Carpet and Cookies

A new patio gave us an excuse for new entry rugs.  The old ones that we have used up to this point actually came with the house, so heaven only knows how old they really were.  They have been placed in the muddy north area for now.  We have replaced them with two identical rugs from Lowe's.  They are coir rugs which are great for trapping mud from our shoes when we venture into the back yard.  While not my favorite style, they are the right color and will fulfill our needs.

The yellow and grey rug matches the house and
the concrete!

Two identical rugs adds symmetry to the patio.

The good thing about eating out the pantry preparation for traveling north is that once the pantry is empty, I can actually wipe out the shelves and keep it clean.  Secondly, by using up the supplies, we can start each season with fresh ingredients.  And lastly, when one has a large jar of peanut butter to use, the only logical answer is peanut butter cookies!

Yum!

Life is sweet.

Predictable Results

Last night we took a walk down Victoria Drive to  view the wonderful St. Joseph Sound at sunset.  The views did not disappoint.  We also checked on the artificial turf that the owners of one of the mansions installed in their front yards.  I have to admit, Steve and Chris, that you may find that in our back yard yet.  It looked pretty darn good!

On our return to the Marina, we took a short walk out onto the Pier.  A few boats actually have started to use the day docks, but the boaters were not the only ones who have taken possession of one of the docks. Note the inhabitant below:

This pelican stakes his claim on one of the Day Docks.

He was going to make sure that boaters knew that the dock was subject not only to sea conditions, but also to his whims and avian attitude de jour.  We know from experience that this particular pelican has a mean streak to him, and if he does not like what you are doing, he will let you know.  Apparently, that post belongs to him and you need his permission to use that particular boat slip.

As predicted in last night's blog, my antsy husband this morning was like a kid with a new tinker toy set.  He just could not wait to put it together -- the shed, that is.  Before I had finished getting ready this morning, he was outside and had the shed box pulled apart.  As I showered, dressed, brushed my teeth, and dried my hair, he had the floor dug out of the box and put down, the left-hand wall and both back pieces up, and the right-hand wall firmly in place.

We wanted to assemble the shed on the slab where we wanted it to stay for two reasons: first, we could not fit it assembled through the gate in the fence, and secondly, it weighs 140 pounds empty when it is fully completed.

So we spent the entire morning putting the rest of the shed together.  As I also could have predicted, since it is not made out of 2 x 6 lumber, 3/4 inch sheathing, and roofing materials with a 25-year-guarantee, Rick grumbled about what "cheap $#!*" the whole shed was. However, while it is made of heavy-duty molded plastic, it does have metal rails and braces, metal latches, and metal gas pistons which help to raise the rather large roof.  The shed stands as high as my shoulders, and without those pistons, I would not be able to open the roof to see what is inside.

The shed fits nicely on the extended slab.,
still leaving room for the garbage and recycling.

The shed it low enough to not be visible behind the fence
and to not block the light to the garage window.

Would the shed survive a hurricane?  Maybe, since it is within the fence, next to our bolted-down HVAC unit, nestled on the north side next to our block house.   Would it survive if it were in the middle of our west-facing front yard?  Heck, no.

But it does have an overhanging roofline and plastic construction that is supposed to make it water-tight.  Since it is made of plastic, it also will not rot or rust, and being located on the shaded north side, it also will not fade or quickly decompose in the hot Florida sun.

Rick filled it with large items from our garage, so the storage capacity has greatly increased within the garage, and this summer when we head north for a few months, we will have much less than we usually have to bring into the house.

Dirty Details

Part of our day yesterday was spend pouring the last section of extension on our north side slab.  We wanted the extension to go all the way along the original slabs so we could walk on that area when we wanted to throw something into the garbage.

We laugh that we are finally getting good at pouring concrete again... just in time to not have to do it anymore until next year.

The last section of the slab extension starts
to cure within the frame.

Next year also will bring us time to add pavers both to the front yard and to the area between this north side slab and the fence.  With pavers here, we finally permanently will be free of the mud on this side of the house.

We discovered today what we had feared: the edge of the patio is not high enough for adequate rain run-off in certain areas.  We will have to grade the yard down and away from the patio, or we might just add a drain along the front of the slab to handle the water.  That is a decision that also will wait until we return in the fall.

The mismatched patio blocks, gathered from
various parts of the back yard, give us a path
along the north side of the house. For now,
they work.

Today we took care of the dirty details of our north side work.  We wanted to put the displaced patio blocks that have served in various paths for years and use them for the next year on the north side of the house.  These same old patio blocks will give us a solid surface on which to walk during wet weather.  We filled in the dirt around the lip of the newly poured slab extensions and leveled the remaining area to lay in the patio blocks.  This temporary solution should work well for us until next year.

Our final project for this winter season will be to construct the small plastic shed that we purchased to house some of the larger machines from the garage.  We should wait until Wednesday, but if I know my impatient husband, he will have it built by this time tomorrow.  Time will tell...

Concreted Success

A light breeze.  Sunshine.  Temperatures in the low to mid-70s.  What else could a person ask for when pouring concrete?

We were outside by 8:00 a.m. to set up for our concrete pour today.  Since we had finished the framing yesterday, all we had to do was to mix and pour it. Thank God for the concrete mixer-- which, ironically, soon will be stored on the slab that we poured today.

Water comes to the surface of the concrete
as it starts to set.

Our first mix was a little wet, but that allowed it to flow well into the corners like we had hoped it would do.  Subsequent mixes were easy to pour into the allotted space, so the whole process went very quickly.  We were done pouring by 9:00 a.m.

Of course, then one must have patience while the concrete starts to set.  Patience is not a key virtue for my dear husband, so he got a bit antsy waiting for the pour to set enough for him to really work it.

We probably could have poured the whole thing at one time, but we were concerned that we might not have enough Sakrete with the 13 bags we ordered.  We were correct.  At the end of the pour today, we had only 4 bags left, so we will go back to Lowe's today (E-gad! A big box store on the weekend!) to pick up another bag of Sakrete.  Better to have too much than not enough.

Rick starts to work the edges and surface of the pour.

While we cleaned up the mixer and some of the tools, the pour started to set.  It was a bit too soupy, so it took a while until Rick could get to it to start edging the mix.  Naturally, at that point the wind picked up a bit, so we also had to pluck a few leaves out of the wet concrete as the morning progressed.

The pour was finally set enough for Rick to do a final joint cut and to smooth the surface.  He debated on adding a broom finish but decided against it since we did not broom finish the other slabs.  This new pour will mostly be under the new shed box anyway, so all should be fine.

This portion of the slab addition simply has to cure.

This afternoon we'll make a (hopefully) quick trip to Lowe's, and then I think my Kindle and the hammock may be calling my name.

Geometric Shapes

Today was a day to put together shapes.  However, those shapes were delayed because I forgot to get a blood test yesterday for my doctor's appointment next week, so we started the day at the hospital.

I used to be able to go to a Lab just a short distance from our house.  I would sign in, wait not more than 15 minutes while the technician completed the paperwork, get my blood drawn, and be on my way.  Sadly, the Lab on Keene Drive closed because they lost their lease, and the powers-that-be decided not to relocate that Lab.  So-o-o-o-o, the next closest lab is in the local hospital.  The last time I went there, I waited quite a while to get blood drawn.  Today I waited 50 minutes for a two-minute procedure!  They only have three rooms to complete blood work, and I swear only two of them ever are staffed.  Once I finally got into the draw room, the phlebotomist had to spend another 10 minutes just logging me in and filling in the correct tests to perform on the samples she drew.  Rather than waste her time doing that, don't you think that they could train someone to do that kind of paperwork ahead of time (during the 50 minutes we all had to wait!) so the trained phlebotomists could just do the skilled part of the procedure at the end?  She should have been able to come into the room, ask my name and date of birth, pull up the completed paperwork now on the computer, hit one button to print out the labels for my work, and draw the correct number of vials of blood.  Efficiency is apparently not part of that department!

After our wait, we returned home to start our prep work for the north side concrete addition.  Rick received a call that our "shed" box and the concrete we ordered yesterday would be delivered between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.  While I finished some inside housework, Rick started to dig the trench for the additional concrete.

Our back yard is a shambles.  We now need dirt in the area we dug out for our first shed attempt, so Rick wheelbarrowed the dirt to that area and dumped it.  The dirt is filled with stones, so it all needed to be sifted to remove those stones.  Since two people could not work comfortably on the narrow north side of the house, Rick dug while I sifted.

Once he got the dirt out, we framed the area for the concrete pour tomorrow.  We had purchased re-bar to tie the slabs together, so Rick drilled into our older slabs and inserted the re-bar.  Then he put in the frames.  We have to make sure that the slabs we pour tomorrow are lower than the current slabs so the water continues to drain away from the house.  We do not need puddles when it rains, and we are just getting into the rainy season in Florida.

Rick finished his geometric shape: two long, narrow rectangles.

The sections will widen the area enough so we can fit
a storage shed next to the HVAC unit.

I ended up making geometric shapes of my own: tall pyramids (triangles) of sifted dirt.  I don't want to knock them down yet since we may need to scoop some up to fill in the area in front of the new slab once it dries. We also may need some dirt around the patio once the rain settles that area also.

The sifted mounds of dirt look like we have ants on steroids
in our back yard.  Those mounds will eventually be smoothed
down into useable yard before we leave for the summer.

After lunch today, as promised, the delivery man brought us our large box of shed materials and 13 bags of Sakrete.  They all are stowed safely away in the garage for our morning workout tomorrow.

We were able to walk on the new patio for the first time today.  The edges are 8 inches deep, so they are going to take longer to cure than the inside which only is four inches deep.  We removed the sandy grit on the top of the patio with a broom today.  The seed pods that fell on the patio left small colored circles.  I hope that those either wash off or wear off eventually.  If not, I guess that is God's artistic addition to our patio.  I plan to bring the camping rug back to Florida when we drive down in the fall.  We might as well use it here.  It is doing no good sitting on a shelf in our basement in Wisconsin.

We are excited to have a dry, level place on which to sit next year.  Slowly, we are making Gladys a comfortable place to live.

Sand Sculptures, Sheds, and Shopping

We got up this morning, and after the disappointments of yesterday, we decided to get out of town.  We knew that if the Inspector wanted to come to our house, he could do so without us being here.

We traveled to Clearwater Beach to view their Pier 60 annual Sand Sculpture competition.  The theme this year was musical groups and musicians.  The event was totally under a big tent, complete with ever-changing colored lights (which screwed up some of my pictures, which is why many of the following are in black-and-white) and appropriate music.  We thoroughly enjoyed the artistry and the sculptures.  The ten artists took ten days to create some of the following:

Jimi Hendrix

Grateful Dead

The Doors

The Beatles

Glen Miller Band

The Beach Boys

Part of the competition was for "amateurs"
to display their work.  Of the seven in that part
of the competition, this sculpture is my favorite.

Once we were finished with the sand, we returned home just in time to see the Inspector parked in front of our house.  Rick drove around the block to avoid speaking to him, and we returned home after he had left.  Thankfully, he signed off on the patio.

Last night I suggested that since we had the small slabs on the north side of the house, perhaps we could put on just a little storage box to hold some of the items in the garage.  We did some shopping and decided that one of the small, plastic storage boxes would be enough to alleviate some of the congestion in the garage.  Rick wants to put in elfa shelves from The Container Store to better organize the garage; however, elfa is expensive, so those shelves are not in this year's budget.

We traveled to three different Lowe's stores before the found the Suncast storage box that will suit our needs.  We need to add another small concrete slab in front of the other slabs we poured to hold the new storage box, but we will be able to add on to the slabs quite easily.  When we ordered the storage box today, we also ordered 13 bags of Sakrete... and we actually got it on sale at only $1.78 a bag.  That is even less than the concrete that we ordered a couple of days ago for our now defunct shed slab.

We both are sick of the red tape that this City uses to get money out of every building project in town. Do we really want to use a plastic box instead of our large shed?  No, but the smaller box on the north side of the house will not clutter the yard, will not be seen behind the fence from the street, and will not need the approval of either the the city permit office nor the inspectors of the city.

Disappointed in Dunedin

I am so disappointed with the events of today, that I could cry.  And if I were not so tired, I might do just that.

Last evening, I felt completely different.  We had watched the workmen complete our patio, and we started to make plans to pour the shed slab ourselves.  We were prompted to complete the shed slab because the concrete was on sale, and after watching the workmen pour the patio, we were confident that we knew how to finish it.

When we went for a walk last night, we ran into some of our old friends, Sam and Maude.  Stephanie, I am including their picture just for you!

Sam and Maude (far left) join some of their other feathered friends
in our neighbor's front yard.

This morning dawned cool and clear, a perfect day for digging the back yard up and forming the area for the slab.  We started early.  The frame took some time to complete, but we felt that we had the right level and pitch for the slab when we finished the frame by 9:00 a.m.  We had spent part of last night gathering all of the lumber and supplies that we would need to make today go smoothly.

The first part of the frame outlines
where the slab would rest.

Once that was in place, we started to dig out each section.  Each section was down the four inches that it needed to be, and Rick got a good start at digging out the eight inch deep by 12 inches wide footing. While he was doing that, I was working hard to distribute the piles of dirt as we filled in low spots in the back yard.

Each section within the frame is lowered by 4 inches, and
Rick starts digging out the foundation.

A trench shows where a large root had to be
cut out of the foundation area of the slab.

When we were about 90% finished, Steve (the contractor) came to take out the forms on the patio.  He asked what we were doing, and we told him that we were putting in the shed slab ourselves.  Then he dropped the bomb: the Inspector would be back in our yard to do a "final inspection" of the slab!  Rick had specifically asked about inspections when he talked to the contractor's wife, so we were not happy at all to learn that we were not done with inspectors yet, even though she told us that the preliminary inspection would be the only one we would have to pass.

So what is the problem?  Well, in this town, not only does a person have to have to pay for a permit to pour a slab and pay for another one to build a shed, but one also has to have the shed plans approved by an architect.  Add another $300 - $500 for that stamp of approval, even if Rick is the one who drew up all the plans.  We know that the plans work because we have been enjoying the shed that we built at our northern home using those plans several years ago.  We can pour the slab and build the shed for less than $1000 if we do it ourselves.  If we have to jump through the permit hoops, add about $2000 more to the cost of the shed.  We cannot afford that, even thought we would build our shed to specs and it would have been more sturdy and better-looking than 80% of the Home Depot pre-fab sheds in this town.

Steve then told us that although a shed had to be held back from the property line only two feet, a concrete slab under the shed must be at least five feet away from the property line.  Therefore, all of our hard work was for nothing.  The slab would not have been in the right place, and we would have had to rip it all out if an inspector ever saw it.

We both are SO SICK of the inspectors in this town and their never-ending rules about just about everything.  I am surprised that we do not have to get a permit to park our car in the driveway.

So while Steve finished cleaning up and getting the patio ready for inspection, Rick cancelled the concrete delivery for tomorrow, and we ripped out and filled in as much as the hole in our yard that we were able to do with what energy we had left.

The frame is out, and we have started to fill the dirt back into the
hole we dug to pour the slab.

Rick said, "That is it.  We have tried twice to pour a slab for this shed, and twice we have failed.  I am done with this.  We will not have a shed.  I don't know how much more effort I am willing to expend to do anything else at this house."

I agree with him.  I am disappointed, angry, sad, and exhausted.  I, too, am done with doing anything else for this house. I am out of energy to fight for anything anymore.

Step Two: Concrete

The Inspector came to our house on Friday and approved the preliminary work that had been completed to pour our patio slab.  The bug spray was in place, the rebar was positioned, supported, and wired correctly; and the footing was of the desired depth.  All was good.

We had a weekend that promised rain, but none materialized, so we did not have to worry about wash-out conditions.  We knew that the contractor would be here either on Monday or Tuesday. He originally had said "Tuesday," so I was not surprised when they did not come to pour on Monday.

Buds are ready to open on my little tree.

As we were in the back yard yesterday, I decided to give the vegetation back there a good watering. Much to my surprise, when I watered the corner garden, I discovered that the white gardenia tree is full of buds ready to bloom.  If the tree really blossoms, it should be beautiful.  I'll post pictures if it decides to bloom this year.  We have owned this house five years in June, and I have yet to see more than one or two blossoms per year.  Perhaps the weather conditions are just right this year for a spectacular display of flowers.

The concrete truck mixed the concrete on site and
then transferred it to the pumper.

This morning we planned at getting up at 7:00 so that we would be showered and dressed before the contractor arrived by 7:30 - 8:00.  Then we heard a truck pull up in front of our house-- at 6:54 AM!  Rick yelled, "Get up, Sher, and take a shower and get dressed.  They are here!"  OK, so much for a peaceful start to the day.

The workman directs the concrete into the corner
to the correct level to pitch the slab away from the house.

I have to say that the contractor did an excellent job.  The concrete truck mixed the concrete on site so it was fresh, dumped the mud into the pumper truck, and out it came onto our prepared site.  The slurry they used was very wet which made sense since it had to be pumped from the truck in the street through a four or five inch tube.

The rough, wet finish of the patio waits to dry before Kory and
Jeff came back to add the finishing touches.

They were done with the pumping by 8:30 this morning, and then two men, Kory and Jeff, stayed to work with the patio until about 1:00 this afternoon.  Of course, while they are trying to do their work, the wind picked up and the trees in the back yard decided to add leaves and small seeds into the mix. Kory and Jeff were perfectionists in what they did.  The edges are cut in, the patio was scored in the correct places, and the end result is a smooth slab with proper footings and a brushed finish.

We were glad that the experts were the ones working in the
sun to smooth the finish on the patio.

Of course, we have to wait a few days for it to cure, but the weather promises to be sunny but cool (high 70's to low 80's), so this should be perfect weather to watch concrete dry.

The finished patio will be a wonderful place to relax in the
morning or late afternoon shade.

Naturally, Rick and I are on to our next adventure which is digging out the area for the shed slab.  We were not going to pour the slab this year, but Home Depot put their SacKrete on sale for $1.88 a bag. Since it usually is over $3.00 a bag, we could not pass up such a sale.  Long story short, after a bit of hassle and negotiation, we are now having two pallets of concrete delivered sometime on Wednesday.

I have to say that we learned a great deal about putting in a concrete slab from watching the contractor the last couple of days.  We now know the proper way to dig the footings and to add the re-rod, and we have figured out a way to complete the shed slab in six pours.  Will we ever actually build a shed?  Who knows.  If not, we will have a nice little slab in the yard that we can relax on under the live oak tree in our back yard.