was no big deal. however, inside, we had to move EVERYTHING. apparently, drywallers don't like having things in their way when they're working, and will just walk of a job if there are things in their way. i mean, i understand that i guess. it was just really annoying because we don't exactly have room outside of the building to store things, so we had to get very creative. after we cleaned the whole building we had to move all the plywood 'doors' that are cover up the curtain wall openings from the inside of the frame to the outside. that way they can drywall up to the frame. and that took FOREVER. mostly it was just frustrating because we kept thinking we were about done, but then new problems would appear. oh well. by 4.00, we got everything done. and now we have a 4 day break until we get started back up again! woo!

day one hundred sixteen // forty two.

there was a lot of work to be done today, and i didn't have to work at fleming's, so once again i ended up staying the whole day. i was hoping that we would be able to get the majority of the pavers done, but alas, we didn't make much progress on those. there weren't many people on site today, and the insulation needed to be finished so that the drywallers could proceed. so this morning, all 8 of us worked to finish the insulation instead of working on the sidewalk. cori, laura & i worked in the tall hallway to finish up the upper half of the wall. it wasn't hard, but it was kind of a pain because the insulation is itchy, and i seemed to be breathing a lot of it in despite the mask i was wearing. also, we had to use the super tall / sketchy ladders. anyway, that took us the most of the morning.

after that, cori & i swept gravel into the curved brick area that we finished up yesterday and the day before. then after lunch, jessie & laura worked on putting more bricks down on the curved area, while cori, megan & i attempted to redo the strings that jayson did yesterday. he did a LOVELY job of marking everything out with stakes & strings, and the plan was to make it SUPER easy for us to finish the sidewalk today & tomorrow. however, lowe's came by with a delivery of drywall yesterday afternoon, and they unfortunately had to drive their tractor/forklift thing RIGHT through everything. so that sucked. and jayson wasn't here today to redo everything. i talked to him briefly on the phone & he described everything to me, and i understood the concept perfectly. however, when it came time to actually set all the strings & such in place, it didn't work out so well. i think my brain was having an off day. anyway, our attempt failed, so hopefully jayson will be able to set it back up tomorrow/explain it to me again so that i can do it for real next week. we'll see. but either way, the sidewalk isn't getting done this week. tomorrow is only a half day, and all we're really doing is moving another stack of drywall inside [yay] and cleaning the site. then robert is going to the beach for 4 days, so i think we have monday & tuesday off! YAY!

day one hundred fifteen // forty one.

today was another productive day! which is nice, because last week was not so productive. this morning, allison & i finished up the edging of the paths we've done so far. and now we're both pros at cutting bricks & putting the puzzle together. while we were working on this, jayson & some other people were putting in MORE gravel to get the other paths prepared for brick. and they have that pretty much good to go. after lunch, we got started on continuing to lay brick on the curved path. and we reached the portion that actually curves, and it looks good! we about doubled the length of the path from yesterday, so at this rate i think we'll be able to get done by friday! jayson & allison won't be around tomorrow though, so i suppose i'll be in charge of getting a lot of bricking accomplished tomorrow. thankfully, i don't have to work at fleming's, so i'll be able to be on site all day! yay.

also, i'm starting to get a bit concerned about how the building is going to be finished.... since class technically ends this week, pretty much everyone is done. yet we still have a LOT of work left to do. plus gtcc had their last day yesterday, and not all the siding is done :/ so i have a feeling that it will basically be the 8 or so of us interns [gabe, megan, denise, anna, cody, josh, lauren, & myself ] that will be doing a lot of the remaining work. i'm sure random people will show up here & there to help out, but i don't think we can count on continuous work from them! oh well, we'll just have to see how it goes i guess....

day one hundred fourteen // forty.

today was loooonng but very productive. all that was really to be done today was continue bricking. there were three teams working: jayson, allison, et al once again fixing the first past by the atrium [they got it nice and level yesterday, but it wasn't parallel to the house], amy, elise, kim and maybe some more people putting more gravel on the path to get it ready for bricking, and shannon, jessica and i working on our path by the mechanical room. i picked up the art of bricking by observing and helping jessica, and we got our path mostly finished by lunch. also, we got the diamond saw set up, so that we can cut the bricks in half to fill in the holes in our harringbone pattern. it's a crazy saw that spits water on the blade as it cuts to keep it nice and cool & cutting properly. it takes a while to cut through the bricks because you can't push them through fast, but it cuts them nice and smoothly.

lunch today was AMAZING. shannon from gtcc brought his green egg grill and cooked us some hotdogs! plus we had chips and veggies and AMAZING brownies that jessie cooked. it was lovely :)

after lunch, harold from pine hall brick came to help us with the branched off and curved portion of the path. we had NO idea how to go about accomplishing this task in the short period of time we have left. so harold was nice enough to take the afternoon to help us and show us how to do it! we changed the pattern for the curved part from the harringbone pattern to a running bond pattern, which is wayyyyy easier but still looks nice. it doesn't involve complex cutting t0 create the curve, so we all like it. so harold showed us how to make the branch off of the first path area. this does involve a lot of cutting, but it's not horrible. i started cutting the pieces to fill in holes while jayson, allison & harold got started on the running bond. they got a LOT done in the 4 or so hours we were working on it, and i'm confident we can get all the sidewalks done by the end of friday! and it's all thanks to harold :) he was so patient with us, and did a great job of explaining everything and helped out a lot too. he stuck around for over 3 hours this afteroon, and even bought jayson, allison & i popsicles when the ice cream truck came around! basically, he was amazing :)

day one hundred thirteen // thirty nine.

unlike the past few days, today went by quite quickly! even though the work i was doing pretty much sucked, at least i was doing something. first, robert greeted me today by informing me that i have another wire to run. surprise surprise. at least it wasn't a horrible one to do. robert & i both agreed that we hate our electrical engineer though, because once again this was one that he missed putting on the plans. anyway, jessica & i tackled this one wire. it wasn't too difficult, just a royal pain in the ass because all our previous holes have been caulked/insulated over, none of the drills seemed to work, and the major channels for wire are covered with metal plates. whatever. we got it done in an hour or so i think. after that, i went to help people with the bricks. there is apparently all kinds of drama going on with that, with people doing it wrong/people trying to be perfectionists with it/i don't know. but whatever was done last week got ripped up and started over again today. who knows. i didn't really know what was going on, but i helped out as i could. so, i shoveled gravel. at least it was tiny baby gravel compared to what we leveled out in the whole building before the concrete was poured and such. anyway, i did that for the rest of the day. and when everyone was on lunch, i continued in other areas to get the gravel up to sort of where it needs to be for bricking. hopefully tomorrow, everything will be mostly level, and we can start laying the brick.

and once again, the site was covered with various people doing things. so the driveway was poured! and the drywallers came! they started on the ceiling though, so it's not super exciting yet. but hopefully it will be soon!

also today, i have been going through my blog and somewhat formatting it to turn in a rough copy on thursday. and i cannot believe how many times i said: wiring is almost finished! and it started wayyy back on june 23, a MONTH ago. little did i know i would STILL be dealing with electrical today....

day one hundred twelve // thirty eight.

today somewhat sucked. there weren't many of us there today, so most people just continued painting and bricking. megan & i volunteered for a 'meticulous job', which turned out to be cutting off strips of the stucco around the front and side of the building. there are apparently going to be metal strips inlayed into the stucco, but they weren't marked when the stucco guys when around with their first coat. and while megan and i were working on this, the drywallers came! however, they officially suck. they saw that the drywall was all outside [because lowe's delivered it all on the wrong day, and we weren't able to put it inside]. so it's been chilling outside, covered in plastic. HOWEVER, they decided they didn't feel like moving it all inside, so they did some complaining then left. so, we were all pulled off our jobs to move all the drywall inside. it was NOT fun. first of all, there were like 150 sheets. and they seem to be extra large sheets of drywall, at least they appeared to be bigger than i remembered drywall looking. so there were like 12-15 of us moving all this drywall inside. needless to say, it sucked. oh well, at least i can skip my arm workout at the gym today. anyway, this took us maybe and hour, and robert decided that we had done enough work, and let us leave early!

day one hundred eleven // thirty seven.

today was amazing because i didn't have to do ANY wiring. other than that though, it was actually quite boring. we couldn't do much this morning because we hadn't passed all our inspections yet. so there were some people working on the sidewalks, and some people painted. i painted for a while, but we couldn't do much because the sidewalk team was working where we needed to paint. therefore, we couldn't paint. so i spent most of the day wandering around searching for work. i did a few things here and there, like clean up the inside of the building, and picked up some paint from duron.

elsewhere on site, there have been tons of contractors around doing things. the stuccoing & insulation continued today, and some concrete guys came today to start making the forms for the driveway. they hadn't started pouring the concrete by the time i was leaving, but perhaps there will be a driveway there tomorrow!

also, as i was leaving, denise said that the inspector came and we passed ALL our inspections! so the drywallers can start now! yay!

day one hundred ten // thirty six.

well, my vacation ended and i had to go back to site. for some reason, i was expecting a lot of stuff, including the wiring, to be done. obviously, i should have known better...

when i first got to site, i investigated what was done over the past week: curtain wall frames were completed, a lot of siding was done, the sidewalk pavers had been started, drywall began, and some guys started stuccoing. also, we apparently passed our electrical inspection [thank god], but the inspection for the mechanical rooms [responsibility of the electrician] failed. oh well, at least that doesn't involve me. however, even though we passed our part of the inspection, there was still wiring to be done. we had to do the doorbell and fix a few wires that were in the way of the drywallers.

so today, i didn't really have a set task. no one really needed help on their teams, so i went around doing random things/helping Team Hangout. so i helped megan with the supposedly last of the wiring [it won't be], then moved some furring strips for the insulation guys. which they apparently didn't even REALLY need them removed, they were just making a big deal about it. at least we only did one room before we really realized this. anyway, that's about all i did today.

day one hundred nine // thirty five.

i think we may actually be done with wiring! today, shannon, allison, marianne, megan & i finished up a few wiring related tasks: adjusting the under-cabinet wires, adjusting 2 emergency lights, screwing in the remaining boxes into the concrete, and fixing the range wire. so now we just have to wait on the electricians to finish putting everything together!

after wiring, we started painting the siding on the front of the house! the color is really cool, and now the house is starting to look super awesome.

also, today was my last day on site before i go on "vacation" to canada! and i am SO excited to have a break! it's going to be weird coming back to site next week though... it's hopefully going to have drywall & such, and look so different!

a hot mess in the mechanical room.

day one hundred eight // thirty four.

today was kind of gross and rainy, yet most of the work we need to do is outside. but we came to site nonetheless, and worked on some miscellaneous tasks inside. megan, marianne & i repaired the wiring from the hvac holes, which didn't take too long. then we searched around for some jobs for a while, but there was a shortage of work. so we talked about our lives/iarc for a bit while we waited for robert to come back so we could ask him a question. he never arrived though, so i found a new job: painting. mira had painted a few of the rafter tails under the eaves, and i took over while she was taking a break. i got a few sections done, and then i was sent to lowes to pick up a few things. then it was 1.00, so off to fleming's.

day one hundred seven // thirty three.

despite the fact i had to get up early and work on a saturday, today wasn't horrible. first of all, i didn't have to be on site until 9.00, which is much more manageable than 8. also, i knew i was only going to be around for a few hours before we all were going to gabe's lakehouse! yay! so anyway, today we finished wiring the last intercom guy, which didn't take long. then we assessed the damage caused by the concrete guys. this week they were cutting holes in the wall for the hvac units, and consequently cut through a few wires. i was expecting the repairs to be a huge ordeal, but thankfully they weren't. some people got started on fixing them as i left, and i presume we'll be finishing up on monday!

day one hundred six // thirty two.

today we continued wiring the intercom system. it was quite the ordeal because we had to wire all the way from the matron suite to the mechanical room in the other half of the house. not only did we have to pull 200+ feet of wire through the walls and ceiling & such, but we had to drill all the holes & things involved too. so it took us like 4 hours to complete this one wire. needless to say, it was awful. however, we got it and 2 other wires done, so tomorrow we just have one more little guy to finish, then install everything in the box. and then i'm pretty positive we will be DONE WIRING. however, who knows for sure, because we've been saying this for about a week now.

also today, the inspectors came to inspect the wiring in the half of the house that is completed. and i never actually heard if we passed or failed, but hopefully we passed. and i'm sure i would have heard if we failed. so i suppose that's good news.

intercom wires.

ugly hole for the hvac units.

day one hundred five // thirty one.

today we wired the intercom system. we were hoping to have a wireless system, but unfortunately it wouldn't work because we have 2 mechanical rooms. i'm not sure why that makes it an issue, but apparently it does. but at least it only required tiny wires that are super easy to deal with, unlike the regular 12-2 stuff we've been working with. anyway, we got half of them done today, and we'll finish up tomorrow.

also today, the curtain wall guys started installing the frames! and they look pretty :) but unfortunately, they're going to be covered back up with plywood so they don't get messed up.

curtain wall frame.

i have been looking at this for the past FOUR WEEKS. ugh

doing work.

bart simpson?

hah.

day one hundred four // thirty.

wiring is the task that will never end.

today, we had to add MORE wires, for water heaters, the range, dishwasher, and a few other things. at least they were fairly easy. there were a few other small tasks to be taken care of all well, like more zip tying. also, as our electricians elizabeth & jose were connecting things, they found quite a few extra wires, that we removed. and i suspect that any wiring we do from now on will be fixing mistakes that they discover as they connect things. and i suppose by the end of the week, we will be done!

elsewhere around site: the gtcc boys are installing siding, the roof is done [i think], landscaping is beginning, and the curtain walls are going to be installed soon! yay

day one hundred three // twenty nine.

so i was really hoping that i wouldn't have to do any wiring today. alas, there was more to do. marianne, megan & i started the day by going through the whole building & checking everything again. and unfortunately, there were a few circuits that needed to be fixed. but we got people working on everything, and by about 1.00 when i had to leave, almost everything was good to go!

also today, the electricians started connecting everything together! i'm pretty sure they were laughing at our wiring work/hating themselves for having to deal with it. hahah but they were super nice about everything. they did point out a few things that are not going to work, like when we have multiple wires running up one stud, they have to be ziptied together so that they are nice and compact, and therefore pass inspection. [and by the by, if we don't pass our inspection this week, i'm probably going to have an anuerism]. she also said that for some of the boxes, where we have like a 10 wires coming out, we're going to have to get bigger boxes. this is mostly related to the pancake boxes for the fans, which technically only have room for one wire. yet we have 6 coming out of some of them. oops. but she said it won't be a huge problem, they'll just get different boxes.

i also realized today that chad, our electrical engineer who did the electrical plans, is officially crazy. i mean he's super nice and quite cute, but NOT exactly the best electrical engineer. i had been starting to realize this, since we had to do many things differently in real life than he specified in the plan, and today the electrician lady confirmed this suspicion. she was saying that in a lot of places around site, there were extra wires that don't really need to be there. aka, there's easier ways to go about doing things. but oh well, it's done now. i also realized today that i could probably be an electrician. if i didn't hate wiring so much, that is. but now that we're pretty much done, i have all the information necessary to wire a house. it kind of sucks that i had to learn it in pieces as we were doing it, but i could now legitimately wire a building. and maybe it wouldn't take 3 weeks. i could also probably make my own electrical plans, and only have to look up a few codes here and there. anyway, i suppose for the past 3 weeks i just got all caught up in hating wiring, and i didn't realize that i was actually learning all this cool shit. so yeah. i realized it today, and it's kind of awesome :)

day one hundred two // twenty eight.

today was HOPEFULLY the last day of wiring! robert told us this morning that the framing inspection is scheduled for thursday, so all the other inspections have to be done before then. and in order for the electrical to be inspected, the electrician has to have 2 days or so to connect everything to the breaker boxes. therefore, we had to get all our stuff done by today. fortunately, we didn't have much left to do! we had a team working on the exterior lights & outlets, a few on the wiring for the air conditioner units, a few people organinzing the mechanical rooms, and the rest of us doing random things that have been forgotten or missed here and there. i had to leave at 12, but it seemed that everything was being taken care of! so hopefully when i get to site tomorrow, everything will be done! :)

day one hundred one // twenty seven.

today = more wiring. yesterday, shannon & marianne kicked ass, and got a LOT of stuff from our list done. however, there's still more. megan, cori, allison & i worked on wiring the emergency lights. there are 5 of them, and we got it all done by lunch. also, at 9.00, we had a meeting with ALL [us] people. robert addressed a few things: he told us we were awesome for getting stuff done & that this program is awesome in general, don't drive around the neighborhood in a convertible/with windows down, told us the remaining schedule, and told people not to be going on unnessecary vacations, etc. he told us about this meeting the other day, and i thought it was going to be a scary, come-to-jesus meeting. fortunately, it wasn't. it was more of a pep talk, which was a nice surprise :)

the schedule for the remaining month of class is going to be as follows: finish electrical, get everything inspected, install drywall, install siding, intall cabinets, paint, and some landscaping. he said by august, all that he expects to have left is hanging doors, put up trim, etc. he also said that we are going to be doing all the drywall on the walls, but we are contracting out people to do the ceiling and to mud + tape it all. this is GREAT news, because i was starting to have nightmares about drywalling the ceilings, especially in the atrium and stuff. i was having flashbacks to when we finished our basement up in canada, and i had to hold that heavy-ass drywall so that dad could screw it in. needless to say, it was not fun.

also today, we had a lovely surprise: we got done early! megan and i were prepared to stay until 5.00 to make up our hours from yesterday, but when we got back from lunch, everyone was packed up! it was lovely :)

cody's fish.

i just love finding drawings like this around site :)

day one hundred // twenty six.

today was my 100th day of urban studio! CRAZY. i feel as if we all should have brought one hundred of something to celebrate, like we did in elementary school. i remember vividly bringing paper clips in second grade, and getting mad because everyone else had candy, which they ate. ANYWAY, this is hardly the point.

megan, allison & i actually went to clemson today instead of being on site, because we have been trying to figure out some grad school stuff. allison is also looking at architecture school, so she had been giving me some awesome information and kicking my butt into gear to get my plan figured out. so clemson has an architecture program that is ranked in the top 20 in the country, plus it's only 4ish hours away, so we decided to go check it out and see what it's about! thankfully we did, because looking at everything online, clemson looks like a great school. which it is. it's just NOT the school for me. they have ENTIRELY too much school spirit, with purple and orange and pawprints and tigers EVERYWHERE. and not just on campus. the city of clemson=the school of clemson, and there's not much else. and i don't particularly like that. and because of this, the school spirit-ness extends beyond campus, into the 'downtown' and places off of campus. it's just too much for me. and although the campus is pretty and has lots of trees, it's huge, and everything is spread out. and there are a LOT of ugly buildings. there are some pretty and old buildings, but a lot of crazy 70s/80s buildings, including the architecture building. and in it, i feel like i'm channeling a 1970's version of my dad in engineering school or something. plus the chair of the architecture department, jose cabana, reminds me of my grandpa, because he's old and funny and has an accent, and wears the same button up shirts with pens and i think a calculator and random things in the front pocket. he was cool, but he didn't seem to understand allison's questions, and answered some of them with these crazy off the wall answers that had nothing to do with her real question. and i feel like he'd be the same way in a studio, which would drive me crazy.

anyway, jose talked to us for a bit, and we asked some questions, then we toured around the building. there were no regular architecture grad students around, but there were some who are doing the architecture + health program. it's apparently only one of 2 programs in the country like this, and is way better than the other one, so people who graduate from it make tons of money. it's unfortunate that i HATE healthcare design, because jose made it sound like a great idea to apply to it. we talked to a few of the people in that studio, and they were really awesome. this one girl talked to us for a long while, and gave us some suggestions & told us about the program, what tools they have [a 3d printer, laser cutter, a library specifically for art & architecture, and some other things that aren't as cool that i can't remember]. then after this, we walked around by ourselves in the graduate studios upstairs. here, it was made very clear that we are SPOILED in our studios at gatewood. the studios at clemson were small and cramped, but allison said that they are actually quite nice compared to some other schools she had visited, and definitely better her studio space in france. so i guess from here on out i can't compare studio spaces to the ones at uncg, because they're just awesome and apparently not normal. also, we checked out some of the final grad school projects that were posted downstairs, and they just didn't blow me away. they were really well put together and great technically, but not super unique or awesome or innovative, like one would expect from a final project. so that was another thing about the program that i wasn't crazy about. i mean, i'll still probably apply to clemson just in case, especially since they do have a really good study abroad program set up, but it's definitely not my first choice school.

soooo, after all this, we went 'downtown' for lunch, explored clemson for a bit, then went to talk to a girl about megan's program in historic preservation. it's based out of charelston though, so it was a super quick meeting where the girl gave megan some info about who to contact in charleston. after this, we went and got some delicious handmade ice cream from the clemson cows, then we headed home!

on the way home, shannon sent allsion a text message, saying 'you'll never guess what happened on site today' or something like that. we all knew immediately that this wasn't good, and we had a feeling it didn't really have anything to do with wiring or tasks that people were working on. we called shannon and found out that robert was held up at gunpoint! he was in his convertible going to get something to drink, and he was stuck at the light up at the corner, where some 14-year old kid came up and put a gun to his head and asked for his wallet. he apparently called denise & got everyone to shut down the site & head home, while he chased down this kid/called the cops. shan said that 2 of the 3 guys were caught, and that the police will be increasing their presence or something around site & neighborhood. thankfully, robert is ok; he was just "insulted" that someone stuck a gun in his face. so from now on, no more riding around the neighborhood with my windows down... robert assured us though that we're safe on site, because no one in their right mind would try to rob a construction site, as there are all kinds of dangerous power tools around. so that's good i suppose....

studio project.

balcony off of the studios :)

studios.

high five!