A "Lee Projek"

Just a little thing I whipped together in my spare time. I actually thought this was going to take days not the couple hours that it actually took.

Prompted by Dianna's acrobatic header off the patio stairs, thanks to Cindy getting all tangled up with Dianna - both are fine, however. Cindy had no noticeable effects. Dianna wound up with an assortment of scrapes and bruises and was sore all during our vacation time with the Eternal Eight.

So, that was the motivation and inspiration for the project. I went to Lano's Hardware to see if they had the necessary fittings and 2" PVC pipe to make it a go. They did, including metal flanges to anchor it to the deck with stainless steel screws.

Parking Area Stair Rail

Carlos helped me cut the tubing and assemble everything together. It went like clockwork. Painting the railings with two coats of latex (water paint) flat blue actually took more time than building the rails. I started them on Friday morning, after Lano's opened and finished in plenty of time for that afternoon's happy hour.

Patio Area Stair Rail

Now that it's done, I wonder, "So, what was the hang-up in the first place?" The railings probably wouldn't have prevented Dianna's tumble, but they're done and they look good. Hard to imagine the stairs without them now.

More Yin, Less Yang

In the "More Yin" area, Cody made some progress yesterday with priming the pump house. As you can see below, it got a partial coat. Once he is able to finish that, then we have some primer especially for Snow Seal (if that's the brand name) that he'll pain onto the roof. Then he'll apply two coats of Sno Coat (or the other spelling, if either one is right) to the roof. The, we'll hook up some thin-wall black tubing to the outlets up on the roof, taking care to coil the tubing tightly and all over the roof, to heat water and... there we are. A ready made solar pool heater.

Cody's Priming of the Pump House

Occasionally, miracles do happen. I was under the palapa talking about the pool with John when my cell phone rang. It was the lady from the Post Office saying she had a Special Delivery package for me. Yeah!

I jumped into the Isuzu and zoomed downtown. After explaining to her what the items were, she looked them up in the "duty" book. Ninty-three dollars in duty later, I walked out of the Post Office with the jets.

Shortly After I Brought Them Home

The Jets In All Their Glory

Excitement reigned more or less supreme for a few minutes as we checked the many parts, and figured out how everything fit together.

Slight Yang here... We needed about 5-feet of 2 1/2" PVC pipe for the jets. Turns out, 2 1/2" PVC pipe isn't used anywhere in Belize. Everyone we checked with said, "Oh, that's Mexican pipe". Apparently, Mexicans use that pipe for sewerage instead of 4" pipe as a standard. And it's not used for anything on this side of the border, so no one carries it.

That brought the work day to a halt. As soon as the stairs were done, John sent the workers to his house to do some things, and Agusto was going to go to Chetumal, Mexico to score a length of 2 1/2" pipe. He was going to try to buy just 5-feet of it, but probably will have to buy a 20-foot length. I told them they should keep the extra for the next pool they build.

On with the Yin...

Deck stairs are done and look and work very well. It's so nice not to have to climb up on a rock to get up on the deck.

Front Deck Stairs

Rear Deck Stairs

Cody finished applying fill to the concrete patch job as well as applying several wheelbarrow loads to the area behind the pool, next to the fence. We've had some serious low-lying areas right there with major puddling. This should help alleviate the problem.

Fence Patch Job is Done

Behind the Pool Filling and Leveling