View from the center of the building
March 30, 2004 In this first view from the center of the building, you can see the north wall is completed to about the middle of the building. Lots of piles of dirt are inside the walls, where the foundation trenches have been dug.
April 19, 2004 To the south, you can see stacks of concrete block waiting to become the southern wall. The north wall is progressing - you can see the entryway starting to bump out fron the main wall. Lots of groundwork to the north of the building as well.
April 23, 2004 The entry foyer foundation walls are done; the south wall blocks have been laid out along where they'll soon be needed. About a third of the south wall has been completed.
April 27, 2004 The foyer is finished and refilled with dirt at the proper level for the concrete floor. In the northwest corner of the building you can see black sewer pipes already in the ground, where the kindergarten-area bathrooms will be. The south wall looks done.
April 30, 2004 The inside walls have been backfilled, and the dirt surface is at the proper level for the concrete floor to be poured. First, all the underground plumbing work has to be put in place, including water, sewer, and electrical conduit. Stakes mark the locations of these points around the building floor. More black wastewater pipes have sprouted in the northeast corner, in the future cafeteria.
May 6, 2004 Lots more pipe is being buried in the floor - for water, electrical, and computer network wiring. As sections of the floor plan start to appear, the site starts looking less like a flattened sandpile and more like a building.
May 10, 2004 This image was taken at 7pm, so the lighting is different than the rest. The steel reinforcing bars are being arranged in a grid, and the orange water tubing for the in-floor heating system is being laid on top of the grid. To the west you can see the kindergarten area and two closer classrooms along the south wall have been piped. Once all the rebar and heating pipe is in place, the concrete slab can be poured.
May 12, 2004 The in-floor heating system is half done. Work continues on the gravel backfill around the outside of the south wall. To the north, hiding behind the stockpiles of gravel, you can see some of the roof trusses that have been delivered.
May 18, 2004 More of the heating system is in place. The new blue tubing supplies hot water to the distribution valves, which send heat through the orange loops in the floor. The vent pipes that were standing eight feet tall have been shortened. Gravel backfill is complete around the north wall as well.
May 20, 2004 Looks like the concrete trucks were here yesterday. The first two thirds of the floor is poured, covering the heating tubing and other plumbing. Bundles of lumber and insulation are being delivered, so the walls can start going up. While the framing is starting in the west, the underground work can be finished in the far east section of the building, and the last of the floor will be poured.
May 23, 2004 The framing crew has been hard at work, even at 5pm on Saturday. The outside and room walls are done from the playground end to about the center of the building. The crew is also putting up the cement block firewall which will break the complete building into thirds. After the framing work is done, the roof trusses can be lifted into place, and it'll start looking like a building.
You're standing in the middle of the great room / library, looking out the front door at the parking lot. Starting at the north, going around in an east-south-west direction, we have office space, hallway toward the cafeteria (E), bathrooms, teacher lounge, windows looking out to the woods (S), a computer room, the hallway toward kindergarten and the playground (W), a resource center, and back to the front door.
May 26, 2004 The hallway to the west looks a lot darker, as the roofing trusses and outside wall insulation makes it more like a building. The walls of the great room around us are going higher as well - the southern wall will have two stacked rows of windows facing the woods. The firewall to the west is also growing - it's over the doorway now at nine feet high.
June 1, 2004 The firewall to the west is complete. It will be covered in sheetrock like the rest of the school, so it won't have that institutional brick look. Today's heavy rain has left puddles all over the floor.
June 3, 2004 The last of the concrete floor was poured between rainstorms today - look out the doorway to the east to see a worker riding on the power trowel, flattening out the new cafeteria floor. Want to learn more about concrete? Visit dee Concrete's Concrete and Paving Glossary
June 9, 2004 In less than a week since the concrete was done, we have framing, walls, and a roof over the cafeteria end. Electrical work continues in the western third of the building. The large wooden beams that will make up the structure of the great room have arrived, and are being cut to size.
July 21, 2004 A view of the great room, as high much as you can see with a wide-angle lens. You're standing in the center of the eastern wall, looking south-west-north. The overhead beams are 17 feet above the floor - the ceiling peaks at over 25 feet high.
Track lighting is being installed on some of the overhead beams. This view is over the main entrance on the north wall of the great room.
July 26, 2004 It's hard to get a good idea of what the room is like from this shot, since the walls go up higher than the camera can see. The sheetrock work is nearly complete in the great room and offices around it. Lots of windows into the two rooms on the west will make this space seem even larger.
August 24, 2004 Sheetrock and painting are done; work continues on the windows between the great room and the adjacent classrooms. This is also the last time you'll see toilets in this room (they're in the cardboard boxes to the north).
August 29, 2004 A fly's-eye view of the great room, looking down and north from the middle of the windows on the south wall. Now that the floor coatings are being applied to the classroom floors, this area becomes Carpenter Central.
August 31, 2004 The eight wall sconces are installed, and give a wonderful even glow to the room at night. Track lighting on the exposed beams will allow additional light to be located as needed.
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