Sneak Peak at the Floors

The floors are covered up now that Emily and her crew are almost completely finished. But I managed to get a few pictures last week before everything was covered. The images seen here include the compass at the front entry (before it was painted); the Frank Lloyd Wright inspired "rug" in the dining room that represents the image of the art glass windows across the game room; and a picture of the kictchen floor. There will be more pictures of the floors at the end of the job when everything gets polished and a few more suprises as well!

Work Resumes Today

All is well at Lot #111. We did lose a couple of shingles and pretty much all of our Tyvek wrap, but otherwise the house is just fine. Power was restored Sunday night and Emily and her crew are returning today to finish the floors.

In talking with Rick yesterday he explained that the lost shingles were probably due to the fact that the roof had not had enough time to set where the asphalt actually melds together on the roof making a tight grip. The only way a roof actually sets is with several days of hot sun that activate the asphalt strips. Since we've had relatively mild and overcast days leading up to the storm, there were one or two spots that had not completely set and they were taken by the wind. Rick assured us that our roof was installed to Miami/Dade Hurricane standards that include six nails per shingle instead of the usual three.

Personally, I think some debris from across the street hit the roof because the only damage to the roof was on the side facing the house under construction with the full dumpster. Again, it was very minor damage that can easily be replaced. The walls held up incredibly well, aside from the Tyvek, which really isn't meant to withstand 91 mph gusts. Rick is doing some research anyway right now on alternative waterproofing methods for ICF, we'll keep the blog posted on what he comes up with.

Hurricane Gustav

Hurricane Gustav roared ashore this morning in Louisiana. Unfortunately, Baton Rouge was on what is considered the worst side of the storm to be on. We had sustained winds in Baton Rouge at 61 mph, with gusts of 91 mph. The good news is, we are fine, our families are fine and accounted for and except for being without power, we're good.

The bad news is, we weren't in our new concrete house yet. At our old house, a wood frame house, we did have a tree uproot in our back yard and hit our house. From what we can tell, it did not cause a lot of damage, but we haven't really been up to assess it closely. Rick called us this afternoon and offered to come by and help us remove it tomorrow (once again, can I say AWESOME builder?)

We don't know if there was any damage at our home under construction. Rick and his crew were out to prepare the construction site for the storm on Friday, locked down the doors, picked up debris, etc. We feel reasonably certain the house is fine, we'll try to get out tomorrow and get a look at it. Our only real threat was from the construction site across the street where their trash container had not been emptied in weeks and posed a real debris threat to the house... and we only expect that debris may have damaged our windows or shingles.

But we are fine. We wish we were in our new house because we'd be a lot better off... we'll have a backup generator there and much more significant walls (and very small baby trees). Our hearts and prayers go out to all of those affected by this storm tonight and we pray for a quick recovery as we thank God that there wasn't significant flooding like what happened with Katrina.