In the Summer of 2016 all the stars lined up and we were finally ready to start. It was very important to us that SOMEBODY be there when the boys broke ground, just to be sure we didn’t end up with a disaster by putting the foundation in the wrong place or facing the wrong way. Since my day job is very busy during the Summer months that meant Buttercup had to go. Luckily she could get about a week off from her job to supervise, a skill she is very good at. One problem was that the foundation was going to take out our tent site, and she couldn’t put up the big tepee tent by herself anyway. She could have stayed with one of the neighbors, but being the hard core camper she is she didn’t want to do that. So going again to Amazon we got this beauty: http://amzn.to/2FpZSEn
Coleman Instant Screened Shelter
Another thing that we needed before starting construction was a water tank so the boys could wash off. After a quick trip to Home Depot Rolando returned with a nice plastic 400 gallon water tank. Buttercup packed her stuff and soon was installed in the new base camp. The next day things started to happen.
The boys started with a little brush clearing action. As this was going on Rolando and Buttercup did some final surveying and decided to adjust the orientation of the foundation by about 15 degrees in order to maximize the breeze and views. A little checking was involved as we still had to keep the deck posts within the lot setbacks.
Sometimes the best way is the old fashioned way!
Once this was done stakes were pounded in and we were ready to go. The first thing to do was to make the driveway entrance through the stone wall that surrounded the property.
Finally some actual digging!
At the end of the day we had this:
Lot cleared and ready to go
Blue Bitch!
Once the footprint of the foundation was established, Princess felt confident enough to come home and return to work. One thing that always happens in these projects is that excavation ALWAYS goes over budget. I knew it would happen, I was just praying that we would have enough cash to cover it once the hole was finished. Initially, things went well for us. I was actually thinking that we might get away with no drama. But on day three Rolando sent me this picture:
The $8,000 rock
Water Island is an old volcano, actually the oldest volcano of the volcanoes that make up the Virgin Islands. “Blue bitch” as a very hard volcanic rock that is almost always encountered while excavating in the VI. Apparently the original name was “Blue beach” but after dealing with it for a while the locals changed the name from “beach” to “bitch”, probably cause that’s what you do when you find it in the middle of your construction site. Solutions vary from leaving it in place, trying to hammer it out, or changing plans and just moving your hole to somewhere else on the lot. More than a few VI houses have boulders sitting in the middle of a patio deck as architectual “features”, the patio being in the middle of the first attempted hole for the house. We were within 2 feet of our planned depth for our hole, so we decided to do the manly thing and get a bigger hammer.
Sometimes you just need a bigger hammer
Beating on the “bitch”
After 3 days of banging away, we finally were able to send the hammer excavator away. The extra cost was about $8,000. I breathed a sigh of relief, it could have been much worse. Another 4 days of digging by the regular excavator, and we had a finished hole.
Almost There!
And Done!