 We have been able to get the rest of the second floor ready for the concrete. We used the old posts that originally came from the front of the property. They will be in the cafe area as a part of a railing that overlooks the stairs.
It will add a nice little historical touch to the building in a very visible location, as these posts are at least 75 years old.
Kim has spent time at the house painting the fence. She has not been able to do much  with the building since it was mostly "guy" work, but has enjoyed painting, although it is hot and tiring work.
While we were waiting for stone and sand to arrive, we worked on other projects. Xavier and David worked on the bathroom. They got the floor tile done and started working on the shower. Next week, they will build the wall for the shower and put in the shower doors and the tile on the walls of the shower. Tim also needs to build a cabinet for this bathroom. We have to find inset sinks, which is not easy here in Bluefields.
 It has been a bit of a challenging week. We finally got our truck back from the mechanic. After rebuilding the engine, he realized that the fuel pump was in bad shape, so he had to take it to Managua to get it rebuilt.
Once the fuel pump was installed, it did not work right immediately. Then once they got the fuel flowing, he found that the starter was malfunctioning, so he had to fix that also.
On Wednesday, we were supposed to have the truck back by 9:30 am so we could pick up 500 bags of sand and stone from the wharf, but with all the problems (plus a dead battery), we missed that deadline . . . soooo . . . we had to hire another truck to go to the wharf and pick up the sand and stone . . . aargh . . . the good news was that the guy gave us a pretty good deal on that.
On Wednesday evening, someone tried to break in and steal our steel (rebar and angle iron). We have completed our fence on three sides, but on the other side it is a chain link fence. We have not gotten approval from the people on that side to take down the fence and replace it.
Fortunately, our watchman heard the noise and scared them away. What is really crazy is just that day, we had moved the rebar back to that area. The thieves are always watching for opportunity.
On Thursday night our foreman was mugged walking home and had his cell phone and money stolen from him and we did not see him until noon the next day. He was at the police station filing a report and could not call us because his cell phone was stolen.
The Youth In Action event that was scheduled for September 17th has been postponed indefinitely. We asked them to delay it because they have a great vision, but need to spend more time working through the planning process.
We are planning to do the concrete pour on the front part of the second floor, the back porch and the top of the septic tank on Saturday (September 6). We will be bringing in ten of the neighborhood guys to help out along with our regular crew. We will have pictures of this next week.
 Once this concrete pour is done, then it will be a race to the finish. We will finish putting up the block walls, put a beam on top of that, then start putting the roof framing in place, then the roof.
Jason is here at a good time, because during this month, we will probably make more visible progress than any other month. He is helping Tim with the cabinets. We have most of the cabinet faces done and some of the doors. This is very tedious work. We are waiting for some more mahogany to dry out.
Update - we did pour the concrete this morning (Saturday) and the weather and everything worked out well. You can see the pictures in this week's picture gallery.
God bless you.
Tim and Kim |
