Truss Me ... We're Making Progress

So as promised, we started making forward progress again with the trusses being installed on the back workshop.  At my contractors suggestion, we extended the trusses up to give us a full 6 foot tall by 8 foot wide walk through area down the middle of the roof line.  No more crawling through an attic space to store things any more.  :)  I also had him put space for attic access stairs at both end of the garage.  Here was the state of the progress after Monday.

The Trusses Are Up

By Wednesday the roof was completely up and dried in.  It's actually starting to look like a real building now.

Our Dried In Workshop

Looking inside you can get a feeling for the amount of storage space we're going to have up in the attic.

Inside the Workshop

 The steel columns for the back of the house are supposed to be delivered by Friday and should be installed early next week.  Progress is being made.  Truss me!  :)

Meanwhile, Tina and I did another change of pace tonight on our daily walks and did it through the cemetery where Tina's Dad is buried.  We had to clear our the flag and night light for a couple of weeks since the cemetery management was cleaning up the area and officially the flag and light shouldn't be there.  Now that they're done, they were returned to place and once more I'll be able to see the light on the hill on my drive into work on the morning. 

Tina and Her Dad

Until next time ...

Visiting the Viera Wetlands

Out west of us is a place the locals refer to as the Viera Wetlands. Officially it's called the Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands.  It's a county run wildlife refuge which utilizes recovered wastewater to maintain a magnificent wetlands wildlife area.  This time of year our frigid northern brethren are nice enough to send there birds down south so that the wetlands become a bird watching paradise.  Getting bored with our walks up and down Rockledge Dr. (we know ... it's a really tough life), Tina and I've taken to visiting the wetlands for some of our daily walks.

The Most Beautiful Specimen at the Entrance

The park is on 200 acre's with a main lake in the middle surrounded by 4 "cells" of marshy swamps.  Each of the cells and the lake are surrounded by roads on berms which provides easy access for those people wanting to drive as opposed to walk.

Looking Out Over the Main Lake

The park has been open to the public since 2000 and hence is a well established eco-system.  The number and variety of birds at this time of year is simply amazing.

But beyond the birds, there's also a large amount of fish and of course an occasional turtle or 2.

But for those not so inclined to bird watch, one of the fan favorites of the park is the infamous Florida gator.  This is mating season for the gators and they spend there afternoon's sunning along the banks of the lake.  It's absolutely amazing that in a 1/2 mile stretch of the lake Tina and I came across a total of 20 gators out enjoying the afternoon sun.  They range in size from 12 inches to about 7 feet.  We assume the management probably takes gators that get larger than that out of the park.

Unusual Sight of 2 Gators This Close

Meanwhile, progress is starting again on the house.  The trusses for the work shop were delivered Friday and will be put up on Monday.  By the middle of the week the entire roof should be up and dried in, waiting for the metal roofing material to arrive.  Meanwhile the steel beams have been ordered and may be this week also.

It's about BLOCK time!!! (:

Like sands through the hour glass, slowly sifting from top to bottom, steadily counting the seconds to minutes, and minutes to hours, so then these are the days of our construction project.

...

!!!

...

???

...

No NO NOOOOOOOO!  That's not at all accurate.  Let's try this all over again.

...

Like gravel in a friggin' hour glass, constantly getting stuck and clogging everything up, requiring hours and days of yelling and beating in order to try to get things flowing again, so then these are the days of our stupid construction project.

...

:)

...

Much better. Anyway, things have been held up trying to get through the whole permitting process and also get our power line buried from the back electrical pole into the house main.  Finally we got that done which allowed our general contractor to start moving ahead on the house modifications and starting on the new back work shop.  As usual, when things actually get moving, they tend to move pretty quick.  It's the long periods in-between that cause all the grief.

Within a day they had the footers dug for the new columns to support the beams which will be used for the new 2nd floor roof line, the new chimney for the grill on the outside kitchen, and the entire pad for the back work shop.  They concrete crew came in the next day and poured everything, leaving it looking like this.

Footers Next to the House

The footers on the far side are for the circular staircase going to the 2nd floor balcony and the roof column for that side.  The next one over is for the other roof column and the closest one is for the outside grill chimney.  The pads for the columns are 2 feet deep!!!  That's not so much to handle the weight of the columns as it is to support the uplift wind requirements of code.  

The next picture is a bit more obvious.

Pad for the Work Shop

This is actually bigger than I had originally anticipated, but bigger is better when it comes to work shops.  :)  To meet code, the elevation is also higher than I would have preferred, but with global warming at least my tools and play toys will be safer for a few more years.

Then, after 2 days to let the concrete settle, the cement block guys dropped off the block on Wednesday and the laid them all on Thursday.  As I said, it's amazing how fast things go when they finally start going.  Here's the back workshop with a double wide garage door on the near side and the far side of the front wall.

Our Big Ol' Work Shop Takes Form

Back Yard Looking to the Front

 They also started the grill chimney which will eventually go up to the height of the 2nd floor roof, but first it has to have a beam installed to tie it to the house.

New Chimney and a Beautiful Home Owner

Next week we ought to be getting the trusses for the work shop and they should be installed and the work shop dried in.  The week after that hopefully we get the steal columns in for the new 2nd floor roof.

Of course, there's still that gravel in the hour glass.  :)

Catching Up Again

Once again we've have fallen behind on posting (OK ... so maybe it's just me).  At Thanksgiving we had a big family get together at the house here, but I didn't get any decent pictures of the gathering.  I felt it was a bigger priority to get the deep fried turkey and smoked ham done right!  :)

In mid-December we made a visit over to Mom and Dad Drago's house and enjoyed spending the day at Lego Land.  It was our first time visiting the amusement park that replaced the famous Cyprus Gardens and it was quite impressive.  Most of the gardens have been restored which had to be a heck of a chore after sitting unattended for 3 years.  It was especially nice to see all the Christmas decorations and the numerous kids there visiting during there Christmas school break.

Dad and I at Lego Land

 At Christmas time we drove over to Kara and Chris's and dragged Mom and Dad Drago along with us.  We had a great Christmas dinner there and got to cook up some additional deep fried Turkey and Chickens later on that evening.  It was fun to watch Kalia enjoy the first Christmas where she really has some idea of what's going on.

Later on that week Kara and Chris drove over to our place after a visit to Chris's brother over in Orlando.  They stayed with us for the days leading up to New Years Eve.  During the visit Kalia became quite infatuated with our brass boy and girl statue out in the front garden.  She studied them for quite some time seemingly impressed with how quite and still they could stay sitting there reading a book.

You are Such a Pretty Girl!

After a good long while she finally got a bit frustrated with them staying on the same page for that long and decided they needed a bit of help to move on to the next page!  She didn't ever quite seem to be able to comprehend that the book wouldn't move on to the next page!  :)

Comeon!  Lets Move On to the Next Page!

 Later on that week Mom Hannan came up for a visit and we got a picture of 4 generations of the girls sitting around the statue.   Kalia was obviously more fascinated with the brass girl than any of her real life relatives.

Four Generations of Our Beautiful Women

At the same time Nephew John came down for a visit having spent a few days over at Mom and Dad Drago's and then coming over to our house.  On New Years Eve we had a nice, relatively quiet gathering with John, Kara and her family, and Jessica and her family.  It wasn't exactly quiet at midnight when somebody who will remain unnamed set off fireworks from the dock, but everybody seemed to have a good time nonetheless.

Nephew John and Tina

The Goofy Youngest Sisters

Believe it or not, we have started managing to make some more progress on the home improvement front ... but that will have to wait until another post.

New River Gorge Bridge, West Virginia

On the weekend of November 18th we did a quick vacation get-away to West Virginia to attend a wedding of one of Tina's cousin (congratulations Stacy).  We took a side-trip down to southern West Virginia on Sunday down to see the New River Gorge Bridge.  When built in 1977 it was the worlds largest biggest arch bridge.

A Beautiful Lady and a Beautiful Bridge

It's about 800 feet from the river to the bottom of the bridge.  That's almost as high as the Eiffel Tower is in Paris.

Long Ways Down to the River

Interestingly this river flows NORTH all the way from North Carolin, into Virginia, and through West Virginia before meeting up with the Ohio River.  I had always heard that the St. Johns river down here in Florida was the only river in North America to flow north, but visiting the New River introduced me to another.

We were visiting West Virginia shortly after Super Storm Sandy blew through NY and NJ and dumped an early snow storm onto WV.  There was a lot of evidence of wind and early snow damage to tree's, as witnessed by this twisted/fallen tree trunk.

Twisted/Fallen Tree

The river gorge was developed in the late 1800's through the mid-1950's with a railroad track and numerous coal mines along it's length.  Pictures from that period were rather sad including numerous floods and a ton of land pollution, but they've done a good job of cleaning it up and turning it over to the national park system.  Unfortunately we didn't have time to explore the numerous hiking paths around the area, but it gives us something else to do in the future.

Looking Up At the Bottom Of The Bridge

The Ongoing Battle of the Pool

Progress is slow ... and even slower sometimes ... but it does occasionally happen.  The sign here was originally posted out front of our house but I removed it as my own small little protest over how slow things were going.  I was going to avoid putting it in any pics I posted here but I figured given how much I've posted here about the slow progress ... wellllllll ... it's probably worthwhile letting everybody know who's this slow!  :)  If anybody cares to, you can call the company and complain about how they never make a schedule.  Tina and I do so about 3 times a week.

Pool Plumbed and Back-filled

You can see the 2nd floor addition going on at our neighbors house.  Between the 2 of us we have succeeded in making quite a mess of the neighborhood.

Filling-up For a Thanksgiving Swim

Ready for a Bonfire in the Shallow End

Dirt Mound Slowly Going Down

Yayyyyy!!! We've been SHOT!

Having waited patiently (and NOT so patiently at times) since mid-September, we finally progressed to the point of getting the pool shot with gunite.  It's been a rather frustrating wait, particularly since the backyards still a HUGE mess and we've been without any power to the back garage which also contains the sprinkler system.  Fortunately the weathers been getting cooler and a calm little storm named Sandy dropped a fair amount of rain on us, so the lawns holding in there pretty well.  Errrr ... wellllll ... at least the parts that not's covered with dirt right now seems to be doing ok.

The crew doing the shoot actually consisted of 5 workers and, of course, the always present supervisor.

In the Midst of the Shoot

 Three full-time pumps running to keep the water out of the hole ... adding even more of a mess to our already flooded backyard.

Our Lovely Backyard

 Two trucks running full time.  The front one holds and mixes the gunite while the back one has the pumps and hoses to shoot it onto the structure.

The Gunite Equipment

 And ... FINALLY ... a fully shot pool.  This is looking at the side away from the house.  The center portion at the back is the fountain area which includes 3 overflow water flows into the main pool.   On either side of that are raised rock garden areas which will have fire pits in them.

The Final Product

Looking back towards the deep-end with the house on the left.  The perimeter-overflow gutter is formed out of 2x6's which will be removed once the coping is installed.   By this time we were back down to 1 pump running which quickly allows the water to flow back in.  It's not quite ready for swimming yet.

The Deep End Already Filling Back In

So at least we made it this far.  At this rate of progress, we might have this project done by next summer.

...

Or maybe not! 

Until Next Time