Lazy days of summer

 

http://legionofhonor.famsf.org/legion/exhibitions/man-ray-lee-miller-partners-surrealism

Home for a little culture at the Legion of Honor Museum. San Francisco has to be the world's most comfortable fur lined rut! It is golden handcuffs and then some.

The lawn in front overlooking the Marin headlands and entry to SF Bay. The Golden Gate Bridge is just to the right

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Miller

http://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Legion-s-Man-Ray-Lee-Miller-exhibition-3705408.php

 

Summertime in SF

 

 

 

 Over at the de Young, Gaultier. Aimed at the runway/couture crowd. Us ragamuffins know of him through Madonna.

 

 

The real buzz were the interactive mannequins. Holographic faces were projected from above giving them a very real life like appearance with active facial features. I'm sure it will only be a few years until these are the standard in high end stores.

 

They talked and followed you with their eyes.

I had been hoping for something more along these lines after hearing the pre show buzz.

 

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickle_Family_Circus

Lorenzo Pisoni, a play about him as a child in the Pickle Family circus. It's a San Francisco thing. Thank you for the tickets, Marilyn and Tim.

 

In a bit of lucky timing I was home for the entire Olympics. What a treat, having missed 2008. I think most of the medal winning female runners all went to the same "valley girl" finishing school that Serena Williams attended, which however, did not prevent her from doing the Crip Walk after winning the US Open. So many beauties from the Caribbean. Jamaica rules. Here they are in case you missed them.

 

In a first, we did not go to the movies. This from a couple that generally went forty or more times per year for the last 25 years! I think they are saving everything until the end of the year.

Did a quick jump up to the Sierra foothills to visit and see the progress on my cousin Craig's very large home he's been building on his own over the years. My original inspiration to a large extent, especially the steel. Talk about a big project. Plus he has to come up from San Diego these days to work on it. Whew. I think I may have finally pulled ahead of him!

 

Lost in the shuffle on the last update, the time I spent making the window and screen frames. During the planning stage I decided early on that I would build my own simple windows so as not to be trapped into their exact placement, what size and the expense. Don't even talk about custom made mahogany windows. As it turns out, a brilliant, lucky move on my part. Three planned windows became french doors and another picture window was changed into an opening window. It is not out of the question that I may not have made those changes if I already had bought and paid for the windows sitting in a container.

While most folks have double hung windows, they go up and down, our design constraints/aesthetics called for french windows or casement as they are called. Easy to construct. Well actually, nothing is easy to construct but easy compared most others!
  

While most casement windows open out, ours were to open in so that you could reach out and close the shutters as in the picture above. Further adding to the design demands, the necessity of screens that would also open to the inside. Among the many reasons windows open out are space limitations on the inside and most shutters are ornamental. Our shutters are a working necessity and must be reached from the inside. I'm not going to be putting up ladders to close my shutters or having to hire someone when I'm 100! ;~)

There are a host of design considerations/hassles associated with inside opening windows I won't bore you with but a major one for me, besides space requirements, was the look of clutter/congestion. I had been so used to the open casement during construction--the lower window to the right above--that when I hung the screens on hinges with the windows next, I did not like the look. Clean, open with no upkeep, became complicated with long range maintenance. All this and knowing the windows would rarely be closed. The house is in the tropics. Even in the heaviest rains, not tropical storms, very little rain comes inside because of our position on the hill, the rain forest, blah, blah.

So what to do? I don't want rain coming in, no matter how little, but I don't want windows taking up space on the inside and they must open to the inside. Driving around San Francisco the bell went off!

There it is. The solution, called by some the "Hollywood Regency" look. Canvas above all the windows. When we go to town or St Thomas, we simply open the screen, reach out and close the shutters. Short of a tropical storm no rain will be coming in. Did I mention it is significantly cheaper, glass is dear, and the upkeep is a lot easier. The canvas will be pressure washed, along with everything else, a couple of times a year. Now if I had only thought of this before I spent a few weeks making the windows and screens. I'll scrap the screens and design new ones using the stainless steel hinges and the simple 1930's latches that we purchased in SF for the windows.

 

Home, East End and Coral Bay

Returned to St John on August 12th. Truck had its standard small flat but started right up. The shack was in perfect condition with the ice cubes in the bowl still holding their shape so I knew the power outages were minor--I can still eat the food!

 

Beaches were still crowded by my standards--but considered empty by east coast folks. Every year the tourist season seems to get a little longer.

 

Full screen....

 

 

Gecko eggs found behind a chest. They all hatched.

Just before I returned

It knocked down one small dead tree. 

 

Jumped on the barge to St Thomas for a food and materials run. The feral cats all showed up along with the chickens. Word gets out pretty quick! Cat food and rice on the list.

A couple of days later I finished the new screens. They look great. However I'm not putting them up until everything else is done. I don't want to get any paint/topping mud splatter on them. After the screens I skim coated the living room ceiling once again and around the crown and base board moldings to even out the plaster. Afterwards I painted the last coat of oil primer on all the interior trim. I have lost count on the number coats. Multiple coats of oil give a good "build". It helps make average carpentry look good.

 

Not my first choice in primers. Lots of VOCs and it doesn't self level because it drys so quick. If you are not spraying, I'm not, you have two choices. Brush marks vs a tight stipple from a "slim jim" roller.

 

Yup, the same roller you would use to paint behind the toilet tank. Truth is, I needed the stipple. It covers all the imperfections in the wood for the most part. Secondly, using this roller I'm able to paint the entire trim in a few hours allowing for multiple coats with the necessary wood putty skim coat where necessary. Everyday you just put on a coat before moving onto something else. For the last coat you do an easy hand sand knocking down some of the stipple. You can never really hide it however. That is the draw back to quick dry primers unless you spray. I know, I know, TMI, TMI.

 

Finally my favorite part with my favorite paint--Satin Impervo! Here's something you don't see in California, Impervo in gallons. I'm making noises like Tim the Tool Man. Put it up with a slim jim and brush it out. Again several coats over a number of days. It does take several days between coats when there is humidity in the air. This is one of the reasons folks use the quick dry paints down here. Myself, I always use oil on interior trim. Besides how it looks, it cleans, it's durable and most importantly it is sandable when the time comes to paint again. Meanwhile the color gets a little richer over time. Latex is for walls! Duh.

 

A quick primer on the founding of the National Park.



If the events described in this short video had not happened Denise and I would not be building here.

The trim turned out better than I expected. You would have to see the original wood to fully understand this comment. Paradise lumber is still out of the 1x8 stock I need to finish the Kitchen and bathroom baseboards. They were out of it when I left to go to SF. "Dem barges takes a long time".

Isaac stayed south. Another near miss.
 

In a bit of bad news AT&T cut me off from my unlimited data 'air card'. From my usual 20-40 gigs a month streaming Hulu and Netflix etc, I'm supposed to throttle back to 5 gigs--NOT POSSIBLE and they know it. I'll have to look into something local. St John has come a long way in the last five years. Even my dentist is on island!

Tomorrow I'll jump back to St Thomas for the baseboard lumber at MSI and more paint. There is a rhythm to it all. It does a person good.

Down the back stretch

Ok, the party is over, back to work. It was a great time sailing the islands.

As was previously mentioned, Thor had returned to St John in mid February after crewing on a delivery. I believe this is his fifth time passing through. On other occasions he stayed in a screened cottage down in the valley. Really quite nice. This time it was in disrepair of sorts with the electricity having been shut off. Even if the owners consented, they didn't, it would be weeks before the power would be turned on. Yup, Thor needed a place to stay and I had no funds for employment. Figuratively and literally the money is gone for any 'help'. Tell me about it, it is not a good place to be when you are trying to finish a house. That said, it is what it is. Thank god I originally brought most everything down in containers.

Thor suggests some work for room and board. As chief cook and bottle washer, I say yes. I'd be happy with a couple of hours a day. In fact the work I'm now doing is basically one man finish work with the exception of a 25-30' trench to bury the septic pipe. Hello Thor!

Left to my own devices this trench would have taken me well over a week at a couple of hours a day. That's about all I'm good for when it comes to digging ditches these days. The tedium blows my brains out! We won't even talk about the cardio. Thor does it in one with another spent helping me set the pipe. It's a pretty long run out to the septic, some twists and turns, all having to be sloped. Our original work with a water level, setting the pipe fitting in the septic wall before pouring the concrete, was spot on. Truth be told, I was surprised. We had gone up, over and around several  mounds/debris piles before reaching the septic. Then, estimating what would be a pipe run, dropping 1/4" per foot. A significant mistake would have meant hammer drilling a four inch hole in 8 inches of poured concrete with rebar getting in the way. Doesn't sound like much until you do it.

 

Someday it will all be covered with a small lawn. Someday being the operative word!

 

 

Another project Thor spent time on was thinning out the forest. It's actually something I like doing. It gives me a break. Anything smaller than my thumb and middle finger touching comes down including larger dying trees. You can see the progress on the right side of the picture above as the sun breaks through. The deer, wild goats and bush chickens seem to like it a lot. At some point I will have done this to most of the property.


A small black goat munching his way in the new clearing

In keeping with the boat sinking chronicles, here's the latest.
 http://www.stjohntradewindsnews.com/index.php/206-news/032012-news/8017-after-marine-collision-in-pillsbury-sound-one-power-boat-sinks-off-steven-s-cay

I happened to be driving by as they were taking her off the barge. Rent barge, put a crane on it, cruise out and pick up your inflated wreck.

 

 

 

The yellow zodiac boat is the salvage vessel. They dive down, in this case 90', putting the inflatable rubber stacked on the fore deck inside the sunken vessel. After returning to the surface they inflate it and up pops the stricken boat. It's a great gig in clear water. The young French woman on her was most interesting--I mean who wouldn't want to know about salvaging! ;~)

 

 Full screen, speakers on

 
A Turtle from Banana Tree Films on Vimeo.

Thor busied himself, which he does very well, I might mention. In fact, I had to tell him to stop and go to the beach most of the time. Whenever he shows up his Virgo takes over and I don't even recognize the property. As anyone who has even seen my office in the old days knows, I knew where every chart/article was no matter how deeply buried. Border line pack rat in some respects! Same with my job site. In all the chaos I know where every random screw or scrap of wood that I can make some trim out of is. After Thor blows through you can actually walk around. Denise has seen the before and afters over the years. Yes, yes, it's obvious which she perfers.

 

So while he did his thing, I went back to trimming out the interior. I gave up waiting for the wood to dry. After three months it was still wet to damp. Treated lumber takes a long time--too long in my case. Not to mention it seems there's a lot more cupped and twisted sisters in the stacks as they dry, compared to stateside lumber. I can't afford the waste or the waiting. It is not uncommon here that you can go a couple of months or more waiting for something as simple as 2x6's and the like. I decided I'm putting it all up 'wet'. Screwed in place, I figure it might cut down on the twisting etc. Ultimately it makes the sanding more work. It is a lot easier sanding everything on a work bench. 

 

 Nothing complex on the door trim. Simple and clean and well within my skill set.

 You can see the beginnings of the crown moulding in the above picture. At some point it will house all the 'cans' and rope lighting for that special cathedral ceiling effect. ;~)

 

Baseboards followed the door trim. How powerful is 'cupping'? In the picture above the baseboard cupped over several months such that it pulled itself through the screws that attached it to the steel. I would not have believed it. For the record, every screw on all the trim had to be tapped/pre drilled first with a steel bit. Labor that takes a professional carpenter working with wood studs a week, took me more than three. Countless bits as a bonus! Fourteen gauge studs take some effort and time. First you tap the wood to hide the screw then you switch bits and tap the steel. Then you switch bits and drive the screw. Later, wood putty all the holes. This is not pneumatic guns and away you go. In fact with all the screws etc, the trim actually ends up being part structural in some sense. I'll pass on the discussion of the uneven veneer plaster job I did that the eye could not pick up but the trim could! Lets just say a lot of skim coating to get it where I needed it. Another little gem of a problem--the 2x8 stock I used as my door jams were not all the same size. Consequently I had walls that were 'proud' as they say, such that the trim boards did not lay flush to the jam. Yup, I had to take them down and trim/scrape off the corresponding amount of plaster to get everything flush. Now you know why everything took about three weeks!

The work also took longer because I didn't have the right tools. It was a choice I made. For the amount of 'cuts' necessary I couldn't rationalize a sliding compound miter saw, instead opting for a the simple base model which could not cut 8" baseboards. So I used my skill saw to finish the cuts.( In fact now I use the Skil saw/speed square to make all my 45 cuts.) I also took the time to cut a simple design into the baseboard with my table saw so I could forgo any type of trim moulding on top. A 45 angle at the top, cut back leaving a 1/4 wide flat top.) I don't have the tools to put it up and I did not want to attempt to route it. As Clint famously said, "A man has got to know his limitations". I'm using it throughout the house including the porch. It was something Ryan, who had helped me a couple of  years ago, cut into what would become the base of the porch column trim.

 

With Thor leaving and Denise due in a couple of weeks I stopped patching/trimming the inside and jumped on the outside to paint the house before she came!  After what seemed countless color samples it only took a couple of calls by Denise to the home owner in SF who was all too happy to give us the Beni Moore number--even though, as I originally feared, she paid a colorist for it. That is not the norm and in fact some designers prevent it through contract. We were close on our sample boards, hitting all around it. It's a blue color with a green name, go figure!

 

 

There's always drama for a first time builder. Why the cut out on the first trim board I started to sand? Apparently, the lawsuits continue, Paradise our island lumber yard, received a substantial shipment of bad lumber. However it is that treated lumber goes bad, this stuff did. Several houses and decks disintegrated over the course of a couple of years. I had heard about this and knew one of the plaintiff's involved in the suit. For us, other than trim, there was no treated lumber in/on the house. My congratulatory attitude changed when I climbed the ladder only to run into this on the first day. Pure mush. How is that even possible? Worse still, I'm not in a position to get these 2x10x16' and 2x12x16' down, not to mention the cost of new ones. After sitting on my ass crying the blues, I started the old screw driver test hoping to find an edge/border to whatever this cancer was.

 

 

 

Miracles of miracles, there was an edge. With that, I decided to cut an exact 2x4 size piece out with my Skil saw.

 

 

Here's the new look with a new inserted 2x4. Skim coated with wood putty, three primers and two top coats and you will never see it. The really good news? Despite my fears it was the only bad piece on the entire house. Oh lucky man! As far as I know the lawsuits are still not settled. I just can't imagine building a house and having the wood immediately rot. I would want to die. That is no joke. 

Finally something I know how to do--paint.

 

 

I'm going to be a father. This feral cat is pregnant.

 

Everything used to build the house comes down this ramp. My extra steel floor joists came in handy.

 

The unpainted board below to the left is where the outdoor shower will ultimately be. It is the last thing on my list. The very last!

Denise relaxed for about ten days before she left.

Talk about luck. They had just put up this guard rail for the first time. It would have been over and out for a bus load of kids just a couple of weeks prior. We drive on the left so he is going the right way, speeding as he came around the corner.

 

It finally happened. Returning from St Thomas with a month's supply of food, a lot of which was frozen, new rear tires and a load of lumber and paint, the truck stalled at the top of the driveway. Coasting with the hand brake, I made it to the bottom. If you have ever seen the driveway it was quite a feat. Nothing would get it to start, including a new spare battery. Sounded normal, just would not catch. Over the phone most thought it was a fuel pump. Whatever, this being Friday, no one was coming until Monday. Dwight showed up with his flatbed and attempted to winch the truck up the driveway. The steepness and the positioning broke the winch.

 

 

He returned two days later with another truck. This time it worked. It wasn't the fuel pump. Two weeks later, a $100 part from the states, along with $700 and $200 for the tow (a deal) I had the truck back. I never left the property for the almost three weeks. I had food, I had work. In the end walking down the mountain to catch the bus to fetch the truck in Cruz Bay practically killed me. My legs turned to spagetti by the bottom--that is one steep mile. Whew.

The wild goats return. At least a dozen or more, babies in tow. They took everything to the nub over a couple of weeks. They leave the property smelling like a barn yard, which as it turns out I'm partial to.

This guy would have hurt.

 

Unlike store bought these last a long time

Who needs a fishing boat when you can do it off your paddle board.

 

With the outside painted and the inside trim drying out I set about trimming and detailing the porch.
 

The angular arches are the same as the interior design without the finishing curve at the bottom where they meet the column. I tried to cut out the design with a jig saw but with no luck. Yes, it's possible my cheap jig was not up to the one inch stock with the blade always warping. Whatever. This actually made it easier. Just two straight cuts and up they went. Later on, I'll run into or buy a band saw and whip out the end pieces. When I'm done you will never see the joint. Truth is, I have gotten used to the straight arch. Denise will have the final say.

 

Starting to look semi finished

 

Crash chronicles! This one was special. Cruising along the upper road with a full load of water some one lost control. Over the side, down through the 1/2 acre bush taking out a chunk of a house, it then flipped over and landed on the road below. No one, including the two children in the truck, were hurt. Don't stop the carnival!

 

http://www.stjohntradewindsnews.com/index.php/577-news/05-2012-news/8107-no-one-injured-when-prestige-water-truck-plummets-over-hillside-and-tears-through-rental-villa-bathroom

 

There it is. The corner kitchen in my 12x12 shack. Viewed while I was re-screening one wall to see if the new better view screen is any good. It is. But it is much more delicate. I will use it in the house. The power cord is going to the house below for my tools. One 20 amp service runs everything.

Out of nowhere a few manta rays showed up and they are now making St John their home. They like people. Go figure. They are not to be touched however. Their mucus membrane skin could be damaged.

The annual one month excuse to party

 

Girls just want to have fun

Fireworks in Cruz Bay

R.I.P. The hawks got him. My hens are lonely.
 

 Off to San Francisco....