The Thompson Flats

We finally had a week of nice weather, so we're really working to get the exterior work done. The biggest exterior projects are finishing the brick, building the front and rear patios, and finishing the roof. One side of the brick is finished, and the masons are working hard on the alley side. We made a lot of progress on the roof, although it's still not done. Inside, the HVAC is finished, and the electric and plumbing are very close. The final task is the sprinkler system, which should go in this week.

On the alley side, we started cutting out the windows in the basement. This would have been a lot easier to do from the beginning, but we were still working out some details with the layout, so we decided to just wait and do it after the framing.

The brick guys made a lot of progress on the left side wall. The building is 50 feet long, and each brick is only 2 inches tall by 4 inches wide, so you can see why it takes so long to go up. They do each course one at a time to make sure that everything is level. Doing some quick math, that means it takes 900 bricks to go up just one foot.

This is the first floor unit. You can see the ductwork on the right hand wall and the all of the electric boxes. This week we'll start insulating.

The Thompson Flats- Closer to Sheetrock

The 10th St project is looking great. The plumbing, brick, electric and HVAC work are all about 50% complete, and should be 100% done by the end of the week. Next week we'll insulate and do final framing, so in about two weeks we will have the sheetrock up. That's the best part of the project because you can finally see the walls and layout.

Here's the wall along the alley where the brick is going up. The four masons go about 5 lines higher each day. Luckily all the masons from the other side of the house will now be working here, so this wall should really go up quick.

This is the completed block wall on the other side of the house. This week my goal is to paint it, weather permitting.

Inside, the tradesman are working. There are always tricky areas where the ducts and plumbing intersect, so this work can be tedious. Luckily in new construction there are fewer surprises.



Here's the model for the kitchens. They look amazing. Very sharp and modern. We are ordering them this week.

The Thompson Flats- Getting Closer to Completion

The building at 2106 10th St is moving along very quickly. There are 10-15 guys here working every day, and it's amazing what one can accomplish with so much manpower. On Monday, the plumber and electrician will begin their rough-ins, and the HVAC guy is coming on Weds. I've been busy selecting kitchen cabinets, because these take 4-5 weeks to build and we'll need them at that point.

We're aggressively looking for another project, and we have a few things in the works. Hopefully next week I'll be able to announce the next one!

All of the front windows are installed. It's amazing how much light they let in.

This image is from the roof, looking down at the space between our house and the one next door. The mason is on scaffolding about 15 ft off the ground. They're using the cinderblocks to build the party wall, which makes the building stronger and also is crucial in case of fire.

On the other side, more masons began the brick wall.

The basement is framed and the carpenters spent the day framing it up.

1221 12th St Basement

Four of the five units at 1221 12th St are under contract, with only the penthouse still available. We've had several interested parties in that unit, and it's only a matter of time before that unit is also wrapped up. The basement has been finished for a while, but only last week we staged it and had it professionally photographed.

Here are the images:

The basement didn't have the original pine floors, so we went with a dark oak stain.

The floor really matched up well with the brick and the white countertops.

The large glass doors really open up the space in the bedroom.

The bathrooms in the basement have the same white wall tile, marble floors and espresso vanity. This combination is so great because it's timeless.

The Thompson Flats- Looking Good

The new condo project at 2106 10th St NW is really taking shape. We have guys working hard to get the exterior brick and windows done, and then other guys finishing up inside. Today we're going to start framing out the basement unit, and then the plumber will do all of his rough-ins throughout next week.

Here's a really cool shot from a few days ago of the roof joists being installed in the loft area. This loft area is now fully complete.

This is the current status of the back of the building. They haven't put in the windows on the floor yet because they need to set up the scaffolding to get up there. You can just make out the new iron railing on the balcony.

The front windows are in- awesome!

The Thompson Flats- 2106 10th St- Framing

The Thompson Flats building saw a lot of progress this week and is really starting to look great. We finally had a week of warm, sunny weather, which really helped. Also, with The Twelve Twenty-One Condos done, we can focus all of our attention to getting this building complete. Instead of having 5 or 6 people working here every day, we're now at 10-12 people per day.

This picture is from this morning, when we poured the basement slab. The guys had to stay really late last night and come early this morning, but they got everything prepared in time for the concrete delivery at 11 AM. We had some motivation to move fast because we wanted to have the basement finished before the big thunderstorm that we're supposed to get on Monday.

Upstairs, the loft area walls were framed up. The carpenters were waiting on some more materials to finish the roof portion, but this will be finished on Monday. It will be a big relief to finally get the roof on so we can stop having to use a huge blue tarp every night to protect the wood.

It's a little tough to see, but here is the wall framing for the sliding pocket doors to the middle bedroom on the first floor.

This is the framing of the first floor unit. We're almost at the stage where the plumber and HVAC guys can start roughing in their trades. We'll probably start this next week.

The welder came by at the end of the day to install the front rail, and it looks awesome. We wanted something simple but modern. I think we succeeded!