February 16th, 2020
Spring may have Sprung?
or if there's flowers there must be pollen?
Stuff blooming all over the place
guess it's spring time!
Just in the past week or two, all kinds of things have decided to start blooming. Good thing that neither the bunnies nor us are allergic to pollen! The bees should be happy, although I've not seen any swarms yet this year. The big green ti plants aren't usually so enthusiastic about blooming, at least, not that I've noticed before. They're planted near the bunny hutches since bunnies love to snack on ti leaves. I've not tried feeding them ti flowers, they'd probably like those, too.
The Gloriosa lily is still blooming and has even more blooms than before although the only good picture was of just one bloom. Oh wellos! At least there's one picture. The pink creeper crap vine (I'm sure it has a different official name, but I don't know what it is) is blooming all over the place, too. It actually has nice flowers but it's a VERY vigorous grower, and it tries to take over the place and it's growing all over the mock orange hedge. I like the mock orange hedge since it doesn't grow all that fast like the Russion olive that we had at the last house. It is one of the tallest mock orange hedges I've ever seen at about sixteen feet tall, but the pink creeper crap has covered it and was trying to smother it out. So, I've been at war with the pink creeper crap for several years, although I'm not sure who's actually winning. Hmm, wonder if bunnies can eat it? Launching attack bunnies at it would be a fun thing!
Still got a few avos
nice big ones, too!
It's still just barely avocado season for our tree, we're getting towards the very tail end of it's avo season. I think it's an early producer since we've had avocadoes pretty much ever since we bought the fixer upper late last summer around the end of July. There are other trees which are just starting to produce avocadoes, but those aren't trees that are on our property. Although usually when there's at least one tree in a neighborhood with avocadoes on it, then they pretty much spread through the neighborhood. I don't know anyone who actually buys avocadoes at the grocery still since they only have those tiny somewhat watery and bland Hass avos.
The smaller avo tree off to the side of the big one is on our property and it is also now in bloom, so it may be an earlier producer than the big avo. We weren't able to get many avocadoes off that tree since the grass was too tall around it. It's also a smaller tree so there won't be as many avos from it. I've added a picture of the other side of the workshop building, the side facing the mountains and you can see the tall grass back there which makes finding avocadoes a bit difficult. We had weed whacked that grass back from the workshop entrance a bit already, but obviously, it could use a bit more weed whacking. However, the workshop isn't the current project at hand, so that will have to wait a bit.
We did get the old building permit transferred to us along with a copy of the construction plans, so we will be able to eventually get it finished. Apparently, the framing inspection failure was due to lack of Simpson fittings and not from the wrong size of lumber or anything else harder to fix. Once we get The Little House rented, then The Workshop will be the next project. Well, with 'The Driveway' in between the two projects (if we're capitalizing and naming projects.) Hmm, actually The Driveway is probably part of The Little House project.
In the meantime, we will just keep slogging along on the various projects and enjoy the guacamole while it lasts.
a perfect view of our dentist's office
(the red roof with solar panels)
The Little House Project
not a bad work site
Not a bad view from the worksite, especially on nice days. We had a bit of wind, but now we're back to sunshine again. The red roof with the solar panels is our dentist's office, Orchid Isle Dental. They're really nice people there and good with teeth, too! They have a great view, too. How often can you watch for whales at your dentist's office?
I did see a whale several days ago from our new lanai. It was a windy day and there were whitecaps all over which makes spotting a whale much more difficult, but this one was jumping up out of the water and making a big splash. We're probably just on the edge of too far away to spot them by the spray of their breath since that's just a cloud like puff and harder to spot. Jumping out of the water and making a big splash, well, that's different! That can be seen from a long ways away. We do have binoculars at the new lanai, so when there was the splashing, it was easy to know which direction to look with the binoculars.
Anyway, back to construction pictures. You can see the big blue line in one picture above the stair stringers. Even though it looks longer than you'd expect, it's a level and it has become named "Big Blue" since, well, it's big and blue. It's about six feet long and is a really excellent tool. Not sure which garage sale we got it from, but we've had it for awhile. The nail gun is a good thing, too, and one of the few tools we've bought at retail rates. The chop saw is another really good tool to have on a jobsite and does a lot to produce better results. Good tools make projects easier to do and the projects turn out better.
Well, they're only 'temporary' steps and at the moment we are reusing the old treads from the original steps that were removed. The stair stringers (the part that holds up the treads you step on) are permanent, but the treads are just set there. They're not even nailed on, but as a three and a half foot long plank of 2x12, they pretty much stay put when you walk on them. Some of them may be able to be reused, but more than likely they will be used to redo the kitchen steps and I'll cut new treads for the lanai stairs when it's time to install the treads permanently. The treads are put there temporary since it's so much easier to work on the lanai when I can go up and down the steps and not have to walk all the way around to the back door all the time. Not that this house is all that big, but it was getting tedious. Now, I can pop up the steps and get whatever that tool is that just out of reach without having to make the trek to the back door.
The original very sad and very gray lanai
in need of a lot of fixing and upping
Just to remember where we started, here's some of the 'before' pictures. There were multiple reasons for replacing the front lanai. The steps were pulled off because they were rotted. That happened pretty early in the restoration since it was a safety issue, although I did save some of the stair step boards and those are now being reused for the temporary stairs. Not sure yet if they will be reused permanently or not. There was also lots of rot in the sub-floor under the tiles. It had soft spots with lots of cracked tiles, but it didn't have any actual holes. At least, not yet. The post that is supposed to hold up the little rooflet over the front door was missing and that was sagging by a couple inches. Those were the structural concerns. The sad, gray little lanai wasn't all that functional since it was more of a hallway than a lanai because it wasn't wide enough on most of it to sit on a chair and still walk past it. Plus, there's the whole asthetics of it, it didn't enhance the house at all. It's a fifties house with mid-century modern lines and nothing had been done since the fifties to continue the look.
A Big Step!
(maybe people were taller back then?)
Well, at nine inches, it was a big first step to get between the lanai and the living room. It almost needed an added step in there to be comfortable, although, that would have made the space even more odd to work with. I can see why the post was removed just from the standpoint of making the space more useable, although I deplore their lack of structural understanding - whoever did it.
In any case, this big drop is one of the main reasons - functionally speaking - as to why the lanai got replaced.
In and Out the Front Door
no more big step!
There's a line of things on the outer edge of the steps to keep folks from stepping there since the temporary tread boards are not nailed on. They were from the original steps and we may reuse a few of them, not sure yet. But until we put the actual treads on there, the boards are just sitting there and we don't want folks stepping on the edges and falling off the steps when the board flips up.
This is more or less a current picture of the front lanai restoration as of February 16th, 2020. The three floor boards nearest the house are actually tacked in place with nails, they will be screwed down with deck screws once I find the screw gun. And the square drive bit. They're around here someplace. So, three boards are actually in place, the rest of them area just laying there and can still be adjusted for final fit.
Now there's zero difference between the level of the front room floor and the front deck. Woot! I'd actually planned on it being about 3/8" lower on the lanai, but well, things don't always get the memo so it's level instead of a touch lower. But that's okay, it now feels like an extension of the front room and makes the whole place feel larger. With a small house, anything that makes it feel larger is a good thing.
The front lanai is on the weather side of the house, but any rain that gets on the decking should fall through the cracks between the boards before it gets to the front door. Between the roof overhang (not built quite yet) and the what will possibly be glass railings around the lanai, that will hopefully keep most of the weather away from the front door.
A lot of these design things sort of happen along the way. I'd originally planned on having some cutesy pineapple cut outs in the front railing boards, but if we use glass, then no more cutesy pineapple cut outs. I think the glass will be much more fifties style, though, so that's a good thing. I'm not sure how to trim that 4x4 post that's now holding up the rooflet. I keep coming up with designs for the trim that all have a Craftsman type feel to them and not specifically a fifties type feel to them. The whole style theme for the house is 'Fifties Beach House', or at least 'Beach House'. The bare 4x4 post is kinda naked looking. Well, we will see what happens, I guess? I can just imagine writing that on a set of blueprints to build a house, though: "4x4 post @ eave corner, trim to be determined by waiting to see what happens". Ha!
Well, guess I should aughta get back to it. So much for this renovation getting done in a month. That's what we thought last July. I'd actually figured on about four to six months, but maybe that was a bit optimisitic. More stuff to be fixed keeps showing up as we go along. It should be really nice when it's done, though, maybe we will move into it and then fix up and rent the house we're in. Which - come to think of it - was originally bought to be a rental. When it turned out it wasn't nice enough to rent, though, we had to rent our nice house and move into the fixer which we're still not done fixing since we are now living in it instead. If you're going to do a major renovation/restoration of a house don't live in it.
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