Out of Storage And In the Light - Finally

But, first this word...

I mentioned a couple of days ago about Cody oiling our deck. He did a really nice job of it. I just thought I'd include a shot of the result. It's had some time now to soak in nicely. As you can see from the photo, it has absolutely brought the wood back to life. The color is deeper, the grain sharper, in short, it's gorgeous.

The one downside to it is that the deck is decidedly warmer (as in hot) now, when you walk across it in bare, dry feet. It's tolerably comfortable when you've been in the pool and walk on it with wet feet.

What a difference it has made. The gray weathered look is totally gone.

The Beautiful Deck

And, also leading up to the mosaic installation, Cody also finished painting the pump house. He painted blue trim, which matches the decorative block and wood railings of the house. Then he painted the walls with the same terracotta as was used on the house. A bit darker than what was used on the fence.

Cody Painting Trim on the Pump House

Cody Painting the Walls of the Pump House

Now, to the business at hand. Here's the whole process - well, as far as we got it done today, anyway.

First off, this morning I had to retrieve the mosaic from my workshop, which has become a storeroom once again. Anyway, I fished it out and then spent a few minutes prying grout out from the screw heads, which had been applied to hold two 2x4s that acted as backing for the mosaic. Turns out, they didn't really work all that well, as the PlyCem (cement board) had warped slightly into a sort of bowl-shape, which meant that when we stuck it to the wall of the pump house, that we'd have to use a few more screws to straighten it out and get it to adhere correctly.

Mosaic in Storage

After that, I loaded it onto my hand-truck and hauled it out to the guest house, with Dianna's assistance as the mosaic weighs in the neighborhood of 50 to 60 pounds.

The guest house became my impromptu workshop. Here you can see it laid out on a folding table ready for me to work on it. I had to trim about 2 inches off the top and bottom with my saber-saw in order to get it to fit just under the waterfall. It's lucky the mosaic wasn't any wider. I would have had to trim that as well if there had been about another quarter of an inch to its width.

Mosaic Ready for Trimming

I had to run into town to get screws and anchors to help support the mosaic. No easy task, I thought, since today is Labor Day here in Belize. Everyone is off work. As luck would have it, I happened to call Doug and mentioned I screwed up by not getting sufficient supplies beforehand. He told me Villa's Supply was open this morning. What a break. I jumped into the Isuzu and headed into town.

There, I explained to the young man what I wanted to do and what I thought it was that I needed. He said, "why don't you use "blue screws? You won't need anchors with them. So, he sold me a bunch of them, along with a bit, one size smaller than the screws.

As I headed back, I saw Doug at his house, just after I turned onto our road. I told him what I'd bought, and he said, that it was cool. He'd used them a bunch of times and that they worked great. I'd never used them before, so that was good to hear.

I told him I'd be ready to do the mosaic as soon as I got home. He arrived about 10 minutes later on his bike, and we got to work.

First, since the mosaic is so heavy, we decided to position a piece of wood at the bottom, as a rest for the weight of the mosaic. Here you can see we're fastening it (with more blue screws, courtesy of Doug). I damned near ruined my Craftsman 18V drill, concentrating on drilling and not on where the water was.

Applying the Wood Brace For the Mosaic To Rest On

Figuring Out How to do It

Having done that, we were ready to "glop" on the adhesive - a waterproof (or at least water-resistant) tile setting adhesive. Here, we're using a scrap piece of plywood as a mortarboard.

Skilled Craftsmen At Work

And, right away we begin troweling it on. According to the bucket, we had about a 20-minute work window for the stuff. Of course, that's figured on working in mainland US of A, not Belize. So, maybe we had somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes.

Troweling The Adhesive on Nice and Thick

Just Go Ahead and Glop it On

A study in concentration, we both worked fast and sure. Actually it was quite a large area to cover - about 2'10" by 4'6", all in one shot.

The Mark of a Pro - Pencil Behind the Ear

Merrily We Trowel Away

Then, we brought out the mosaic - carefully, I might add. Making sure we had it right side up, we were ready to apply it to the wall.

Somewhat Nerve-wracking Work

Getting It Into Position

In Position and Stable

Doug Uses a Couple Small Wood Bits For a Better Fit

Doug Adjusting the Mosaic

As soon as we were happy with the positioning of the mosaic, I started drilling holes and running in the blue screws, which really did a great job of drawing the mosaic in against the adhesive. We used eight screws altogether. Probably more than we needed, but it did give us a nice comfortable feeling.

Applying the Blue Screws to the Mosaic

Finishing the Blue Screws

And, finally, here's the end result of our labor. It really looks cool and finishes off the pump house nicely.

The Mosaic In Place

The Mosaic Looking Good

Of course, I still have to add grout around the edges, ensuring a smooth transition to the waterfall lip itself. And not to forget, covering the screw heads in the mosaic with grout and then applying glass stones over that in the appropriate places.

When it has the afternoon sun shining on it and the waterfall running, it is just going to be absolutely sparkly. We couldn't be happier.

Just a reminder, that the mosaic is a piece that we commissioned Gale Peterson and Ali Shandiz to do for us. Their website (http://cpsnetworki.com/Homepage.htm) has quite a bit of the art and projects they are involved in. I also follow their blog, Virtual Existence Time Machine (http://iguanamountain.blogspot.com/), which is listed on the right-hand column of this blog.

Thanks, guys. As you can see, we've finally gotten it installed. I know you thought it was doomed to spend eternity in darkness, but now it's out in the light and we love it!

Daytripper

Yesterday morning we got an early start. Cody showed up at 8:00 AM and promptly got to work scraping and sanding the stair railings in preparation for painting and varnishing.

Cody Hard At It Early in the Day

By 8:30 AM, Dianna and I were off to Old Belize. Old Belize (http://www.oldbelize.com/)is a combination working marina, boat yard with lift-out capabilities, restaurant, and tourist museum and other activities (water slide, zip-line and beach) that is about 5 miles south of Belize City.

After a non-eventful trip through Belize City, we got to Old Belize about 10:30 AM - right on time (more of that type-A behavior). We had come to pick up the mosaic that Gale and Ali had been doing for us.

We went there since that's currently where Gale Peterson and Ali Shandiz call home, living in their hand-painted bus, along with their dog, Scarlet. See their website: (http://www.cpsnetworki.com/Homepage.htm).

Here we are, more or less at arrival. We'd already been to Gale and Ali's bus, met Scarlet, picked up our dolphin mosaic. Here's the mosaic, which is sitting in my workshop till we get the waterfall unit installed. Then Gale and Ali will come up and actually do the installation for us.

Our New objet d'art

We then headed back across the marina to the restaurant for lunch. But first, a tour.

Dianna, Gale and Ali

Dave, Dianna and Gale

Before we had lunch, we toured the museum. Gale and Ali have played a big part in the preparation of the museum. Most of the scenery painting was done by Gale. They did all the building facades in the shopping area, floor painting throughout the museum and gift shop, etc.

We started off entering the museum by going through a sort of rain forest/jungle. Pretty much designed for the cruise ship crowd.

Wow! A Real Jungle!

Then we saw an example of a Mayan grave. Complete with actual Mayan pottery and bones.

Mayan Grave

Here in the village scene, was an example of how Belizeans lived in the late 1800's. Funny, I still see a lot of houses, just like that... well, maybe not as well constructed or as square as this example, but similar. Dianna was admiring the hand-made baskets. Gale said when a cruise ship tour is happening, there are actual folks that come in and give demonstrations of basket making, grinding corn, etc.

Dianna Checking Out the Basket

Then we saw a scene depicting some of the lumbering operations that used to occur in Belize, including the preparation of logwood dye, used in fabric dye and printing inks.

Logwood Dye

Here's an example of the early sugar mills in the area. This one is Indian Church.

Sugar Mills

And a quaint dray cart with petrified donkey. Gale did the scene behind the cart, as well as most of the others in the museum.

Dray Cart

Here we are finally in the gift shop. They also have a lot of wood items from the Hattieville prison. All really good looking. We've been meaning to stop at the prison gift shop one of these days.

Notice the wood and stone floor? It's all concrete, painted by Gale. Thirty-some years doing Broadway set decoration comes in handy now and then.

Beautiful Wood and Stone Floor in the Gift Shop

From the museum, we strolled over to the restaurant for a nice cold Belikin and a good bacon cheeseburger and fries. It was unusual in that everything was served at the same time. We're just not used to that anymore. Good food though, and reasonably priced. Lots of Belizeans come here on the weekends for a family outing.

Before we left, I almost forgot to snap a shot of Gale and Ali's bus. Completely hand-painted. It's quite unique. It also reminded me a bit of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters bus, "Furthur" and the trips they made in the early sixties (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merry_Pranksters for more info on that).

Hand-Painted Bus

Anyway, after filling our belly, we thanked Gale and Ali for being such good hosts (and buying our lunch), said our goodbyes, and returned to Corozal with our mosaic. A fun and tiring day.

This morning, as I told a friend of mine via email, I had to go into town to get some paint (oil-base, exterior, satin or semi-gloss, and a specific color that has to be mixed). This just demonstrates our normal, creative shopping experience down here. Seldom do we ever get everything in one store (We tend to think of every store in town as being a department at Wally World or some other big box place. It's just that our store is big enough you can ride your bike or drive your car from section to section).

The only hardware store in town that can mix paint is Villa's. They were out of BH paint (The best paint, interior or exterior here is BH, made in Jamaica). Their other brands weren't up to snuff. The clerk told me if I could get a gallon of white BH from somewhere else, he'd mix it for me.

Three stores later, it was obvious no one had it. Best I could do was at National Hardware, I got a gallon of Corona, oil-base, white for $40.00 BZ. I took that back to Villa's who mixed it and actually came real close to the original color. Mixing cost $11.00BZ.

Oh, yeh. When I left National, I stopped across the street at the video store and got three bootleg DVDs, The Reader, Slumlord Millionaire, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Guess What's Started?

I admit it. I did take a brief hiatus for a few days. I'd like to say it was due to some sort of equipment malfunction or something, but no. It was mainly due to laziness on my part. My apologies to everyone.

Here's what's been going on. We've started making great use of Skype, as evidenced by the photo of Dianna below talking to her brother, David.

Dianna Talking to Her Computer

Since we're on Satellite, we can use Skype. If we were still on BTL, well, that's something that they block. I've heard they block it illegally, but still it's blocked.

Skype works pretty good. It's not perfect by any means, but when you think of the distance and nearly instantaneous comms, well, it's really better than pretty good.

I've finally started shooting more stuff with my DSLR (a Canon). A couple of days ago, I fired up my telephoto lens and snapped this great egret roosting in the pine trees across the canal from our place. If you look carefully, there's someone else in the picture also checking out the crane.

Two Visitors

Long-time readers will remember Cody's (our caretaker) silver and red Chevy van. Well, he finally sold it (for more than he paid for it too). He took that money and now is the proud owner of this nice little red Nissan. BTW, the stereo works fine - sounds like a jukebox on wheels as he comes down the road.

Cody's New Ride

Now to the news... Construction has started again. Our guest house is finally underway. Here's a couple of shots showing the logistical end of things, the staging of the materials. Loads of sand and gravel, and about 700 6" blocks, and under the palapa, 35 bags of cement. Oh yes, and a bunch of lengths of rebar.

Getting Ready for the Job

Getting Ready for the Job - Part II

And here we are with construction underway. You can see it's going to be about 23'x23' and will but up right against the pool deck. A nice location.

Forming the Footprint

More Forming the Footprint

Isidoro and his brothers are doing the construction, working for Bob who's the GC. Footing pour is well underway in these shots.

Guest House Footings Being Poured

More of the Guest House Footings Being Poured

More of the Pour

And More of the Pour

Esidoro Adjusting the Bridge

We have a new "pool boy" - Cody. We enlisted (ok, press-ganged) him to clean tiles in the pool. Here he and Dianna are hard at it. I know, it's pretty rough duty. Notice the liquid refreshment...

Dianna and Cody Cleaning the Pool Tile

Still Cleaning the Pool Tile

Quackers is Keeping an Eye on Things

Cody Hard At It

We had been thinking of having a mural painted on the pool house where the waterfall comes into the pool. We met with Gale Peterson and Ali Shandiz and they suggested doing a mosaic. Here's a design they've proposed for us. It's based on a Roman spa mosaic and looks pretty cool. It will definitely be a great addition to our pool. They have a website too: (http://cpsnetworki.com) showing off their artwork and projects they have done.

Proposed Mosaic for Our Pool

Last but not least, just to show that we have done some things in the interim, I've been working some to neatify the pump house. I've added a bracket (actually a planter box support frame) to hold up the vacuum hose.

Pump House Beautification