Back to the grind. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would still be doing this. Had I been told, I would never have started. However, it has to be said, I was basically buying myself a job and this is the job. By job standards, it's not bad. Truth is, what else would I be doing? Denise pays the heaviest price.
My buddy Tim picked me up at the barge. From there we hopped over to Friends of the Park where I picked up my personalized plates before driving out to Coral Bay. The electricity was still on as the ice cubes testified. Bad news, the pictures below.
The big plum tree came down while I was gone. This was one of several trees that I had "girdled/banded", or whatever its called. The theory being that by taking off a band of bark the tree dies dropping limbs as it goes. Wayne did it on some property nearby and it worked over the course of a couple of years. Limb by limb until it disappeared. Seemed like a solution to a few trees we have that were in difficult positions for the chainsaw. The plum tree was such a tree. Broken badly decades ago, it was very unbalanced and it was going to fall generally in one direction, towards the house or right on top of the shack.
Well, that didn't work. Instead of dropping limbs it snapped where it had been girdled, probably in the x-mas winds, we get from the east. It fell to the west narrowly missing the shack but hitting the house and outhouse with no real damage. The damage was psychological. It's pretty shocking to walk around the corner and everything looks like a bomb went off. Welcome home.
I lost a plank and ladder as shown. Countless trees were also snapped. It appeared the shack had been spared.
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However, it could have been worse. Had it fallen on its own without the winds it would have crashed
into the shack. That's why I never cut it down. I built the shack before I knew it was a plum tree. In the years it fruits there are thousands lying all over the ground. Then the fruit flies and the place smells like a distillery. I love eating them but not living with them. They bury the truck. I have an even bigger one that I have to deal with at a later date.
How ice cubes look after sitting in a bowl in the freezer for a couple of months. As long as they have a shape, I'm good to go on the contents.
The plates! They would kill for these in SF. Major drama with the truck of course. I got it started but the driver side window wouldn't go down. I failed the inspection--"dah window must go down to talk to the poolice". WTF. Plus the inspector demanded my grille which hasn't been on the truck for ten years since the head on collision. Come on lady, who are you kidding. Back to Coral Bay, I found it laying in the bush. Jumped over to Caravan to see what could be done about the window. Nothing! They just took the door panel off and lowered it, will have to order a new motor. With the window down, passed inspection. However, she says I have to repair the front end. She's dreaming. Hopefully, she'll be gone by next year or I'll have to hire a local to take my truck in. Yeah, that's right. I'll let you figure that one out. The going price is $100.
Now I have no power windows on either side, an open door panel, and a 2x4 to hold the window up when necessary. When my fake tooth falls out, it will complete the picture.
This is why god created pressure washers. I love my electric. Twenty minutes later, it's like I never left. It doesn't take long in the tropics to get funked up in a rain forest.
After the clean up, I found the damage I thought I had avoided. The tree had hit the corner of the new construction. The bolts held but suffered significantly. The gap you see above had not existed. The entire corner of the building was driven into the ground knocking everything out of plumb and square with the floor was no longer level. With jacks and levers, I got most of it back but still ended up with a trapezoid parallelogram, if there is such a thing! There was no way I was tearing it down and starting all over. I just have to find a way to hide it.
Lizzy is so happy I'm back. No matter the noise, she spends all day near me.
As part of the new expanded layout, I added four feet to the original footprint for a sitting area. With the bed taking up seven feet it will leave nine feet to the picture window/screen. I bolted the new rafters to the old in the picture above. The original plans called for a hip roof done by Ryan and I. Working alone I decided to go with the existing shed roof for a number of reasons, chief among them, I was working alone and the old plans called for me vacating the shack for a complete remodel. That was not possible now. I've got two months to make this liveable. Down the road, I can put a faux hip roof on it for hurricanes. Shed roofs are like plane wings. 747's take off at around 200 mph.
Below you can see the new roof footprint extended out past the old galvanized. Essentially my overall plan was to construct the additional space, enclose it, and then remove the two old exterior walls which would now be in inside. All this was to be done while I still lived in the shack. Hahahaha....
Putting up the siding. What a drill getting them from under the shack and attached. Never has 80 lbs felt so heavy. Stand on a plank, bend over, pick up a sheet arms outstretched, start throwing it up in the air a couple of inches at a time, catching it. Rinse and repeat until it is in place. Gymnasts who work the rings would have no problem.
When I'm done I will have two sheets leftover. Amazing. It all worked out without really planning it.
Standing in the new doorway looking at the old door which I used until the very end. When everything was enclosed and secure I moved it even using the old lock. The square in the wall will be the bathroom window with a sink under.
Spotted her over in St Thomas, El Galeon. https://www.fundacionnaovictoria.org/el-galeon/
This would be some comfortable sailing if you were an officer or the captain.
162 feet long with a 33 foot beam.
In local news...these could be a game changers.
https://www.stjohntradewinds.com/concrete-production-comes-st-john/
https://www.stjohntradewinds.com/concrete-production-comes-st-john/
http://newsofstjohn.com/2017/02/18/boyson-inc-gets-mister-b-back/ Not soon enough. Spent ten hours getting to and from St Thomas for supplies and food with only two barges running.
If ants/insects creep you out don't watch the video. These ants were living in the exterior walls. They were not on the inside but they were when I started tearing down the walls. What a shock. It felt really good to clean out what may have been ten-year old carpenter ant colonies.
In the picture above you can still see vestiges of the old wall alongside the bed. They were easy to take down primarily because half the wall were the flaps that could open but never did. Plus all my construction was with screws and bolts which make for easier demolition, one piece at a time. I reused a lot of it.
This picture was taken from the old doorway looking at the new. I'm reusing everything at the moment. The area to the right will be where the new kitchen is.
Talk about white trash. OMG, I had no idea how much stuff I had in a small 12'x12' room. More than 100 books, countless dvd's, construction videos, clothes, music, plans, tools, etc. There was no end to the stuff. It all had to be moved around as I framed everything out. It was insane. Another one of my bright ideas.
Starting to come together. Both interior walls removed, the old kitchen taken out, and the bed in its new position. While this was originally a spur of the moment job to fill out the end of last year when I came up short on concrete, I wish I had done it sooner. Living large, so nice. After Denise leaves, I'll drop everything and go back to finishing the concrete work. Getting the storeroom/parking/driveway done is job number 1. It has to be done to move into the house.
The framing for the bathroom. Meanwhile, I'm using it to store everything. With Denise coming in a week I'll put in a toilet and put up a beadboard chair rail for privacy. I still can't believe it. Seriously, this footprint is 14'x22' and it's all you really need to live very comfortably in the tropics. When this is done it is going to be a really nice rental at a very affordable price.
Denise arrives at our shackteau!
