One part of the reason the door took so long is I decided to get drywall and insulation back on the garage walls and ceiling. And I wanted to get the landing water tight for the winter, so I had to finish the end wall.
I had a custom newel post made by a local craftsman (Mukesh Prasad from http://americanwoodturning.co/) Here’s a photo he sent me while he was working on it:
The finished piece, ready for paint.
Now I need to install this monster.
The building code requires the railing to be 42 inches above the level of the landing, so I need to come up with a way to extend this up. I really do not want to tie into the ornate post on each side.
Using the old railing posts, I decided to make something that sits on top.
I’m not happy with the way this looks, and have since seen an example on another house that I want to copy. But that will require getting a custom metal fabrication. Right now, this will have to do for the permit.
I put back all the insulation that Misha had helped me remove many years ago (no photos).
Emilio had some time available, so he helped me install all the drywall on the ceiling and walls. We used a drywall lift to get it on the ceiling — absolutely a great tool!
It’s looking almost finished! Now I just need to get the floor slab done.
To start, I did a small portion beside the garage side door.
I did put rebar in there, just failed to take any photos…
Finishing concrete with a hard trowel finish is a satisfying thing.
Now to get the rest of the reinforcing in place.
There’s an island of slab that I did not remove. I have to drill many holes into the sides of it to tie it into the new slab.
Here it is partway through laying out the rebar. I used epoxy to install ‘dowels’ into all the holes I’d drilled.
Arwen came down to inspect, and mole helped to tie rebar.
