Marc's Musings

We had ordered some sconces with the intent of mounting them on our two interior supporting columns facing the pool. We had also intended to mount three lighting fixtures – supplied by the company that supplies the materials for the lanai enclosure – above the deck on the far side of the pool.

Handy Tip 1: You cannot mount lights within 5 feet of a pool (under 12 feet above the pool). Our columns are 4 feet away and the height was going to be about 6 feet off the ground. Fortunately we were able to cancel the order for those sconces before they shipped.

Handy Tip 2: You’re not going to get very far with the inspectors if your lighting fixtures are not grounded and especially if they do not have a UL seal on them. Surprisingly the fixtures from the enclosure supply place suffered from exactly those two deficits.

Handy Tip 3: Between 5 feet and 10 feet from the pool, lighting fixtures cannot be less than 7.5 feet above the pool.

So we obviously had some drivers that moved us from our intended roof mounted lighting to wall mounted (right at 7.5 feet) that will extend out from the wall far enough to throw a cone of light on the new rock wall as well as to provide accent lighting for the deck. Now we just have to find light fixtures that will mate properly with the electrical boxes that will be installed over the next week or so so as to have a weatherproof and water tight seal.

We had the window from our tiny half bathroom removed

We replaced the laundry room door with one that has a blind build into the window

And the old solid laundry room door has been repurposed as the door to our garage replacing the hollow core door that served that function before.

Demolition began on the driveway and front walkway

It took quite a while since there were *two* driveways to remove. We’re still trying to figure it out but it looks like the original driveway was poured and, very soon after another driveway was poured over top of that one.

This picture below shows this for the walkway – the top layer is broken off and the bottom layer is waiting underneath

Anyway, much progress was made

The view from the garage

and the view from the front porch

and from the street

The pile o’ dirt grows smaller still, it seems we will have much less dirt than I expected to use in leveling the lawn after the driveway has been suitably built up.

Below you can see that the Lexan roof has been mostly installed,

As for the pool, holes have been cut for two lights in the primary filter (those black circles in the center of the picture)

And the electrical sub panel has been installed and the wiring is beginning

2012 Home Renovations – Part 28 – Screening of Lanai Done

2012 Home Renovations – Part 30 – Driveway Prepped and Poured

2012 Home Renovations – Part 28 – Screening of Lanai Done

Another incremental day. I’m pleased to say that you can’t really tell that the screening has all been installed 🙂

You *can* see the chair rails and the doors are now all fully operational.

This first shot below is still waiting for the Lexan covering for the roof. This small part will not be screened so that I can (finally) bar-b-que unmolested by the rain.

The screen on the roof is a heavier grade than that used for the sides so it is more visible (the oblique angle doesn’t hurt either). It can support real weight. I think we can do up to 6 inches of snow should it ever come to that.

The pool heater with auxiliary filter and booster pump were hooked up

and here we have the beginnings of our control center for the pool. Top is the Jandy controller, below that the Aqualink controller (controls EVERYTHING and can be accessed via iPad, Android and web interface). Below that is the hydraulic pump that will power the Fastlane.

This picture below was taken as a “before” picture to highlight the ceiling fans that we will be replacing with…

this nice fan we found on Amazon (Minka Aire F574-ORB Concept II Wet Bronze Outdoor Flush Mount 52" Ceiling Fan w Light & Ctrl).

2012 Home Renovations – Part 27 – Framework for Lanai is largely done

2012 Home Renovations – Part 29 – Driveway Demolition, New Door, Window Gone

2012 Home Renovations – Part 27 – Framework for Lanai is largely done

Things have been a bit busy around here lately so I’m combing the beginning and end of the day pictures this time.

Yesterday they DC Enclosures guys were here and they erected the bulk of the skeleton of the new lanai

Shortly after the above pictures were taken I got together with all the major parties: DC Enclosures – acting as contractor – and the Electrician and the Pool Guy and we discussed where we needed to get to from here. Tons of decisions needed to be made that I would ordinarily take perhaps days to think about. It’s possible to change some of the items that were agreed upon, it just becomes either pricey or disruptive to do so the further into the project you go as all parts have dependencies on the other parts it seems.

We agreed to create a walled corner in the shed to house some of the equipment and the control panels and electrical sub panel. Originally we were going to have the new electrical sub panel on the side of the house (near where the air conditioner condenser used to be) but when we got up to needing to pull about 25+ wire pairs through the piping that we’d laid down (plus needing numerous safety disconnects for the pool equipment) it made more sense to just wholesale feed all the electricity to the shed and then parse it out from there.

Also, it turns out that the receiving and return pipes for the pool (white pipes in the background below) need to be rerouted since the inputs to the heater are on the near side of the unit instead of the far side as was originally thought. The maintenance panel on that unit needs to be easily accessible and it either needed to be turned around as it is now or jutting out into the walk way. Fortunately we had left the wooden retaining wall unfinished and the top few beams are not even attached to accommodate such eventualities.

Also, lighting was discussed. The pool lights are going to be controlled by the iLink system which will also control the heater, booster pump, salt system and filter. The main lights will be controlled by a new bank of switches which will be mounted inside the laundry room.

Overall we will have:

lights at each of the 3 screen doors to the Lanai,
a pair of sconce lights gracing the two columns supporting the old patio roof,
4 more sconce lights around the perimeter of the lanai to provide accent lighting around deck,
a couple of spot lights at the peak of the gable over the old patio roof to provide working light on the deck,
another pair of spot lights at the peak of the lanai roof overlooking the rest of the back yard,
some new spot lights for illuminating the bar-b-que area and
a replacement set for lighting up the rest of the back yard behind the gym.

A LOT of lights to think about…

Anyway, when the guys left a LOT of the infrastructure work and planning had been completed and it looked like this

2012 Home Renovations – Part 26 – Lanai parts have arrived

2012 Home Renovations – Part 28 – Screening of Lanai Done

2012 Home Renovations – Part 26 – Lanai parts have arrived

A bit earlier than expected (almost always a good thing in construction) was this trailer load of pieces that will eventually make up our lanai.

There was a fair amount of relatively invisible work done installing the anchors around the deck and on the retaining wall. The most visible piece is the large support that will hold up the two separate peaked portions of the lanai.

You can see it here upper right (big dark brown – bronze – beam over the ladder)

and here upper left

But it’s best seen in overvier

As a reminder, the finished lanai is supposed to look like this from the outside

and like this from the inside

2012 Home Renovations – Part 25 – Rock Face completed

2012 Home Renovations – Part 27 – Framework for Lanai is largely done

2012 Home Renovations – Part 25 – Rock Face completed

It was hit or miss today, the original forecast for today had been 10% POP but, as can be attested to by my rained out bike ride, mother nature does not watch the weather reports. So some workmen showed up today, milled around a bit and then left. Some of the other guys came by to pull hay bundles across the foot of the driveway to ensure dirt does not get pushed out into the roadway by any pop up storms.

But the afternoon was largely rain free so the crew from Daco Stone showed up and finished the wall(s).

We were toying with having the back face of the wall by our boulder wall covered too but thought better of it and settled for a smoothing coat of mortar to give it a more refined look than the native industrial concrete

We also had the portion of the driveway retaining wall rock faced just to be consistent with the stamped concrete patio area that we now have as a “Cap” for the driveway.

Walking around the wall from the shed:

And overall…

Michelle is very happy with the look!

The way is now clear for them to come in and install the lanai. This should begin in a couple of days weather permitting.

2012 Home Renovations – Part 24 – Rock Face on retaining walls has begun

2012 Home Renovations – Part 26 – Lanai parts have arrived

2012 Home Renovations – Part 24 – Rock Face on retaining walls has begun

Michelle was concerned about the colors of the stones that arrived from Daco Stone. The sample board we were using to drive the decision was only about 15″ x 19″ of stone and, while it largely represented what we actually received, the darkest stones were represented as no more than a couple of inch high sliver on the sample. So there was some great back and forth before we were able to move forward with the install. I think most of the last minute stuff could have been avoided had the guy from Daco been more responsive to Michelle’s earlier email and phone calls from the earlier in the week.

Anyway, work has begun and will likely only need one more day to complete.

Part of such a large project – for us neophytes at least, is that there are a LOT of things that are taken for granted by the builders. i.e. the “normal” way of doing things or expected results when you make a selection.

One of the things that we absolutely did not know was that you would need to specify that “capstone” meant a solid single piece across the top of the wall if that is what you want. It turns out that having a capstone built out of smaller pieces looks fine, but I was surprised nonetheless since it was never discussed and my and Michelle’s assumptions had been that it would be solid.

At the end of the day here is what things looked like

Note also in the picture above that our pool heater has arrived. There are also some other boxes that you can’t see behind this that speak to the impending completion of the project!