Grinding and polishing concrete is hard work.  The team from Pacific Decorative Concrete makes it look easy.

Filling the Saw Cuts with Ardex TWP

One of the decisions that we had to make was when and how to fill the saw cuts in the concrete.  We put the saw cuts in the concrete to attract any cracking that may occur.  Given the saw cuts are made, we now have to fill them.

We would have preferred not to make any saw cuts in our concrete.  Concrete cracks.  Given this fact, we wanted to do our best to minimize the probability of cracking and, when cracking does occur, we’d like to attract the cracking to certain locations.  Thus, we put in saw cuts so no single area was greater than 10 ft by 10 ft.

With the saw cuts in place, we need to fill them.  We didn’t want to have the saw cuts in a contrasting color; we do want the saw cuts to be the same feel and texture as the polished concrete.  We don’t want to feel where the saw cuts are located.

Consequently, Dave Ruiz and Hunter Martinez recommended that we fill the cracks now with Ardex TWP.  This would allow them to grind and polish the filled saw cuts so the saw cuts will never be felt.  Given their ‘hands on’ experience with grinding and polishing concrete, we went with their recommendation.

Ardex TWP (Tilt Wall Patch) compound.

Saw cuts at the bottom of the stairs.

Filled saw cut with Ardex, then ground and polished.

Hunter polishing the concrete in the bathroom in the Guest Suite.

Jo-Anne thought this lizard, on our exterior stairs, looked a bit thin. (She has the best material!)

Bryan found a potential source of reclaimed Douglas Fir beams in Kenwood, CA.  The beams were being taken out of a 100+ year old building, located at the South East corner of Griswold Avenue and Highway 12 (Sonoma Highway) in Kenwood, California.

Reclaimed Beams

The beams are approximately 25 feet long and are 4x12s.  The building is being deconstructed and the beams should be available next week.  Most of the beams look fine.  There are a couple beams that have fire damage at one end.

Although these beams look good, they are too narrow as we require 6x beams.  However, we could rip the beams and get some 2×12 material …

The beams are in the roof structure of this 100+ year old building in Kenwood that is being deconstructed.

The 4x beams were supporting the roof structure over the first floor of the building.

View of the end of one of the 4x12 Douglas Fir beams. You can see the growth rings in this beam.

The view from the old building across Highway 12 is fabulous. These beams have had a great history and could work well in our home.

Watching the San Jose Sharks Beat the Edmonton Oilers

 Eric and Natasha Venzon generously offered to take us to see the Edmonton Oilers play the San Jose Sharks in the HP Pavillion.  Born in Edmonton, Bryan is a life-long Oilers fan; Jo-Anne was cheering for the home team, San Jose. 

Throughout the game, Eric enjoyed pointing out just how poorly the last-place Oilers were playing vs the first-place Sharks.  Bryan was able to stand up and cheer only once in the second period …

Sharks win 4-1 over Edmonton.

Playing of the national anthems.

O Canada!