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I was noticing that the white portland cement
that our guys were using to make up the grout mortar mix had lumps in it
and I got alarmed. My experience in the past has been that if the portland
cement mix shows any signs of clumping together besides what they call
packaging lumping or something, then no matter how well the stuff mixes up
during application, you are gonna have problems down the road. I called
Dan about it, who in turn spoke to Mike and his guys. They had been
storing the large bags of portland cement in the tall plastic trash cans
w/ molded lids that slid down over the top. But we have a ton of humidity
in the air, and white portland cement does not sell as quickly as the
regular grey (that everyone is used to) so it tends to sit around a while
in open sheds at the local concrete products places. We opened a brand new
sack that we had and sure enuf, it had hard clumps in it. We called the
supplier who immediately got involved, putting us in touch w/ the tech
guys at his supplier, etc...I told our guys that we might have to have
this stuff sent in from further inland and just get it on an as needed
basis. Meanwhile, we got new sacks and Mike came up with a grey rubbermaid
type container w/ a better fitting lid. We now keep it inside the
guesthouse where it is climate controlled. Our grouters make up several 5
gal plastic pails of the dry mix that they keep closely lidded. Then when
they need to, they get more mix from inside and mix up more of our recipe
and fill the re-pails.
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Old
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New and now kept indoors
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Now the first row of concrete acid stained blocks are being set. It is
pretty exciting and we are all pleased at how they look. We, hopefully,
have gotten winter out of the way and are having good days for both
setting and painting the acid stain frieze.
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The first two blocks set were the lintels over
the windows on the top floor. You can see how New Stone Age Builders have
been so precise in measuring that they can set these heavy, solid lintels
and know that they will be perfectly placed when they add the adjacent
hollow blocks.
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Even tho the green concrete acid stain never
turned green and I went back over it with black because time was running
out. The effect is pretty good. The colors look soft and worn. Even tho
the base color of the concrete is pretty different and takes the stain
differently, the overall effect is harmonious. I am glad that I started
with this "back" wall as I learned a little that I can use to do
a better job on the highly visible east wall.
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It was fun to watch the cane lift and place the big
decorated DAC-ART block. The crane is so awesome, the boom can reach all
the way over and across the house, and Mike and Ryan can do really
precision work.
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This wall fasces west and gets the late
afternoon and sunset colors.
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As you can see in this photo from afar, the
acid stain decorated row of blocks doesn't really jump out at-cha. It is
pretty subtle. We have lost most all of the ultra tall Italian looking
pine trees due to the hurricanes. This lone tree stands in the undeveloped
property next door. According to the tax appraisal office hearing guy that
I met with a couple weeks ago, this property may be vacant for quite some
time. Suits me.
I never dreamed that I would be able to
build before I was looking at the back-side of a bunch of homes on small
lots. Getting this house up first is a miracle and will be such a great
barrier from building noise and dust.
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Big solid lintels are now
being moved into position to be lifted onto the porch columns to support
the deck above.
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Sat March 15, 2008
I got over to Villa Lagoon as soon as I woke up to
finish painting the concrete acid stain onto the blocks that are the
eastern course of the frieze. It was still very foggy and the blocks were
very damp. Some had slight standing water. I took out some older towels
and dried them as best I could. I had put the first coat on the day
before. Today I went back and made adjustments on some of the blocks
where the colors did not take as planned. It is amazing the variation of
the final results in the concrete blocks that were poured at all sorts of
different times. We have been using some blocks and lintels that have been
lying in the 'bone yard', in storage for various lengths of time. Some
were probably poured for jobs where something in the plans changed and the
block was no longer needed.
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The colors of the concrete acid stain designs
look more harsh in these photos that the finished product will be. Here
they are still wet and have a lot of acid stain residue on them. Plus I
had only just finished painting it on and the colors take some time to
develop into the final hue.
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Before the end of the afternoon, the block
crew had all the painted concrete acid stain row stacked. It looks good. I
will have to take another photo in the a.m. as the sun in the western sky,
behind the house, makes the colors look dark when photoing the east wall.
The decorative cornice will go directly on top of this permanently painted
row. 
Cornice blocks lying face down on the ground in front of the wall they go
on.
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GOOGLE VIDEO MOVIE:
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 Screw-ups:
When Don of New Stone Age Builders stood up in the master bedroom area to
show me where the location of the window sills would be if we place the
windows were they are drawn on the plans, I realized for the first time
that they would be ridiculously high. Don held his hand up to his chest to
indicate how tall the window sills would be and I am a lot shorter than he
is, so they'd be even higher on me. I am grateful to Don and Mike
for noting this and bringing it up early on.
So we all got together real quick and took
a look at the plans. I told them that they were right, I wanted the
windows lower but that also meant overall taller windows in 6 locations.
It would not look good to just bring down the windows in the size planned.
They need to start up high in line w/ the decorative panels. This is gonna
add $ to the cost of the windows of course. But good that we caught this
in time before the blocks were stacked.
But in the course of figuring this out, I
noticed that I already had plain blocks in the row that goes under the
decorative panels where some special under-panel things are suppose to go.
Mike started counting courses, and sure enuf, they had to remove a block
where these pieces that we do not have yet are suppose to go.
Then when I was looking at the drawings of
the house I noticed that the horizontal banding decorative effect that was
suppose to go all the way around the garage/bedroom tower part was missing
!!! I called Mike down out of the crane. He said he thought we had
discussed it and decided not to do it, Un-Uah....I have no recollection of
that decision as I have always felt strongly about wanting horizontal
banding as it so very typical of just about all urban Italian
architecture. Plus, otherwise it is one plain big ole tall block wall
without it. Sooooo, Mike got on the phone w/ the DAC-ART plant and found
out that they have plenty of poured decorative band material that we can
drill out on the back to epoxy in short lengths of rod to epoxy to my
walls.
It is true that i have been here on the job
site most every day, but I just wasn't paying attention to those details.
I barely noticed it in time. We had not yet back-filled the block that had
to be removed so it was no biggie. But if we had , whew...it would have
been a whole-nother story. Wonder what the correct spelling of "hole-nother"
is ? Anyway, going forward, I and builder Dan told Mike to bring it to out
attention if there are any notions of veering from the plans as
drawn.
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 We have a new
piece of rented equipment. Our grouters, Juan and Jose have been working
on tall ladders but we are not higher than that is a safe method. Our
man-lift is controllable from the bucket and is cool. They can work in it
alone and control everything. In an effort to minimize the destruction of
soil surface and sod, Mike has laid out some half sheets of under-layment
plywood they he is putting under the tracks on the outer tires. I asked
him if he could remove the tracks on this job. He said that while we could
rive ok on the east side, the west side is very uneven and he is right. On
that side the thing could easily become stuck. He told me of another job
where the lift got stuck repeatedly and had to be pulled out by the
crane.
Grouting way up in the sky.
GOOGLE VIDEO MOVIE:
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We got two loads of blocks this week. Here you
see lintels and cornices being delivered from the DAC-ART facility in
Theodore, AL. Our crane is able to unload these truck shipments rather
quickly. It picks up a block and with the long boom, it just turns on the
360 degree swivel base to the area of the property that the block needs to
be set down.
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The second truck load today.
 
  
Second truck arrived right after the first. It was warm and sunny
and the truck driver was shirtless. The truck brought our second load of
blocks from the DAC-ART facility. When the driver saw me w/ a
camera, he started doing muscle-man poses. I didn't quite 'get' this one,
where he folded his arms toward his chest, but what do I know about body
building ! Nothing thankfully.
Roxie hangs our with us every day. I will miss her when construction
finishes, I might have to get a dog the of my own then. Roxie has some blue paint on her forehead but doesn't seem bothered by it.
She usually has a stick in her mouth just as our old dog 'Sam' did. You
can see a bit of her stick on front of her. Just like Sam, Roxie either
wants you to throw it for her to retrieve or she chomps on it. Roxie
belongs to Don of New Stone Age Builders. Somehow her tail got chopped a
bit short I think.
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