Our quiet morning is shattered by blue-shirted alien invaders from the evil planet of Hollywood!
Click here for Tuesday's update, here for Wednesday's update and here for the final reveal update..
Day One (Wednesday):
The view out my front door. The big white semi is an equipment truck. Crew run back and forth between the truck and the site all freaking' night! The tan shipping container holds some of the interior bits - furniture, lighting, appliances, etc. That's my Golf in the foreground.
Another view of the same.
This is right in front of my house. We get one traffic lane, the rest is taken up by the portable work lights and another tan shipping container in the background.
Gotta have the manlift for the dramatic high-angle shot! Wonder if I could borrow it to clean out our gutters?
Looking down our street you can see a sea of generators, loaders and other heavy equipment lining the road. I'm standing next to one of the tan shipping containers, where some of the interior items are laid out on tables. I guess we know what style of lamps they're getting!
This is looking south down 116th. My street goes off to the left. Security guards the entrance to the location. Metal barricades are waiting to guide pedestrians. The barricade-lined sidewalk on the left is the spectator area.
This is looking west at the intersection. You can see the entire street is lined with vehicles from the production company.
This is looking north on 116th. My house is to the right. The whole sidewalk is lined with barricades to keep onlookers corralled. No parking signs are posted on one side of the street - so everyone just parks on the other side!
This was taken walking up the spectator area toward the site. The house you see sticking up in the middle is the house next to the site. You can see the entire front yard of that house and the next one over have been taken over by the filming crew. Carpentry is the big tent to the right. I wonder what the weekly rent is for your front yard?
Carpentry. Gonna need that big tent, cause only a California company would schedule an outdoor shoot in the middle of our usually rainy Seattle September. Duh!
Getting closer to the site.
This is the house next to the site. The construction office sits on their front lawn along with more tents. They're gonna have one trampled lawn when this is done!
This is the site. House and garage are gone. The excavators are clearing all the brush and trees.
This is what the 100-year old house looked like just hours before.
Some of the assembled masses watching, well some guys clearing brush. Whoopie, doo.
Another shot looking down 116th. The whole street is lined with production equipment and vehicles.
Here comes another truck ! Only 643 more to go! Yippee!
Didn't take any pictures since Day One on Wednesday. It was either rainy or I got home from work when it was already dusk.
So this is what's in front on my house now. Loaders and Bobcats taking up my usual parking place. Sigh...
The street in front my house now houses pallets of pavers destined for the driveway and other stonework down at the end of the row. That's my Golf poking into the shot in the right corner - she's such a camera hog!
Next to the pavers are storage pods and tents covering work tables. Note that all three people in the shot are on cell phones. Every third person on the set is on their cell phone at any one time. With all the electromagnetic radiation from all the phones in the area, I'm sure we're all gonna get cancer.
This is looking north on 116th. Whereas on Day One there were a couple of cars parked here, this street is now home to all the trucks belonging to all the contractors working on the site. The line of trucks extends for three blocks down the street, 24 hours a day.
This is looking north on 116th again, this time from the walkway to the spectator area. You can see piles of lumber waiting to be used.
And here's the house! They guys on the side are frantically trying to get it painted. We had rain much of the night and all morning, so I'm sure they're busting their humps to get paint down before the rain starts again.
Looks like the architects went for a very typical Northwest-style Craftsman-inspired design. Not what I care for, but very common in this area.
Pretty-boy TV stud with the white teeth, fake tan and glued-down hair was filming a spot for KOMO news.
A veritable army of blue-shirts. There are like 20
carpenters working on the front porch facade, there are half a dozen moving dirt
for the lawn, a dozen working on the fence to the left and you can see ten or
more in each room inside. A truck is arriving to haul away the old, excess
dirt. A large pile of new soil is waiting to be spread over the front yard
area.
The impression one gets is of a giant, frantic army of blue ants
over-hyped up on quadruple shots of espresso.
Here's a pretty clean shot of the front of the house. I like the combination of the multiple shades of soft greens, neutral beige and cedar shingles. It will fit into the neighboorhood. In fact, this stretch of 116th is mostly older homes, so it'll be the classiest on the block!
This is looking down the driveway toward the garage. There are 20 guys down there spreading gravel for the driveway. The garage needs to be roofed and the driveway laid. They better get moving because the contruction must be finished at 8am tomorrow morning (Wednesday) so the interior dectorators can begin doing their work. Wednesday is interior installation, landscaping and final details. The big reveal is Thursday - hard to believe they can get it all done in time!
Trying to get a high shot of the crowds on the sidewalk. You can see a double dump truck arriving to remove the excess old dirt. With our relatively narrow streets, further narrowed by vehicles parked on one side and about a milllion workers about, it's a miracle that no one has been run over by a truck so far.
Gotta have a tent selling the EM:HE merchandise! Oh, and a tent for the media weasels.
This is my street today. Completely blocked off. Thank heaven I'm on the corner and not down the street.
This is the sign at the start of the spectator viewing area. "Throughout the universe, in perpetuity"? Well, just great! Even when I'm living on Mars with my eternal life treatments done, the producers will still own my image? Damn lawyers!
This huge line of people in the driveway are people who were students of the homeowner. She runs a home-based business teaching kids and adults to swim. These students and their families were there to get a look at the pool and its surroundings. Many of these people are also volunteers, which is why many in line are wearing the infamous blue shirts. She had a older, crappy pool in the backyard, and the show put in a brand new one with an inflatable bubble over it so you can swim in the middle of the winter. Sweeeeet! Bet every person they've ever known will want to come over now and swim in the middle of December.
Yet another pretty-boy TV weasel doing a live spot for KOMO. The medical tent is in the background, being run by Evergreen Hospital.
Now, who are these girls? Well, the whole time I was there they were giggling and carrying on like only teenage girls can, chanting "We want Ty!", calling out to blue-shirt volunteers they knew and generally providing comic relief. Pretty-boy TV guy set up the camera in front of them. He would do his opening line, then the camera would turn to these pop-tarts and they would yell, scream and cheer and generally ham it up for the camera. One quipped, "ohmygod, this is so embarrasing" afterward. This went on several times, in between which they were frantically calling family and friends to turn to channel 4 and see them on TV. "Mom, quick switch to channel 4 and TiVo it, hurry", was the gist of it. If you saw them on the news, that was me behind them cracking up at the spectacle.
Here's a clear shot of the house. Painting is done, fence on the left side is done, landscaping was down to a few final touches. You can see lighting going up in one of the upstairs bedrooms. The front lawn is not the usual grass but oh-so-trendy eco-friendly, low water use plantings. Looks a bit sparse now, probably will look nicer once the plants grow out a bit.
While the outside is virtually complete, there is a mad scramble inside to get all the interior furnishings, lighting, doors and touchup painting done. Then there's a ton of cleanup to do, both inside and out to get the house presentable for tomorrow's big reveal.
This is looking down the driveway. That whole driveway full of pavers (which were stacking in front of my house last night) was laid overnight. Garage is roofed and getting the final bits of paint.
The big reveal was on Thursday. Since I actually
work for a living, I couldn't be there for the big moment. I pulled a clip
of the
KOMO news report of the reveal. It shows the moment they first saw the
house and some interviews with the family.
The video is about 10mb in size. Save the video by
right-clicking here and selecting "save
target as" or "save link target as" then play it from your hard
drive.