Flooring

The Anderson guys are really busting ass now. The plaster is done on two courts, and the flooring is pretty near finished on the first. After plastering, the guys worked on the flooring of court one. It's a pretty cool process. You may remember when we had the concrete floor put in, the concrete guys were told they have to be level within 1/8 inch over a 10 foot area. They did a pretty good job of it, but there are still some high and low spots.

The first thing the court guys do is shoot a grid of the entire court area. They put little dots every thirty inches and take a measurement on each dot to see how close they are to level. Each dot is assigned a measurement--0, 1, 2, or 3--which correspond with a certain thickness of rubber pad and shim.



After they get all the rubber pads figured out, they nail them to a section of wood and create a big lattice of wood on the floor, and then finally top it off with the top-grade maple, sand it with 40 grit paper to get a nice nap, paint the lines and we're good to go.

It's not the best description, but the point is, it's very time consuming, but the end result is a level floor that's nicely sprung.

Anyway, things are moving along really well with the courts. Apparently, our singer, Jordan, is hoping to be done with this job well in time for Valentine's day so he can head back to New York and to be with his sweetie. Isn't that nice?



Outside the courts, James, PJ and the Wyldewood crew are making great progress with the tiling, painting, and bar-like area behind the courts.

Plaster

Two walls down. Ten to go.

Cool colors, eh? These are not your old man's squash courts.

By the way, that is not me singing in the background. It's Jordon, one of the Anderson Court guys. He'll be mortified to find out that I captured the dulcet tones of his voice.

Home Stretch

I was away for a few days and haven't seen the progress since last Wednesday. I walked in this morning and my jaw about hit the floor. All the lighting over the courts is up and on and it's SOOO bright. Almost all the painting is done and the colors looks fantastic--thanks to Alyssa at Destree Design Architects for her good color sense!

The crew from Anderson Courts arrived on Monday and began shooting a grid on the floors. The plasterer from England arrived today and they begin doing walls tomorrow. They will start and finish one wall per day. It's a wet-on-wet plaster technique that is a very labor intensive and very fast. Once they finish one layer, they start with the next layer directly on top of the previous layer while it's still wet. According to their specs, they use 4 to 5 layers of plaster. Anyway, the head plasterer used to do two walls per day, but he's getting on in years and only does one per day now. After they finish the walls, it'll take the guys about two days to install the flooring, then another day to install the glass wall and paint the lines on the floor.



Away from the courts, some finish work has begun on the bathrooms. Some tile has gone in the showers and the primer/texture is on the walls as well. The tile is really beautiful stuff and we're happy to say is a green product as well. It's some sort of Engineered Stone that is produced with minimal environmental impact. I'll get the name of it and post a link later. In any case, it's really pretty.

Moving along

The pace is picking up as the deadline for completion is looming. There is a lot of finish work to take place yet, but the work around the courts is progressing very well. HVAC stuff is nearly finished. The duct work mostly done over the courts save for cutting in a couple of vents. They also have some work left in the restroom and office area but other than that, HVAC is finished.

Anderson Courts sent their construction manager out today to take a look around before their crew arrives on the 19th. Everything looks good. He cleared up some questions in the shop drawings for the GC, took a bunch of measurements and checked for tolerances. This job site is a lot better than most. Thanks again to Wyldewood Construction, Feuling Concrete, and County Masonry for their good work.

If things continue to progress we'll likely be open by mid-February. More on that as we get closer.

Speaking of opening, we have a Grand Opening scheduled for the weekend of March 27. We've got a couple of teaching professionals, Brian O'Hora and Mark Heather, coming for clinics and an exhibition match. Brian, a strapping young man from Ireland, teaches squash at one of the premier junior programs in the United States at Results Gym in Washington D.C.. Mark Heather, of England, teaches squash at the University Club of Chicago and continues to play professionally on the PSA tour where he reached a high of no. 39 in the world as recently as 2006.

Both are great guys and good teachers. Mark your calendars. Come to the clinic. Watch the exhibition match. More details as we know them.

The Squashstine Chapel

The ceiling is nearly done. While it's no Sistine Chapel, to me it's beautiful. The electricians are hanging the power lines for the lighting above the courts. HVAC guys are going hang the rest of their duct-work next week, and then next Friday we're scheduled to have the K-13 sprayed on the ceiling.

There's a crew there today hanging drywall in the office and durock in the changing rooms. That should be done by early next week and tiling will begin after that. The painter primed and painted the drywall above the court headwalls--this is the first official FINISHED item.

People, this is starting to look like something.

Ceiling, Plumbing, and Drywall, Oh My!

I'm pretty pleased right now. Just got back from the building and there has been good progress on the ceiling. The guys will be there tomorrow as well so, by Monday, they will likely be well over three-quarters finished. It's hard, painstaking work and it takes time and muscle, and the finished product will look very good. Once they're done, the HVAC guys will probably put up some hangers for the ducts and the electricians will hang some wire for the lighting. It looks like that bit of the project will be done soon and we'll all be very, very happy.

Work in the changing rooms is moving along very quickly. The electric work is done and the rough plumbing looks like it's done as well. I think this week they'll start putting up walls and maybe even tiling a bit in there.



Drywall is up, taped, and mudded above the courts. I was VERY pleased to see that the guys covered the court walls with some plastic to make sure that no mud or other stuff is left on the bare CMU walls. The Anderson Court people said that the walls need to be perfectly clean so that the plaster can properly bond to the block. No paint. No joint compound, no mud, no tar, no bodily fluids, no nothing. I'm really happy with the care that our general contractor, Wyldewood Construction, is taking to make sure that these courts are pristine. So thanks to James, PJ, and the rest of their crew.

Framing, HVAC, and the Overall Aesthetic

Now that the masons are finished with their interior work, PJ and his crew are able to get on with more framing. The changing rooms and shower stalls are framed out, as well as the office and the storage areas. You can really get a feel for how the place is going to look when there are actual walls. Starting next week, they'll be able to put up the Durock in the shower areas and sheetrock everywhere else, then begin tiling the bathrooms.



The biggest hold up now is the work being done up in the rafters. As you may have seen in some pictures, the building is an insulated steel building. From what I've heard, these buildings are inexpensive to build (relatively speaking, of course) and are pretty efficient in terms of their energy use. That said, these buildings are not the prettiest buildings inside or out. Thick plastic-backed insulation is squeezed under the z-girts and purlins so what you see on the inside is steel beams and white plastic insulation material.

I told you that so I could tell you this: we would like to keep the sound of the balls somewhat quiet by reducing the echo of the ball strike to a minimum. To do that, we are going to spray a sound-deadening material called K-13 on the ceiling of the building. Apparently this stuff sticks to just about anything, except of course, the plastic insulation-backing material used in steel buildings.

No problem, we'll just attach plywood to the ceiling first and spray the K-13 on to that. Great idea. Unfortunately, this process is taking a wee bit longer than we had anticipated. They were hoping to be done with hanging the plywood about two weeks ago. As it turns out, they aren't even half way through yet. That work has to be finished before they can spray the K-13 and also before the electricians hang their lights and the HVAC guys put up their duct work. Maybe by the end of this week that work will be done.

On a different note, I realize that this is going to be a squash club, a "fitness" center, if you will, but I'm really hoping that Madison Squash Works will be something more. The idea for the club has been brewing in my head for many years and is the result of visiting squash clubs and fitness centers around the US and Europe. I've taken into account things I've liked and disliked about various clubs and had the good things incorporated into our design and have avoided some of the bad elements. For example, at "Results: The Gym" in Washington D.C. one of the things I liked about it is that there is artwork everywhere: sculpture, painting, ceramics, you name it. I thought that was pretty cool. So, for our club I thought we needed to make sure that we had decent artwork on the walls because I think it's Important.

I was out at the site yesterday and noticed that the electrician had put a fire/strobe light right in the center of the wall where one might consider putting a piece of, you know, art work. Jeez Louise. I realize we have to take appropriate safety measures, but for Pete's sake do fire strobes and other ugly mechanical devices need to be placed in The Most Prominent Places?

I asked PJ if he could move this thing to a more discreet location.

You know, I'm just a jock at heart, but for crying out loud.