Dreams of grandeur! We all have them but this one is especially grand. While island old timers put this at having zero chance, I am secretly hoping for the pool! As the plans show in the link below they hit all the right notes getting daydreamer hopes up. Back of the envelope realists know right away someone is hitting the bong. We shall see. Check out the link, it's worth it in case you ever have to do some development p.r.
The slab divided into two 8x12 areas with the future support beam framed in down the center. Each panel is numbered. They simply lay on top of the framing underneath. I expect to take them up while waiting for the concrete otherwise they could suffer from the elements. After numbering them I quickly realized I can't take them up. The rebar goes on top! Another duh.
After the pour, I'll remove the supports from below and in a perfect world the plywood will drop down revealing the underside of the slab. Clearly, I live in a fantasy world. The divider planks you see are 6x6 also notched into the storeroom walls and the future support beam. Besides giving it an old time look they actually are providing significant support. Until I ran into Fitz I had planned on running them all the way across the room in the same direction of the now created concrete beam. In doing some research, however, my problem started when I found out 4x4, 6x6's etc were not very strong laterally. Their strength comes as posts.
Same view as above but with the bumper wall constructed. Just enough to keep a vehicle from going over. There will be a two-foot railing bringing everything up to 36". I just didn't want more concrete which would have been easier but at a certain point enough is enough visually speaking.
When completed, this will be the parking area for two vehicles. No small luxury here on island. In fact, there is space for four when it's party time.
The view from below with the future concrete beam to the right. The larger beams running perpendicular are the 6x6's with 2x4's framing out each individual panel. As I said, if my plan works, I'll remove the screwed in 2x4's and the plywood panels will drop from the ceiling leaving behind just the 6x6's. Add a little "aging" and I'll pretend the room is a hundred years old. ;~)
Temporary roof. Monster rains are ruining everything. While the lumber is all treated and can withstand the elements, the plywood is not. Major problems could ensue if these rains don't stop. Rot.
Mighty Mouse with a small load of lumber and rebar. Busted. We are sitting at the bar at Aqua Bistro.
In the continuing episodes of a sunny place for shady people, the latest.
It comes in threes. My stereo died from the ants, my replacement radio/cd player in the truck died along with my microwave. The Bluetooth speaker delivered by Amazon works with my phone. You would be surprised how old three thousand songs get. I miss my dead ipod with 15,000.
The flooding starts. Relentless rains approaching over 20" this past month or so saturate the parking area above leaking through the old cold seam in the retaining wall which doubles as my back wall in the shack. When it gets going it floods the room even overpowering the holes I drilled in the floor years ago. Yes, the ceiling leaks also but not over the bed so I have learned to live with it. Everything is strategically placed so the damage is doable. It got so bad one night that I had to go outside and dig a small trench by the truck to reroute the water to try and stop the hemorrhaging coming through the wall. Finished, I threw the shovel under the truck to protect the wood handle.
Of course, I forgot the shovel a couple of days later when I left to get supplies. Up the driveway in reverse, stopping when I heard some horrible grinding noise. Of course, I thought something major had broken down on our 18 year old tired mule. Rolling back down I parked and looked under the truck. The shovel! The handle had gotten pinned under the mud plate partially ripping it off the truck at a corner. Removing the shovel it was apparent that the plate could not be forced back into place. I tried everything including my jack. The metal was too springy. No matter how much I reformed it, it caught the slope of the driveway as I tried to leave further ripping it off.
I spent the next couple of hours grinding the entire thing off the truck. So much for town. The moral of the story is don't go digging trenches in your birthday suit late at night and forget where you put your shovel. Or better still build a shack that doesn't leak but then it wouldn't be a shack, would it?
When I first saw my friend's house built many years ago I wanted to tear ours down! This for me is island building and living at its finest.
Solid stone walls and handmade Mahogany doors and shutters.
The kitchen area. The doorway and trim are concrete. Talk about attention to detail in reverse. A true islander, no screens, a few fans, with a gas stove and refrig. It's almost too beautiful when you are there. The setting on a ridge top with pano views doesn't hurt nor does the centuries old gravestones from the original families. I could go on and on.
Matthew stayed south. Close call.
Only in the VI...;~)
Finally, finally, finally. The concrete I ordered in early August arrived on October 26. This at the end of 20" of rain over three weeks. The ceiling to the storeroom looks really bad from the continued leaking. I have added a dozen or more support posts, 2x4 joists, and countless patches to the retaining walls. The stairs are not perfect any longer with all the swelling. Termite trails are everywhere. Even in the best of times, I'm a nervous wreck. I have ordered and spread another three yards of gravel where Jeff parks the pump truck so he doesn't repeat getting stuck. Just typing this makes me reach for the Tums.
Could it get worse? Of course it could. It's Patrick and concrete. This Outward Bound/face your fears stuff is a bit much. Here's the latest snafu.
Late in the afternoon on the 25th Jeff calls and says his pump truck is not up to climbing up the mountain. WTF? Not only is he not coming but he also provides the crew I hire to do the pour along with myself and one other, in this case my bud, Starbutt. He says he'll try to find a replacement. The dispatcher from Heavy Materials is now on the line asking what do I want to do. How the fuck do I know. There's only a couple of small pump trucks in the VI. He says he'll help also. If I don't get this pour who knows when I will with the barge situation and the existing backlog. I'm dying.
Jeff calls and says Leo, in retirement, will get back his leased truck and make the pour. I had previously used his nephew who was a nightmare. I'm having a heart attack. I call Leo. He'll be doing the pour. He got rid of his nephew years ago. I call the dispatcher and let him know. Leo says he can provide some crew under the same terms as Jeff.
My heartburn is killing me. Jeff is my crutch during these complicated pours. He understands mono pours, risky as they are. I have had other crews express serious doubts which in turn scares the shit out of me.
Upper stairs
Leo gets lost. He hasn't been on island since the Bordeaux mountain road was graded. Parked by the side of the road, a dump truck passing by asks me if I'm waiting on a pump truck? If so, they are waiting by the side of the road a few miles back at another turn. The good news, I know one of the crew when I find them. The infamous other "Jeff" who screams and yells all the time. Built like an NFL linebacker he now has piercings all over his face. He's happy to see me. He knows he's going to get paid cash!
In what was a huge surprise, Jeff is not the crew boss and he's not screaming. Pierre, a much younger Haitian who has spent time in the Dominican Republic and Martinique, speaking three languages including English, is the lead. I tell him how I want the pour to proceed. Top to bottom pulling the concrete down not up while also addressing my concerns about the state of the forms given the rains.
He's against my outline. They make their case about the pipe, saying the forms can withstand the pummeling they will take with all the standing on them etc. So empathic about what they want they say, as an added bonus I can just watch. It won't even be necessary for me to help. Basically, they like to lay all the pipe out to the furthest point and shorten as they go. I get that but I'm worried about the fragility of the forms, especially the steps. Pierre convinces me that my construction is bulletproof. Flattery gets him everywhere, I say ok.
Even though everything went according to his plans I still think pulling down is better than shoveling up. Guys in their 30's don't see much of a difference. They will learn. He was right however about the logistics of this job. Getting the pipe back up the hillside was going to be a monster, avoiding all the fresh concrete. Breaking down the pipe is also a lot easier than putting it together.
All in all, the pour went better than expected until you guessed it, a few shoes dropped.
The first shoe. Pierre, Jeff, Starbutt and I, worked the pour. Another crewman, who's named I'm happy to have forgotten, stood on top of the storeroom and signaled up to Leo on the pump truck when to start and stop. Somehow, we have no idea how, when the final concrete truck was getting in position, he signaled for Leo to pump water through the unattended hose sitting on top of the partially poured retaining wall. Dangerous chaos ensued. By the time Pierre got control of the pipe countless gallons of high pressured water had shot out removing the top of a previously poured wall and dumping itself on top of the stairs going almost all the way to the front door. If you look at all the prior pictures it appears like a whitewash is over all the forms. Large gravel was everywhere. We had to scramble to clean up the mess. It actually wrecked the five steps to the front door. They will have to be redone at a later date.
The water went everywhere. It got inside the storeroom soaking everything. West Indians pride themselves on screaming, especially Jeff. He witnessed Bronx. Someday I'll probably get myself killed. I dressed the culprit down so far everyone was shocked. And to make it very clear he got paid nothing by me. Yes, it was an accident but he made a fatal mistake in the beginning by saying it was only water. That's when I went off.
The second shoe. The last truck with six yards showed up almost two hours late. Let's just say I think he pumped a few yards somewhere else or I made a major miscalculation, something I have never done before. Even the crew was shocked. You can see in the picture above how short I was. Only the bumper wall and some of the beam was poured. I was working on the damaged steps when this happened so I did not know it at the time otherwise I would have confronted the driver. By the time I found out he was long gone.
The final shoe, Just as we were finishing cleaning up the mess from the water episode the skies opened up with a deluge. The small wall above shows the damage. Those snap ties are supposed to be under a couple inches of concrete. A slurry of concrete went down the shute depositing itself on the bottom steps further damaging them. The surface of the steps are all pockmarked. It turns out to be not a bad thing but I didn't know it at the time. The steps are naturally non slip now. A very good thing. The lower landing has some problems where all the fine concrete deposited itself.
This yacht has plied our waters.
Say goodbye to the shack. My 12'x12' man cave is being renovated. As George Jefferson used to sing, we're moving on up!
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| 10'x14' footprint, bath on the right, kitchen on the left |
I spent the last few days of October in a fetal position trying to recover. The stress and adrenalin of the last seven months, the barges, the concrete pours, the rains, the work, and all the episodes I choose not to include here left me in a heap. I went in for beach therapy.Very affordable. It only takes a couple of days.
Now what? My flight doesn't leave for three weeks. Originally I had planned on spending this time taking down all the forms, cleaning out the house and moving everything into the storeroom. With the roof not poured and leaking now worse than ever, I decided to start on the shack expansion which had been planned much later in the new year--in fact, after the house was done.
The central idea is to connect it to the existing structure. A 10'x14' post and beam room which would be a small kitchen and bath. Tiny houses rule!
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The monster rains continued. Another 10 inches. On the positive side, I now have steps from the gravel parking area all the way to the front door of the house and a sidewalk to the shack. The days of slipping and sliding in mud are over.
Despite the rains, it has been a good year, hurricane-wise. Nothing got close. Drained the cisterns once again of about four feet of water, hugged Lizzy goodbye, and fled to the airport. I was running on empty, fumes actually.
Miami never looked so good!
