LIGHT HOUSE 2009

Girls Recognition Night: I don't know what the exact night was called, but the girls in the ward dress up and are recognized for all of the achievements through out the year. Sunny spent alot of time in the young women program and the girls in our ward are cool, fun, and good girls. So when they asked me to make a light house for their night, it was no problem helping out.

There are no directions on the internet for building a Lighthouse. Pretty much I had to figure the whole thing out in my head and then build it. After looking at a hundred pictures online, I decided to go with the standard hexagon shape design. I wanted to do this project by myself, but after I asked Sunny to print me some hexagons on paper from Auto CAD that I could use as a template, she jumped into the project. Then of course Wayne, the best neighbor in the world was there to give his opinion.

The supports are made from Redwood 1"x1" Normally I wouldn't use Redwood, but it was on clearance and was the best option for the money. Made for a sturdy Lighthouse.

The panels were tricky because they had to be cut perfect, and because the wood was so brittle the saw blade would leave jagged edges. Once cut however, I wanted to use my DeWalt cordless nail gun to anchor them in, but Sunny talked me out of it and we ended up gluing the panels on. The blue tape is used to hold the panels nice and tight in place while the glue drys.

I have been married to Sunny for 7 plus years and it doesn't matter how tired she is, how pregnant she is, she always gets involved in my projects and then she comes up with better ideas than I do on how to build the thing.

The light house turned out perfect. I added a light, plexiglass windows, a deck with railing and a nice paint job. When I went to paint the light house, I was remodeling the bathroom and thought I would use the unfinished room as a paint booth because the wind was blowing my spray paint when I tried painting it outside. Unfortunately paint fumes filled the house and because Sunny was pregnant she had to goto my moms house to spend the night. One note of mention is that it was a real struggle to keep the symmetry lined up. Because the Light House was almost 7ft tall, I had concerns the thing would be built crooked and give off an appearance of leaning. Fortunately it turned out perfect.

The top is made out of a bird house that I modified from Michaels and the light is an attic light that is pretty cheap at Home Depot. Sunny insisted on the plexiglass panels and I am glad she did, they do give off a more complete finish. There was a revolving light that I found online for $75, but just couldn't justify spending the money. Would have been cool though.

BAR METHOD

This is one of the more higher end jobs that I have built in my construction career. The Bar Method is located right on Pacific Coast Highway and is tucked into the Crystal Cove shopping center. It was nice traveling to the beach everyday for work.

Jessica and Whitney are the two owners for this location. It was very refreshing working with them as they were very trusting and easy to get along with. When ever I asked questions about the Bar Method trying to make sure I built the place right, they always found the answer for me. They also took an interest in Sunny and Porter as he was about to make his entrance into this world a couple weeks after this job was done. They hooked Porter up with some Bar Method apparel and Jessica and Whitney remain family friends to this day.

Porter in his Bar Baby clothing

This is the large work out room. This one has alot of room, but the other is smaller and prettier. The carpet is very padded and it feels good to walk on it. The ballet bars were called out to be mounted at 32 1/4" and we mounted them perfectly to the right height. Anytime you install alot of mirrors it is important to get them perfectly flat and level with the wall so that they don't look uneven. In some places where there was a bow in the wall, we cut the drywall out so that we could maintain our consistency.

The Irvine Company was worried about the ballet bar low wall conflicting with the windows and the appearance they gave from the outside. But we built it perfect and in my opinion this is the best place in the suite to exercise. The stall bar on the left, I personally assembled and mounted it to the wall for them.

This the lobby where the women who are exercising check in before their class. The floor is a black hardwood floor that turned out awesome. The doors are left over from the bank we ripped out in order to make this place, and the chandeliers took some doing but we installed them after a few minor modifications.

The hallway leads to the bathrooms and the lockers. I made sure the lights, fire sprinklers and air conditioning registers were in a perfect line. My guys did a good job and they lined up perfectly.

The lockers were built my me and Phin the Project Manager from DBAC for this project. He forgot to add money for them to be assembled, so we knocked it out and made them look right and level. It did take us a while to remember our craftsman skills as we are both more paper pushers rather than workers in our construction careers. I really like the Tiffany Blue wall that the Architect Amy Steiner called out. It adds the right touch of luxury.

Bathrooms are always tricky and this one was no exception. We added lockers for the women. A tile floor for the wet areas and if you look closely you will see that the carpet meets the tile perfectly. The wall tiles are glass tiles which are very expensive and give of a shinny sheen which means they need to be mounted to the wall perfect or they will stick out. My tile guy who should have finished this job in one week ended up taking 3 weeks because I was very picky about his work.

Although this project was small in nature, it had every finish surface you can possible use and the dimensions for everything was very tight. Amy our Architect came to the job at least 10 times for meeting where her and I had to think up of ways to make things fit. Of course there are a few dimensions in the place where we don't meet building code. But we aren't telling where they are. One of the nice things about this project is that I was able to introduce Sunny to Amy and it turns out they went to the same Architecture School (University of Arizona) and they now help each other with their projects. One note of mention is that Amy was the youngest female Architect in the history of California.

BAR METHOD CONSTRUCTION

Painter were in and out with in a couple of days.

There was a lot of electrical in both exercise rooms confined to small spaces.

Carpet arrived in large rolled goods

Hallway being painted

The lockers for the project showed up way early and therefore they were moved all over the project during the course of construction.

The drywall tapers did a phenomenal job in preparing the place for paint.

Because of the ballet bars and stall bars we had to add alot of wood blocking inside of the walls.

Treeno is the guy who did all of our wood blocking. He also works on many of Sunny's projects including her biggest customer Applied Medical.

The framers took a little bit longer than what I would have liked, but they did do a really good job. Because the economy is so slow, workers don't like to finish jobs quickly because they don't want to go home and sit. If they have another job to go to then they will always speed up.

If you look closely at the framing you will notice that we added steel posts anchored to the concrete so the low wall wouldn't fall down. There is also a 2" x 8" lumber added to support the future install of the ballet bar.

We had to furr out this wall because it divided the suite with the tenant next door and the wall had such a big bow in it, our ballet bar wouldn't have been able to be installed correctly and straight.

The space was a bank before we tore it apart. The doors were leftover from the bank. towards the end of the job we reinstalled them.

BAR METHOD - MISC PHOTOS

Installing the new air conditioning unit on the roof


Brian, the electrical foreman for this project. He is a very knowledgable electrician and is currently the foreman for my Kraft Foods project.

Cement truck delivering concrete to pour back in the bathroom.

Raphael is the door installer. I have worked with him on many jobs. He also installed the doors at our house for us.

LA JOLLA GROUP

2008-2009 : I STARTED ONE OF THE LARGEST CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS OF MY CAREER. MY PROJECT MANAGER MATT VELTRE CALLED ME ON THE PHONE AND SAID THAT WE WERE GOING TO REMODEL THE OLD E-MACHINES BUILDING INTO THE LA JOLLA GROUP AND THAT I HAD BEEN SELECTED TO BE THE SUPERINTENDENT. I HAD NO CLUE WHO THE LA JOLLA GROUP WAS, BUT I WAS EDUCATED VERY QUICKLY. IT STARTED WITH A MEETING WITH MATT, BILL ZOLG(PART OWNER LA JOLLA GROUP), AND MIKE BROWN FROM THE IRVINE COMPANY. THE FIRST PHASE OF THE PROJECT WAS THE DEMOLITION OF THE OLD SPACE AND THERE WAS PLENTY OF IT. WE WALKED THE SPACE FROM END TO END AND BASICALLY DECIDED TO TEAR OUT 95% OF THE WALLS, BUILD A WALL TO SEPARATE THE OFFICE FROM THE WAREHOUSE AND IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF DECEMBER AND WE WERE COLD. THERE WAS SO MUCH DEMOLITION THAT WE RAN 2 CREWS OF 10-15 GUYS IN TWO SHIFTS 5 DAYS A WEEK. I WAS ALWAYS NERVOUS THAT THE NIGHT CREW WOULD HIT A FIRE SPRINKLER OR CUT A WATER LINE, BUT THEY WERE CAREFUL AND I NEVER DID GET THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT WAKE UP CALL.

DUE TO DESIGN ISSUES AND MONEY COMPLICATIONS THE PROJECT SHUTDOWN FOR A MONTH AND THEN COME FEBRUARY WE WERE RIGHT BACK ON IT. BY THEN EVERYONE OF OUR SUBCONTRACTORS ASSOCIATED LA JOLLA GROUP WITH O'NEILL SURFING AND THEY ALL WANTED IN ON THE ACTION. THE SURF INDUSTRY IS BIG IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AND MOST CONSTRUCTION WORKERS EITHER SURF, PRETEND TO SURF, OR WEAR SURF INDUSTRY CLOTHING. I WOULD GET CALLS EVERYDAY FROM WORKERS ASKING ME TO CALL THEIR BOSS AND REQUEST THEM TO BE ON THE JOB. THE O'NEILL NAME ACTUALLY TURNED OUT TO BE A BLESSING IN DISGUISE, MANY A DAYS I WOULD WALK THE JOBSITE AND THINK I HAVE THE BEST WORKERS FROM EVERY TRADE ON MY JOBSITE. THE GUYS WENT OUT OF THEIR WAY TO MAKE THE PLACE NICE. THEY EVEN DID THINGS THAT THE COMMON OBSERVER WOULDN'T CATCH. THE PHOTOS BELOW TRULY ARE A TRIBUTE TO THEIR WORK.