Picture of the Day
Tag: beach
Construction is Finished — Almost — Sunroom 3
Construction Finished – Almost
Ahh . . . the continuing saga of construction: remodeling, replacing, upgrading and building is nearing completion. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Or, at least, we think we can — Bathroom, Heating, AC and Sunroom (patio enclosure) — and, of course, a depleted bank account. The work should last for several years (decades?) and enhance our retired lives, especially, Di’s.
I think it’s better to spend for retirement early (if you can) and enjoy the results for years, rather than delay things until they are absolutely necessary and having to rush getting them done.
Today saw most of the construction of Di’s sunroom completed and the backyard cleaned. The work on the “patio enclosure” is being done by Patios by B & B a local Orange County company. Its workers have been both neat and hardworking. Between the de-construction and construction at least seven different workers (plus the production manage and owner) have been involved. Questions are answered quickly and phone calls returned promptly.
The roof was finished and the rain gutters installed. Caulking was done and the room seals well. The room is usable and the cats won’t get outside.
On Monday the crew will be back to finish the electrical work — this includes adding lighting to the ceiling. The city inspector will come and check the construction. Finish work and the installation of the flooring can then begin.
Also, on Tuesday our Heating/AC folks (Cool Air Technologies) are coming out to see about extending our system to the new room. We may get some sort of blinds for the windows so the sun does not shine directly into Di’s eyes or make the TV unwatchable — need to have a cable outlet (TWC) installed, too.
The room is usable now — the amenities will follow at their own pace — quickly, if not yesterday, as far as Di is concerned.
Sunroom 2 — Deconstruction and Construction
Sunroom – Continued
Well, no work on the sunroom today.
Took Charlie to get her picture taken to renew her British passport today — No, a British passport picture is not the same as an American picture. Both the pose and size are a bit different.
Then, I took her to one of her favorite stores for a “little” shopping. The shop is called “Fleur de Lys” and is located on 17th Street in Costa Mesa — almost, but not quite, in Newport Beach. We got there a little after 1 pm and left about 3 pm — women and shopping . . .
They are supposed to do some work on the sunroom tomorrow, Saturday. Enough to be ready for final inspection on Monday. One thing that needs to be corrected is a wiring error that has an outdoor light switch connected to an indoor dual plug. Hopefully, the roof over the room is completed before any rain comes. We’re supposed to get a bit this weekend — I’ll believe it when I see it.
Also, on Saturday the electrician who installed our new 200 amp box is supposed to return and correct two things the city inspector found wrong. One is that the new copper grounding rod needs to be replaced with a stainless steel one — our local soil corrodes the copper too fast.
At any rate, here are some pictures of the sunroom as it now stands — sans roof.
The cats already like the new room — they can now follow my wife “outside” and they’re closer to the bird feeders.
On Tuesday the folks who re-did our Heating system, and added AC will be here to look at the new room (patio enclosure) and see about what is needed to connect it to the system. Quite soon, Charlie ought to be able to enjoy an “outside” room to smoke in and watch her TV shows — a room of her own in her back garden, but without the disadvantages of wind, rain and heat that plagued her on the patio.
Sunroom 1 — Deconstruction and Construction
Sunroom
Here we go again. Last month, or was it two months ago, we re-did one of our bathrooms so that Charlie had a walk-in shower / tub. Then we had to re-do the heating system and installed new ducting and AC. Now, we’re adding a patio enclosure / sunroom.
Two workers came last week and demolished — de-constructed — our patio cover. I have never seen a neater job of demolition. They also got rid of some of the brick-work where the new sunroom was going.
The next day two more workers came and poured concrete where the brick-work used to be. We now had a solid concrete slab for the sunroom. Rails for the walls and roof were also installed.
Yesterday work began on the sunroom itself. The following pictures are from yesterday and today. The guys work hard and clean up well.
Beach
While the work was going on in the backyard, I took my wife and one of her retired-teacher friends to a Christmas Lunch at her old school. After dropping them off, I drove back to HB. I stopped at TK’s for a “Big Bargain Special — hamburger and fries — and lunch at the beach. Parked at 17th and PCH and ate lunch on one of the concrete benches along the railing above the beach. Lord, what a beautiful day. Sunny, 62 degrees, a light breeze and clear as a bell. Ate lunch, took a walk to the water, snapped some pictures and read a chapter out of one of my three current books. A little after three o’clock, Charlie called and I went back to Santa Ana to pick her and her friend up and we returned home.
Just another almost perfect retired day in paradise.
Oh, yeah. Our gardener comes on Thursday — I don’t think he’ll get much work done in the back.
English Exercise
Picked up several books at Camelot (used book store) today. Among them was Sue Grafton’s W is for Wasted. Looking at the list of her titles in the Kinsey Millhone series, I was reminded of an exercise I used to assign my seventh graders back in those days when I taught spelling, vocabulary and grammar. (May they never return.)
I’d have the kids write sentences using the words for the week–real imaginative, huh? Some of the sentences had to use two or more of the week’s words. For example: outlaw, evidence, innocent, alibi. Although the outlaw had an ironclad alibi, the evidence showed that she was not innocent and that her accomplice had given perjured testimony.
They could change nouns to adjectives to verbs to adverbs, etc. I also gave them a chance to stump me by “throwing” a bunch of words at me and seeing if I could do it on the fly. I don’t remember ever being stumped, but that could be memory’s ego talking. I do remember stretching things, especially when they’d have me do the whole list, mixed up of course, in a single go.
Well, here goes: The alibi the shapely burglar used was insufficient to save her from becoming a corpse as the deadbeat hodad’s board had evidently hidden a gumshoe of homicidal intent who was bent on blowing away the less than innocent as she passed judgment on the killer whose lawless sense of malice acted as a noose around the neck of the outlaw Pauline who realized that her continued existence was in peril as she was the quarry of the bullet ricocheting off the seawall which in its lack of silence was trespassing the pacific surfline and catching her in the undertow of its vengeance and wasted away her life in the uncaring sand.
Ah, well, the Angels won–on to Chapter 4.