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| Sand dune hills under the sea. |
August 17th, my latest return ever. Generally, I'm back on island by the 1st coinciding with the start of the second month of hurricane season. In addition, by arriving so late, I'll be getting back on a plane in three months. Starting up and shutting down kills a couple of weeks so if there are any delays on materials etc. very little gets done. The marble tile being a perfect example delaying my departure back in July.
Not a good start, my red eye was delayed in Miami. I arrived late and my ride was long gone. Humping 140 lbs of tile to the truck was not the welcome I had in mind. Fifty on my back, fifty hanging from my hand, and forty on some shaky carry on wheels in addition to my computer bag stuffed to over flowing. Remember, there are no sidewalks to speak of.
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| Our door knocker is getting impatient with how long this is all taking. |
The good news---the truck started right up. Sitting idle for a month never seems to be a problem especially when it's parked in the sun. Shack was in good shape and Lizzy was immediately at the door. The world makes sense again!
Home Depot came through as promised. The tile was all on STT waiting for pickup. I laid around Tuesday and hoped over on Wednesday, picking up half the shipment. Mighty Mouse can't handle 1000 pounds any longer. The clutch is slipping, the ball joints are shot and the power steering leaks like a sieve. Thursday for the second half.
Home Depot came through as promised. The tile was all on STT waiting for pickup. I laid around Tuesday and hoped over on Wednesday, picking up half the shipment. Mighty Mouse can't handle 1000 pounds any longer. The clutch is slipping, the ball joints are shot and the power steering leaks like a sieve. Thursday for the second half.
No rest for the wicked, by Friday hurricane Danny projected to be a direct hit. Thankfully it's more art than science and he moved south by Monday.
The standing joke in hurricane ally, "it's the one behind that you have to worry about"! Life imitating art. By Thursday, here she comes, Erika. I always wait until the last second before I do my Mexican fire drill.
Ericka was not a lady. While not a direct hit and downgraded to a tropical storm, the open waters of Coral Bay still wrecked havoc. Some sinkings and two boats on the rocks. From previous postings you may recall, Jaws, a repeat offender was always on the rocks dragging anchor in any major blow. Earlier in the year, a storm sunk her in the middle of the bay. Well, there's her hull back on the rocks. You can't make this up.
Back to the grind. To get my motor going I chose the kitchen backsplash first. The color was pretty good which is always helpful with the mental agony my mind puts me through. Hour after hour of this tedium, laying and setting each little tiny tile with all the spacers, my fat fingers getting thinset everywhere, constantly having to clean the joints, knowing all the while if the merchant hadn't fucked me in Florida I would have been putting up 24x24 marble tiles matching the counter tops. The job would have taken hours instead of days. As some one who had it beat into them, and I mean beat into them, you never, lie, cheat or steal from an individual. I have never understood people who do. The merchant knew exactly what he was doing to me. I have done a lot of things the priests had problems with but not those. If I give you my word on anything, no matter how trivial, I will either be dead or in the hospital before I break it. It's a weird code, I know. I dodge it by being a hermit. haha.
It's the little things. Had to wait weeks for the pencil trim around the border.
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| Cutting in my driveway. Just kidding, sort of. |
This is the best video I have found that puts St John and the VI in perspective. It's why we live here.
With the kitchen taken care of, the downstairs bath was next. Look at the picture above. Home Depot did it again. You get what you pay for. Fuck, the tiles are not uniform as regards their thickness. Maybe for professional tilers it would not be a problem. For me, it was the end of the world. I only discovered the problem several courses in when I thought I was putting up the thinset unevenly. At eight tiles to a box with 150 boxes, I had 1200 tiles to sort through with three different sizes. I wanted to kill myself. The good deal just turned into the royal screw job. Barabbas in the salt minds with a little Sisyphus thrown in for good measure.
This is where I put as many of the wrong sized tiles as I could, behind the sink and the toilet to come. I had no choice as Home Depot had no other tiles to choose from. We won't even discuss the color variations from the original boxes I bought. The wrong sized tiles were a shitty color.
By putting all the odd sized tiles on the sink wall, the reflecting light/shadows didn't make them jump out. I'm too embarrassed to tell you how long the bathroom walls took me. What I will tell you is it easier to put up 12x12 or larger tile than it is to put up 3x6 when you account for cleaning, spacing and finally the grout. I totally get the slabs in spas now! I also REALLY get porcelain tile with its exact sizing in every dimension. If all natural stone is uneven, I'm done. Life is too short. I am definitely not tiling the patios. I have to find a way to have a professional team do that.
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| The only therapy that works for me. |
And in local news, the following. How this island with only 21 sq miles and four thousand residents creates all this, month in, month out, is unexplainable.
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| The only way to clean your feet |
The truck finally gave up the ghost trying to make it up the mountain. The clutch couldn't make it. In a break for the good guys, Jack is a mechanic at the bottom of the hill who used to run the Porsche dealership in Carmel, Ca. What are the chances? Anyway, he agreed to work on my truck despite its age. Everything is rusted solid. Toyota even offered at one time to buy it back at twice the bluebook plus a new truck at cost. I just didn't have the money to take advantage. The bad news, with parts necessary I'll be stuck on the mountain for perhaps two weeks. Thank god for tuna fish!
Eight days later for $1286 I had a new clutch and flywheel, new front struts and one ball joint. He couldn't get the other off. I spent the time finishing the bathroom, this time dealing with the shower snafu.
Eight days later for $1286 I had a new clutch and flywheel, new front struts and one ball joint. He couldn't get the other off. I spent the time finishing the bathroom, this time dealing with the shower snafu.
If you look at the picture above you can see I used steel studs to create a level line around the shower and the entire room for my first course of tile. Sometimes I come up with good ideas. The blind squirrel routine. Now for the other shoe. Last year when I laid in the drain and tile, spending all my time concentrating on my weird drain location caused by increasing the closet on the other side of the wall, I had a swale along the back wall that I did not know about until I put up the level steel stud. At its deepest point in the center it was about 3/8". How bad would it look when I grouted the wall?
It was bad, especially sitting on the toilet. You couldn't miss it. Trust me, I tried. Fixing it would be a nightmare. Worse still, I would need new stone tile. Not a easy thing to come by. Well, you can see from the picture above I decided I couldn't look at it. That's a new concrete bed I put down on top of the existing tile. Now I have to find new stone.
On a positive note, and it helped me decide, I could center the drain with a little finagling. It couldn't be circular, the hole is not moving. I saw a picture of a spa with long rectangular drains along two walls. I had a heart attack when I saw the prices they wanted. Google it, you'll see. Ebay to the rescue. I found this stainless 12" piece for next to nothing.
Sure the drain was in the wrong place but that's why god invented grinders and hole saws so I could relocate it the end and place it over the existing hole in the floor.
Job done, and now a nice spa drain centered on the floor hiding a closet screw up.
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| A happy camper... |
Back to searching for stone tiles for the shower. Previously I had searched everything available on St Thomas and in San Francisco settling on the rectangular shaped stone at Home Depot. Nothing was even close. The problem remains the same, when you wet the tile with sealant, grout or even water it changes color, dramatically. The original floor stone was pure white. What a shock when I sealed it and it turned into a multi colored floor. With that, I went looking online talking to manufacturers, retailers etc. Most were getting out of the business or finally warning installers that the stone changes colors significantly on some occasions. Thankfully all I needed was 20 sq ft so I took a chance on a Amazon vender who said his tile was white and they would ship to the VI. We shall see.
The "universal" fitting wasn't so universal. Had to cut out the old one. While I waited for the stone to arrive I proceeded to hook up the shower, toilet, and sink.
The last of the brushed nickel fixtures. Not available any longer in California. Parts per trillion apparently cause cancer in mice. Stupid is as stupid does. I hope everyone enjoys chrome, we don't. Interiors on STT was giving it away preparing for their move.
Feeling quite civilized. After so many years in the shack, it doesn't feel right. I have to train myself to use a toilet again! ;~) Oh my god, a mirror and a sink to shave over. Hot water. Who knew!
It's always something. When I hooked up the upstairs bathroom, besides flooding the downstairs with about 1/4" of water--I put the pipe in years ago but forgot I never finalized it, I had no pressure after I glued every thing together. Toilet yes, but further down the line to the sink, nothing. Check after check, I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. Where was I losing all my pressure. God forbid it was inside the wall I had tiled. Hours went by, going up and down floors looking for a tell tale leak. Nothing. I knew wherever it was it had to be between the toilet and the sink or so I thought. Yes, there was water coming out of the tap, but little compared to the norm. I took apart the fixture just to double check. A little manufacturer dirt but all was good. With that, I started crawling on my hands and knees with a hose listening to the walls. Just call me House! Low and behold on the outside shower wall I heard something in the concrete floor. I went downstairs and measured where the pipes passed through the 10" wall. With my 20lb pry bar I went outside on the shower floor and started breaking up the floor. As you can see, there it was. A cracked pipe leaking all my pressure. The slab outside had settled about 1/2" over the years and cracked the pipe. They are now capped and both baths are good to go. The funny part is I have told everyone I don't believe in the common practice of putting water lines in slabs for earthquake reasons. I figured I could get away with three feet. Haha. Perfect justice.
If you look closely you will see two butts sticking out from under the shack. There's ten more underneath. I know when heavy rain is coming. The wild goat herd shelters under the shack.
Very affordable if you do it yourself. New mask and replacement vision lenses. When I stopped wearing contacts snorkeling went out the window. I tried gluing old glasses to the inside but it didn't work. Not to mention looking like an idiot. I do need a cane to get from the water to my towel, however! If I grope you as I stumble forward it was just an accident. ;~)
The white tile arrived. As you can see, it was anything but white. Hard gray even before it was wet. I even tried ripping out the worst offenders and it didn't help. The saga continues. It did give me an idea which I wish I had thought of last year.
I hopped over to Home Depot and bought the stone shown above. We had previously considered last year and rejected it. It has always been available but we turned it down because of all the black and gray stones. Stateside they sell a version with light brown to golden stones that would have worked. With time running out I cherry picked through all the tile they had on hand trying to get the least amount of gray and black. I even took some to the bathroom to see how bad the color change would be. At my wits end after more than a year of this madness I bought it.
I dry laid the floor and then ripped off all the dark pieces. Madness, I know. Every replacement stone has to be handed glued in place attempting to keep the same spacing. At least the spa drain looks good and the grout line along the back wall will be perfect!
A week later, after some extreme tedium, I had the final floor. What a circle jerk that started over a year ago. I laid three floors in that stupid shower. WTF. The moral of the story that I have since found out--don't put stone in your shower, it leaves little pockets of water. Very tiny but you have to brush it out otherwise bad things will happen to your grout. Live and learn. But I did have a rewarding hot shower.
Two days later, mentally exhausted, I was waiting for the ferry to get to the airport. Two months in the land of milk and honey. It was one of those years where if I didn't keep this blog and the assorted pictures I would have felt I didn't get anything done. Everything seemed to be a constant struggle. There's always next year!
Thankfully a quiet 2015 Season with a couple of near misses.
