Brian and I both woke up early this morning. It was pouring rain all night…beating on our commercial grade corrugated metal roof. We wanted to surf before he started working and I had to leave for the airport to pick up Summer….but the waves were really bad so Brian opted to start work and I opted to blog about the back deck and start carrying extra hardwood out of our living room to my office where it will be stored until we are ready to use it.
I could be wrong, but it sure looks like that rainbow ends at our house.
Brian is leaving today. His flight is out of Aguadilla at 5:15 on Spirit Airlines. That basically means that we have to leave here around 2:15 to get him there early enough to not stress. Saturday traffic is always a wildcard down here in Puerto Rico. You either luck out and get the holeshot…or you get stuck behind every weekend driver that isn’t in a hurry to get anywhere. The only guarantee is that there won’t be pimped out Puerto Rican school buses stopping every couple of minutes.
Brian has a short list of things he would like to get done in the next 6 hours.
- Finish the floor in my office
- Attach the kitchen threshold trim (Jamie made it the day he left)
- Trim the ledge along the steps
- Finish the work on the bullnose of the floor where it meets the steps
- Hang the microwave oven
Yesterday, Brian and Jerry worked a full day (10:30am - 6:00pm) completing the back deck. Since he has been here, Brian completely rebuilt the back deck, laid the hardwood floors, built the knee wall (taking into account a 62″ opening (French Door) dead center to our future back deck and a 36″ opening all the way to the right for our future steps up to the back porch (we would like to train all of our guests to use the back door), framed in where the screens will go (all I have to do is trim out the PT with a hardwood) and put T-111 plywood around the outside so it matches the rest of the house (once we paint).
Back Porch at 60% done
Opening for the French Screen Doors in the center
Enclosed back porch from the outside
Building this house really has been a marathon accompanied by a series of sprints. The work is slow and steady when I am the General Contractor but as soon as someone that knows what they are doing shows up to help, the progress gets shifted into high gear for the duration of their stay. Jamie and Brian really got so much work done while they were here that the only two major things we have left to deal with is the master bath/jacuzzi area and the 3rd bathroom downstairs.
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maybe we can seal/paint the cinderblocks on the outside of the house while I am there.. what do you think about that idea?
Painting on cinder blocks
Step One:Clean the cinderblock with a pressure sprayer before painting. The paint will adhere better if it’s not applied over dirt and grime.
Step Two:Let the building dry thoroughly. (this may be difficult)
Step Three:Apply a coat of flat latex enamel as a primer.
Step Four:Apply a second coat of latex enamel (any type finish).
Conner:
Don’t hold me to this, but I think the only thing we are going to be doing while you guys are visiting is going to the beach, surfing and touristy stuff.
We are down to our last dollars of what we want to spend on the house this year and painting those ugly cinder blocks just isn’t a necessity. I was more thinking of planting enough stuff around the house that you will barely even be able to see the blocks inside 3 years.
Damn, I hate surfing and drinking rum are you sure we can’t work instead?