New photos!

Check out the slideshow for new photos from Randy, our Site Superintendent.

Glacier Recycle

Early on, we knew construction debris would be an issue. Not only the amount of debris from the ceilings and other construction, but the ADPi property in Seattle is in the center of the Greek houses; parking is very difficult. The sorority sits on 18th & 47th, with 47th being one of the bigger streets in the Greek Community for foot traffic and cars. We didn't know where we could put a dumpster.

It turns out you can get a street use permit for a dumpster. Ours was around $400 for the summer and we actually secure about 4 extra parking spaces with the street permit.

Dump runs can become very expensive. I was interested to find if there were other options than your traditional dumpster. Big thanks to our friends at O'Brien & Co for leading us toward a great green resource for the project - Glacier Recycling. What Glacier does is takes construction debris, sorts it into recyclable materials, and discards the rest. The best part is - they have a 95% recycle rate!! Check out this Photo Gallery of how they sort, it is pretty cool! Also, recycling is MUCH less expensive than a traditional dumpster. Based on our estimates, Glacier will come in approximately 80% more cost effective than taking everything to the landfill. And, of course it's better for the environment and world.

We've worked hard on this project to consider green scenarios for each of the trades - more to come!

47th Street in the University District

Demolition Begins!

I'm happy to report we are already 2 days ahead of schedule, thanks to Randy our site Superintendent & his crew at Marquise Drywall. Every Tuesday at 8:30am there is a sub-contractor progress meeting in the War Room at ADPi (otherwise known as the Phone Room). I walked in this morning, and was shocked to see almost all of the ceilings out on the first floor.

Foyer

Dining Room

Formal Living Room

As expected, on Day 2 of Construction we're already running into some changes now that the ceilings are opened. We have knob-and-tube wiring in the old (1950's) portion of the house. Richard our Electrican will have fun with that.

In the long hallway in the 1966 addition to the house, we planned to put in a row of cans. Today the discovery was made (photo left) of heating piping, so cans won't be possible.

We planned to install a new recessed dome in the foyer, but discovered a steel beam exactly where the dome was planned. (We'll still do it, but location has slightly changed)

Also got a fun call today that the freezers in the kitchen stopped working, probably due to the circuits coming on and off. The housemen (more on them later) were able to run the frozen food over to Chi Omega until we can find a better solution.

Moving Day

In order to start the construction project, all the furniture had to be moved from the basement and first floors. We decided to try and store all the items upstairs on the 2nd and 3rd floors. This ended up being a great option and almost everything fit in the bedrooms on the 2nd floor. I highly recommend our movers, Two Men and a Truck. They were awesome to work with and very efficient. They came out Thursday, Friday, and half of Sunday to complete the job. They wrapped all the furniture and breakable items. It took a crew of 6 guys for ~20 hours to move everything!

We used over 1,000 boxes to pack up the bottom two floors! It was great to go through some of the storage rooms and recycle a lot of unused items and do general clean-up. On Friday we were able to donate several gently used items to Northwest Center.

A lot of the rooms in the basement have been pretty messy for several years, the storage closets in particular. Now these closets are completely empty - it will be nice for the girls to start off the next school year with a really clean house.


It was a pretty hectic couple of days as the chapter women were still moving out of the house. And boy do they have a lot of stuff! We had a system of marking the upstairs bedrooms with a green piece of paper if the room was completely checked out and ready for the movers. At times, the girls moving out was the bottleneck, so we had the movers help with the heavy lifting of girls' furniture. I wish we had that when I was in college!

All in all, Lesley, Dorae, and Ms. Carolyn, our housemom had to stay at ADPi until past 9pm checking girls out (house closed at 8pm Friday). I don't remember ever having finals on Friday, but there were 30+ girls moving out on the last day.

Project Overview

There are many upgrades in the works for the remodel project this summer. As the project manager from the Corporation Board side, I'll be providing photos and updates as the project progresses.

The project started to add fire sprinklers to the ADPi house. Safety wise this makes sense for our plant - we have ~105 women living in. Also, our insurance cost will reduce by 40 PERCENT (!) with this addition. We toured other sororities with fire sprinklers and decided for the upper floors we need to have the sprinkler pipes concealed. This is an example of an exposed sprinkler pipe. In most commercial settings, you wouldn't notice exposed sprinkler piping, especially if the pipes are painted like this one.
However, since the sorority is really a home, and not a commercial space, the board thought it was important to preserve the integrity of the house. On this next photo you can see the concealed sprinkler plate, next to the fire alarm. It is much less intrusive aesthetically.
However, in order to conceal the piping, most, if not all of the ceilings in some areas need to be removed. It is quite an undertaking. Also factor in our timeline - school ends June 12th for the summer, and the girls arrive back at the house to start Formal Recruitment (biggest event of the year) on September 1st. This is an ambitious project with a very rigorous schedule on the subcontractors to say the least.

This is how we decided on two phases for the Sprinkler Project. Basement/1st floor, Summer 2009, and 2nd Floor/3rd Floor, Summer 2010.

Other additions include new lighting on both floors, new high-efficiency boilers, plumbing work, new carpet in basement/library, new flooring in downstairs bathrooms and kitchen, as well as painting & new interior decorating throughout.

Overall, it's going to be a fun summer!