Five Full Seawall Days And A Fresh New Vestibule

The freshly poured concrete for the seawall with glistening sun rays. This is the view towards the west. Photos were taken Friday evening after five full days of construction.

This is the view towards the east. The forms are being removed this morning.  

The concrete was hand mixed before pouring it into the forms. 

Now that the old boardwalk has been removed and replaced with a narrow seawall, we've ended up with more yard space. 

It amazes to think that entire seawall was mixed by hand and then poured. With Mi Miguel and me doing the leveling of the concrete floor in the living room, I've learned that mixing concrete by hand is a lot of work. 

Mi Miguel was so tempted to write our names or the year or both in this wet concrete. But I insisted that we just leave it alone. For the price we are paying for this new seawall, it's best to just leave it alone and let it dry.

Saturday morning we visited family and hit a few thrift stores. You can't imagine how ecstatic I was to find this little hidden treasure tucked away in a back room. Mi Miguel wasn't impressed but I loved it. We paid $20.00 for it, brought it home to research the artist and found out it is worth over $350.00. I do have an eye for art. 

Sunday morning, I set out to paint the vestibule a nice cream shade. The peach walls and the pumpkin door just doesn't work for us. 

While I painted Mi Miguel installed a new light fixture. The one in the vestibule was an eye socket light. 

Mi Miguel will be changing that light fixture on the soffit to a surveillance camera.

He worked and worked on figuring out a way to get the new light fixture to work in the old eye socket place. 

With a few pieces of wood and a little ingenuity, he figured it out and started installing the new light.

Here is the new light. It looks much more updated and attractive than the eye socket light. 

I continued to paint the vestibule cream. In no time we had the vestibule looking a lot different. 

The stone looks nice with the muted green and cream. The door just isn't working for us though. There's just something about that pumpkin color that doesn't compliment the stone. 

The stone arch over the sidewalk is something we've thought about removing. But with the new color of the house and the power washing of the stone, it's becoming something that we love now.  

After I painted the vestibule, I wondered if we should've went a few shades darker with the green. This wonderment of mine made Mi Miguel cringe since we have half of the house already painted with the softer green.

 Before we did anything drastic, we test painted a shutter cream to see if it made the green look a little more colorful. 

After many shots at different angles, we think it will work. A darker green just wouldn't enhance the colors in the stone. 

We checked it out on the opposite side, just to make sure. Mi Miguel was absolutely convinced that the muted green was perfect.

He even put the shutter on the opposite of the window to show me the perfection of the green with the cream shutter.

He's right, the stone looks great with the soft colors. It doesn't compete with the paint. I can see the vibrancy in the arches. I get it, we aren't going with a darker shade of green at this point of no return.

The double arches were too much with the peach and before it was power washed it was almost unsightly. Cleaned up and with the house being a new color, the double arches are what makes the house look charming and inviting. Now that we are keeping it, we are painting the stucco part of it cream.

The cream is proving to be much more attractive than the peach. The cream worked better than the green for the arches.

The door needed painted. I couldn't sleep until this door was painted. So we made a mad dash to the home improvement store last evening to buy paint. This deep copper looks great with the stone, don't you think? It still needs a second coat but so far we love it. 

Here is what the front entryway looked like when we first bought the house. 

Mi Miguel removed the screening, right after the closing. What a difference just by doing that.

By removing the screening it really brought our attention to the peach color and pumpkin trim.   

 

Here's the pumpkin door, doesn't the copper look richer?

 

 

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Day Five of the Seawall

Seawall after four days of construction. The men are already here bright and early this morning to begin the fifth day of the seawall. This is where we are at so far.  A close up of the rebar set up for the concrete to be poured. 

A bit glary, but I wanted to get a picture of both ends of the seawall. 

This end is easier on the eyes without the sun. The progress is amazing in just four days.

We've come a long way from the rotted boardwalk. 

Once the concrete is poured and the seawall is complete, lots of back-fill dirt will be brought in to build our yard back up from the years of erosion.

Once this project is finished we will begin the pergola and hopefully buy a boat real soon. I can't wait to see the progress at the end of today.

Day Four of the Seawall

This is our front yard right it's a big mess right now. Who knew we'd have a port a potty at our curb?

The men have been working long hours and making great progress. 

This is a closer view of what the wall is starting to look like. 

The back yard is a mess too. We were warned that it is a very messy process to rebuild a seawall.

This is Mi Miguel walking around the yard. For those who don't know him, this is his, "What the heck were we thinking" look that he gets when feels that we are in over our heads.

But then he saw that so much of our yard was falling into the canal.

We know it was the right thing to do to have this reconstructed. It will last for many, many years and in the end it will be money well spent. 

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Beach Tent and Seawall Update

Mi Miguel bought me a Kamp Rite beach tent for Valentine's Day/Anniversary. As soon as he got home we packed it up and took it to the beach for the first time. 

We had no clue how to set it up and it was very windy yesterday. 

Here let me try. Just kidding, this was nothing more than a pose for a photo. I know nothing about tents.

Mi Miguel used his critical thinking skills and pitched the tent perfectly.

Or so we thought, until I climbed in and it collapsed. Which made for a terrific laugh.

The sun fell closer and closer to the horizon. We weren't sure if we'd ever get it right. But we did and I can't tell you the attention that it drew. Everyone wanted the 800 number off of the side of it so they could get one. 

Here's what you need to know before you buy a beach tent. It weighs about 40 pounds. If you have to carry it very far it is cumbersome. It comfortably holds two adults. It stands up to moderate winds. It has screens on all sides or you can completely open or completely shut all sides. Also, the one we got will convert to a seating position. You should definitely do a dry run of pitching it at home before you head to the beach. We didn't do the dry run, but Mi Miguel is good about figuring things out on his own. The cons are that you need to bring a thick blanket because the bottom of the tent is not real comfortable. This didn't bother me so much last evening because we were only in it for a short time. If you plan on spending an entire afternoon you will want to bring something to make it more comfortable. Don't forget pillows of some sort too. 

Our friends came to the beach so we let them check out the tent while Mi Miguel and I went for a stroll. 

As we strolled we noticed a cute little turtle in the sand. There were absolutely no shells so we returned to the tent to take it down and to visit with our friends. 

The beach closes at sundown. So just as the sun dropped out of view we headed for our car.

When we got home, even though it was dark I wanted to get a few photos of the progress of the seawall. 

It's coming right along but I have no idea what they are doing or where we are at with the progress.

I have no idea what this tool is, but I do know that it is very noisy and they have to use it a lot.  

The crew arrived bright and early this morning in spite of the heavy rain.

The sunset was so beautiful last evening; I felt inspired to do this little work of art this morning.

We've owned our home for seven months now. Do I love Florida? In all honesty, I'm still adjusting. Florida still doesn't feel like home to me. Has it been worth it buying this fixer upper? Absolutely, without any hesitation. We have learned so much and it has made us respect and appreciate our relaxing moments. If we had it to do over again would we have bought the beach tent? That would be a definite, yes! Love the beach tent! 

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