This year's parade house, lake lbj. About 6 weeks left, for my guys that means 10 😆

Saul one of our guys is setting up the sidewalks and mimicked me getting on the superintendents ass about the handrail, but I was wrong, lol. They are cutting the skirt board in place and welding the tubing on, seems like more work than I would do but the guy doing it is a better carpenter and welder than me in his sleep than I am on my best day so I guess I'll shut up lol

 

Front pic

This house is right across the water, fhe owners have an Intent to Build in their hands, if they sign and send me 1% they go on the list for 2024, tear down new build, nice pad. I like the neighborhood so I don't mind sticking around lol

 

Is that your hand that is all messed up John.

Sent from my SM-A146U using Tapatalk

 

It's not messed up, that's dirt and a little boo boo.

I fell out of the truck lol

 

I'm sorry.

 

Can't even be a truck azz without falling out of the seat. Leather to slippery?

 

You guys are some weird mfs 😆

 

Airbnb renovation, full gut, the demo pic is to show the level taken to, it is a metal building frame. New wire, plumbing, hvac, spray foam, windows and doors, french drain, tankless water heater etc... Under budget, making estimated turnover. Got a lot done for the budget, I originally turned it down and the guy called back and said I saw your sign up the road, we are building a house on that street. So he talked me into taking his, glad I did cool guy, didn't want to cut corners in anyway. Going to bust some clays and a couple brews when he takes it over

 

More from abnb.

 

Everything but those green cabinets look great.

 

Lol, decorators. Those cabinets were salvaged from demo for the laundry room, so had to paint, didn't have to be that color lol

 

If it was a nice dark green I could handle it. But that lime-ish green is not something I'd ever use. If someone tried to tell me to paint their cabinets that color I would have an opinion. If they insisted I would do it and tell them it looks great

 

That's the truth. I'm thinking a lot of these modern designers smoke too much dope.

If it was a nice dark green I could handle it. But that lime-ish green is not something I'd ever use. If someone tried to tell me to paint their cabinets that color I would have an opinion. If they insisted I would do it and tell them it looks great

Worse we painted it a darker shade of green and she had them redo it baby chit lol. Whatever, I got 20% on both 🤣

 

Might as well paint it powder puff blue.

 

Colorado Arm, Lake LBJ renovation. Tore the front of the house down, about to form up the foundation (just finished setting corners with a helper) next week, total gut of the 1500 existing and about 2200 sq ft of new addition.

Moved the stairs, built a bridge, swing and half roof for the boat dock while i had a couple welders freed up. Will pour concrete for the bridge and KoolKote.

 

Moved the welders over to Fredonia, standing up an 1800 sqft barn, I don't envy that task in this heat. I've done plenty of steel, everything is scalding this time of year and it's all heavy, we build steel frames and then infill with red iron purlins, not red iron buildings

The batter boards are for the house, so far out the fill is coming in so slow we are letting them bring a bunch up before we start it

 

Knotty Oaks, custom home we are building on the Llano River in Castell. Moving right along, TxElectrician crew boxing out for approval soon, roof vets dried in today/tomorrow. Hvac is set up for mid week after next.

 

3 story custom on Inks Lake, ready to go vertical on it, my brother even more so. He let the foundation guy we tried go on future contracts after the third **** up on forms here, guy thinks close enough is close enough I guess, didn't fit our mold. He missed the elevator pocket ..... lol.

This is the fourth pour besides the pool in the bottom floor.

I'm pretty sure Juan was ready to tell him (brother) to go **** himself after we are short handed, bringing in day labor and then matt tells him we (we, lol. Juan lol) gotta form that barn and house in Fredonia and that addition in Colorado Arm.

I smoothed it out though, arm on his shoulder " problem is big hoss, youre a bad MF and we cant replace you, thats why we cant hire out framing even if we want to and cant get out of the concrete business even though we are trying to.... you're the glue holding the business together ...." may or may not of been a pretty fat bonus check got written with the unspoken expectaion of a bigger one when we get past all this framing and concrete and turning houses over. I dont even know where hes finiding the fill in labor, but good hands and hes getting production out of them. Going to have to send him on a beach with his wife and let his kids play with my kids to let him get some decompression with an ice cold friendly after all this. He's got 4 kids under 12 lol

 

Our next batch of rentals. Subbed framing and kept our carpenters on higher end work. Not doing a bad job, kinda slow but it's hot AF out.

Looking at doing about her 4 on some lots we have in an unrestricted area of Kingsland, ot has city water and I think my engineer can get a cluster septic system in

 

Still working on grain fill for this. Sapele is like Oak, deep grain. Put three heavy coats of 2K poly on it and scuffed hard with 220, then light with 320 for the next coat. Noticed grain still needs to be filled. So I put another 2 heavy coats on it and that should be it. I wrapped the edge with masking tape so I don't have to scuff it again, not worried about grain fill on the edge as much as the surface.

Everything is still gloss and my final coat will be semigloss which was what the original coat looked like.

I did the 1st coat with color in the clear so I'm a little shy to scuff to hard. If I bite into that coat there will end up being a light spot in the color. Rather do more coats than take that chance.

 

Did you ever use Crystalac or Aqua Coat?

Tom

 

Got the slab poured and retaining wall in on my addition. Epoxy floor is done and I am happy with it. Got the custom makeup area for the wife done stained to match the closet shelves. I had the quartz off a job so that was a freebie. Illuminated mirror is really cool, never done one before.

 

Yes, I haven't had great luck with Aqua Coat. Might be it doesn't play well with 2K Poly.

 

Mixed 16oz of gloss with 6oz of satin to get around semi-gloss. Sprayed the money coat and it came out well.

 

Oh no pictures today but I spent the day cooking for a lot of military veterans Army, Air Force Marines for the annual Fourth of July celebration…. Not a bad way to start off the weekend.!

 

Did a door job. The company lost the doors. Not sure how they did it but all that was ledt were half the hinge leaf still screwed into the jambs. I bought 2 36x80 solid core Birch doors. Doors were nice. Frik'n heavy. The place is about 1/4 mile from my shop so I did the color match by eye. Got it on the 3rd try. Stained the inside of the door first and it was slightly darker than my sample. Added more stain base and did the outside of the door. What is showing in the shop is the outside. 6000K temp LED lights plus some sunlight did not show the color the same as inside the room.

Used a story stick to mark for the hinges to transfer it from the jamb to the door. Worked real well. Had to nudge one hinge on each door ever so slightly. Made a jig for the strike mortise and mounted the lever handles. Went well.

Even tried to adjust the color in my editor but it just wasn't having it. But they match the other doors in the hallway.

 

This countertop job won't be making me any money. Right now I'm hoping to just stay in the green on materials.

Original stripping then stain and partial finish to see it was too dark
2nd stripping to get it to a nice color only to see cloudy stripes show up going against the grain.
3rd stripping which I did with a heat gun and saved 1.5 hours or sanding but I needed more stain, stain base and gloss finish w/ catalyst. I changed tactics and filled the grain with a grain filler. Had to do a bunch of testing before I put it on the clients countertop. All worked out so now it's back to stained and I'm waiting for the stain to dry so I can put on the sealer.

No matter how I tried I couldn't get a picture that showed the cloudy stripes. But they were there.

Here's the finish that I removed with a heat gun

Here's after the first coat of grain filler. I could have used less

Here's the grain filler after a second round and it's sanded off.

And here it is back to stained. It has a sheen because the surface is filled.

The client texted and asked if I could install it Monday even though it was still a holiday weekend. Tried to call, no answer, so I texted her I had no good news and explained myself. The she texted back and I called her because I didn't want to leave it with a text explanation. Told her what happened and that I had no finish left and my supplier didn't open til Wed. And she was fine with it. Told me that if I didn't think it was good enough they would agree and then said this is why we come to you for our woodworking. Said that when it was ready it would be fine. Great customer.

One of the reasons I worked on Sun, Mon and Tues to push this along. But I could only get so far without the stain.

Gawd I hope it works this time.🥺

And this is why I don't do refinishing.

 

Well so far I haven't screwed it up. The grain filler work pretty good. Way better than without. But still not dead flat from the get go. I've put the sealer on and then 3 very thinned out (50%) toner coats and any grain imperfections are just dimples instead of deep lines. So I'll put the 3 clear coats on in succession and let that cure overnight and then grind it flat and put on the sheen coat. I could probably deliver it Friday, but I'll tell her Monday so it can cure and most of the smell will be gone.

 

I was wondering if you were going to put a post about that top, it always sucks when we go backwards on a job!

Hope everything works out without a problem!