From Bella Terra of Gulf Shores, Foley, Alabama With Tropical Storm Cindy swiping us in June and then Hurricane Harvey fresh in memory, talk of a new storm system, now named Irma, began last week. Irma is a Category 5 boasting the distinction of being the strongest recorded hurricane in the Atlantic Basin. She has her eye set on Florida -- all of Florida. Irma's punch for several days was fueled by center winds speeds of 185 mph supported by gusts of 210 mph and some of the lowest pressures at 914 millibars. It is anticipated Irma will slam into Florida, via the Keys and move straight up the peninsula, starting this weekend. Adding insult to injury, a third hurricane, Jose, has now developed along Irma's same path. Jose is expected to take a northward course before reaching Florida's peninsula though. Small consolation.
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| Too red! Sept 6th |
Through all of the nervousness Irma is causing, Alabama's Gulf coasts appears to be outside her reach -- at least for now. As a matter of fact, we are having surprisingly pleasant, sunny weather with lower humidity and temperatures. Even the daily rainstorms have stopped.
A welcomed hum of construction activity began on our project this week. It started when the dark brown concrete stain color I chose was not available. On Wednesday, a runner-up stain was selected but it proved to be much too red.
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| Bill |
Then the good folks at Sherwin Williams created a custom color that was near perfect and it was applied to the gazebo pad. I do like it. Hopefully, gazebo assembly will begin soon. David and one of his Gulf Coast Construction guys, named Bill, assisted and encouraged me with the process... Bill even drove me to the Sherwin Williams store.
Our non-standard and elusive eight foot double front doors still hadn't arrived and that is holding up interior progress. David managed to get the framing inspection passed without the doors but he's hesitant to press our luck by requesting the insulation inspection without them.
Then, to our surprise, the doors arrived on Sept 7th! But alas!... No celebration. The sidelights were not included. My heart fell to my feet. David did go ahead with a request for insulation inspection and to our delight..... IT PASSED -- pending door installation, of course. I'm impressed.
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| The Doors.... no, not those Doors. |
Bill applied the newly custom mixed concrete stain to the gazebo pad Friday, September 8 and it was perfect. My only instruction to Kelley at Sherwin Williams had been to make it as near the original dark brown color as possible.
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| Sept 8 -- David (R) and Bill (L) are eager to see my reaction to the new concrete stain. |
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| Perfect color concrete stain. Remnants of the first stain can be seen on the edge. |
We are ready for sheetrock inside the casita now and we are waiting for the stone workers to begin work on the outside kitchen.
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| Bill and David planning the sheetrock installation - September 8 |
To our dismay, the perfect color stain developed bubbles by next morning. Bill and David were baffled. An explanation and a remedy from Sherwin Williams would be needed. It would take several days and several applications before Bill determined that whatever was causing the bubbles, it would take a cooling of the concrete before stain was applied to keep it from happening again and again.
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| Late afternoon on Sept 8. The tongue and groove porch ceiling is started. |
Construction stood still September 9 - 11th, which was stressful for me. Our travel friends Pam, Ernie, Joyce and Charlie will visit late in September and I'd really like to have more to show when they are here.
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| September 10, noon |
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| Septemeber 10th 8:40 p.m. |
Once again, we've been spared the hardest weather, getting only a few gusts of 25 mph winds and a few showers. Hurricanes Lee and Maria are being watched in the Atlanatic but they are too far out to worry about at the moment.
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