Category Archives: Business

The Final Countdown

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It appears the fated day has finally arrived. Final inspection on the building is scheduled for 27 March (and hopefully in the morning). There’s almost nothing left to do before then so it’s just a waiting game now. The siding is fully on and weatherproofed the roof is on, gutter and downspout are nailed off, and foundation, framing and shearwall are already approved.

It will be a whirlwind to get everything else ready to move in but since I have this upcoming week off it can’t come at a better time. I’m trying very hard to stay positive about the whole thing because we need this so badly.

I have giant boxes of supplies and materials for framing stuffed in every available corner of our downstairs. I have boxes of frames loaded on the guest room bed, huge slabs of cardboard occupying the hall, you name it, it’s cluttered beyond all rational belief.

Crossing my fingers…

Say Cheese!

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Some of you are aware that I’ve been in the process of rolling out a photobooth rental company lately. It’s coming along very well. I took a few months off from doing anything with it while the other business gobbled up my life but now the time has come to get things rolling in earnest.

I have been working with a (very patient) graphic designer to get everything on paper in the past few weeks and it has been fruitful. I honestly believe her images and polish will be a huge influence on our success. For some things there is just no substitute for a professional, so, thanks Jen!

SuperCheese Logo

I’ll post the front of the card as well, but be forewarned, neither the phone number nor the content portion of the website are live yet, although the email address is. I ended up using gotvmail.com as my telephone provider for this business. I needed a virtual telephone number and am already using GrandCentral/Google Voice for another business. I really wish I could have gotten another number from them but sign-ups have been closed for years in our area code.

The GotVMail service looks good, has a bazillion features (that I won’t likely need) but the plans are a bit spendy for me at this point. Anyhow, this is just a friendly reminder not to use that number as a way to get in touch because it costs per minute after 100min/mo. Ya know what, now that I’m talking about it I’m going to blank it out before I post it. =)

There we go, like it was never there:

SuperCheese Business Card

Our first official event is this Saturday and there is a giant heap of things to get done before then so I’m off (to bed, it’s late and I’m totally beat, even though it seems I must never sleep).

Oh yeah, I’ll try to get our flyer posted here soon too.

Let me see that again

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If it wasn’t clear from the last post, the inspector asked us to fix a few things related to the framing and shear-wall inspection. We fixed all of the things that were asked for and passed that inspection yesterday.

We’ve also installed the metal roofing and the siding trim and details. George had a guy over yesterday hanging the cement-based clapboards and he got one long wall all the way done. I was really hoping that the weather would be a bit more accommodating and allow us to get it painted but that was not to be. It’s looking like another 5 days of rain in our future.

If there is a break in the weather this afternoon I’ll be sure to take a few more pics.

Rain, rain, get the hell out!

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It’s been raining here for the last 5+ days. It’s that asinine late winter rain where it rains for half an hour, sunny for half an hour, hail for half an hour…forever and ever it seems. Our framing and shear wall inspection went mostly okay the other day. The inspector wanted us to add some blocking behind some of the seams between siding sheets, which was no big deal.

That’s not to say it was no big deal altogether because there was one bombshell. Even though the plans show the buildings at 4′ of separation and were approved as such, the inspector felt that there was potential for fire to move rapidly from the garage to the outbuilding because the eaves were close.

I wanted to point out that a garage, by nature, has a higher concentration of flammables than probably any other location in the house. Which, of course, means that if it catches fire, with all the accelerants inside, proximity of the eaves will hardly be a concern.

After all of that, the inspector mandated that one of the walls be covered in fire-retardant materials, to at least a 1 hour burn rate. That sound like a problem, but it’s not too bad. It just meant that we needed to cover the siding of the building with something like a cement-based siding or sheetrock the interior of the rear garage wall.

No way in hell was I going to tear off the wood siding we had literally just installed which left me the “alternative” of completely emptying the rear of the garage and slinging insulation and drywall. It took me the better part of 3 hours to get everything out and another 2 hours to get the insulation and drywall up.

Not much more to go, not much money left either…the race is on.

Inspected by #9

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At this point all of the interior framing and the shear-wall (exterior siding) is done. the inspection for these two items is set to occur on 12 March. That may be all we need to be signed off on a Final Inspection also but we just don’t know yet.

That’s not to say that the exterior is completely done, because it is not. There will be cement-based clapboards going on the lower section and a batten-board treatment on the upper section. Obviously, paint and gutters will need to be added as well.

Here are a few shots of how she looks as of about an hour ago:

From Building
From Building

Also slated for the exterior is an aluminum ramp and landing like they have on the newer school portables. I am still in the process of sourcing that particular item. I have found several resellers all using the same stock images online so I know there has to be at least one tier above all of these places.

I need to find some outdoor lighting to place on either side of the rolling doors also. Going to be tough I think to find something in the modern/industrial/contemporary vein that won’t cause another ka-ching spasm in my wallet.