melmar02

So a few interesting things have come up, and it seems we're at the "I just need a Xanax" and add-on portion of our journey. ? The sprinkler manifold things (I'm obviously the technical one in our family) on the side of our house that we saved from a lifetime of darkness by moving the equipment pad were torn up by the ditch witch the plumbers used to dig the trench for the lines. There are bits of sad, mangled plastic up and down the side of the house. I panicked... we had just preserved them, and now it's a war zone over there. We have a few sprinkler zones listed in the contract to be repaired, but not this. I mentioned to the project manager, and he said, "Oh yeah, I knew that would happen". I asked why go to the trouble to move the equipment pad, and he said it's much easier to fix them in their original location than to re-install them from scratch in a new location, and that they would take care of it. When the plumbers came out yesterday to work on the water lines, they were in our front yard...far away from any place a pool water line would go...with their ditch witch. Again, I panicked because we're at the limit of the sprinkler zones in the contract. Not to mention that they are tearing up a swath of perfectly good grass across most of the front yard. Well, turns out they weren't using the cutting bit. There's this neat little attachment for the equipment that can snake its way under slabs of concrete. You know, like a driveway. Our water clean out line is in our front flower bed on one side of the drive way and the main water line is on the other. They were just getting from one side to the other and needed to back way up to get the machine going. There's a giant gouge across our front yard, but it's not as bad as when I initially saw it from an upstairs window. I didn't see any sprinkler lines had been exposed when I went out there, so it looks like we're ok. The pool company's electrician came out to talk about lighting and we're adding lights to the steps off the deck on the left side of the pool for safety which we knew we wanted at the start. We're going to add some lights to the underside of the coping around the spa and firepit too and want them to do it so it's covered under their warranty. I also don't want an electrician to have to pull up our stone decking to hide wires after the pool is finished. We had them go ahead and quote us some string lights across the L shape our roof makes, and it came back crazy high - almost $2000. We're already wired for lighting out there, so all they have to do is connect and string the lights. We'll take care of that after the construction is finished and put that saved money toward our Alaska cruise. We've determined our sales guy was pretty new when we started this whole process. There have just been a couple of things that he said that stand out now that we are in the middle of the project. For instance, he told us the kitchen would be the very last thing to be constructed. The PM has told us it will happen in 2-3 weeks when the stone guys are here doing the rest of the work which makes sense. Why pay someone to come out twice when you don't have to? However, DH is now scrambling to research and pick out his grill and fridge since he thought he had more like 4-6 weeks. There are some other things the sales guy has said that just don't make sense now that we're going through the process. In hindsight, it kind of feels like he was learning along with us. ? Good news though, the PM said things start happening fast at this point.

I was wrong, it was the gas line they laid yesterday. They came back out and worked a little on the water lines today. Next up is an inspection for the gas lines.

I've never skied...snow, water, or jet. I'm looking forward to living vicariously though your trip!

Today the plumbers showed up to dig the trenches for the lines going from the main water line at the front of the house to the equipment pad to the pool. It's all been between our house and our neighbor's so far; nothing has been dug in the backyard yet. Fortunately we can stop watering the gunite twice a day - it's been cold in the mornings. ?

I agree with @IRMO12HD; if you wear contacts, they are a great option too. Then you don't have to worry about a new mask if your Rx changes (or leaving your mask at home or on the ship). Unfortunately, I can only do contacts if the excursion is early in the cruise. I think the increased salt throughout the week does something to the shape my eyes. I just can't get them in comfortably after day 4, but when I get home it's back to normal after a few days.

I've watched a couple videos and thought those boots must protect the finish. They don't look very comfortable.

I need my glasses for distance, but my Rx is slight enough (about 1.25) that I don't even bother. There is a small magnification underwater anyway. DH on the other hand has terrible vision with an astigmatism (4.5 in one eye and 3.0 in the other). He uses a prescription mask for the magnification, but skips the astigmatism bit for the mask. I remember when we bought my gear when I was first getting scuba certified that they had Rx masks for sale in the dive shop (on land, not on a ship). However, he bought his last mask online at Divers Direct. This is the one he got, and you can can select a different Rx for each eye. $110. https://www.diversdirect.com/p/tusa-liberator-prescription-mask

Agreed. But first sailing for who? Short 3-4 days to CocoCay from Florida? I'm pretty sure my 7 day from Galveston at the end of October is going to be toast.

They did our spa, tanning ledge, and steps first, and then came up the stairs when they had finished with the rest.

@JLMoran Our builder uses gunite which is shot through the hose as a powder. There is a second hose for water. The two are mixed as they come out of the hoses, and the guy spraying them can adjust the water and therefore thickness of what is being sprayed on the walls. To be honest, I've never mixed concrete myself, so I'm not sure if it is thinner or not. This seemed to be pretty thick, kind of like mortar that was then spread out with various tools to form the inner shape. Kind of like icing a cake with buttercream. I can do all kinds of different things with icing depending on how thick it is. The outside dried relatively quickly. The crew finished at 2pm, and the project manager stopped by closely thereafter and said that we could get in it that night if we avoided the edges of the steps and benches. If we waited until today we wouldn't have to worry about them though. It's a foot thick in some places so to keep the outside from forming cracks while the inside dries, we have to wet it down twice a day. When they finished, they dug 4 little holes in the bottom back down to the dirt underneath that will just be filled with plaster at the end of the project. If we get more rain and any water accumulates under the shell, this will prevent it from floating on top of the water like a boat, the holes will let that water come into the pool instead. In about a week they'll come out to finish the plumbing and electrical, then they install the water line tile.

Almost done.

@WAAAYTOOO we had rain every day last week, and storms last night. You could still see lightning in the distance when they showed up this morning. But it's sunny now. The tarp has slipped a little, and the spa is starting to take shape.

After a week of being on the schedule then a week of rain delays, we have a pool full of men this morning getting ready to shoot the gunite. The crew showed up at 6:45 and started taking off the tarp around the edge of the pool and adding one on our fence. They started to put one over the opening to our patio when I got this first photo. I'm not sure I'm going to get progress photos because the second photo is my view now. We turned on our security camera, hopeful that we could glimpse at the progress, but it's a little low. It is oddly similar to watching the deck camera channel on a ship though, so we're going to leave it on.

We went through this with one of our cancelations. There was a form we had to complete online to receive the 125% OBC, otherwise it would have been just a refund. You only have a certain amount of time to complete the form.

I wonder how often this site is updated? There seems to be some outdated info. For example, on the Costa Maya page it says a new pier will be built in 2018 and you have no choice but to purchase an excursion through the ship. ?

Hopefully not any creepers! Everyone and their brother can already see into our back yard, I don't need anyone peeping through the windows. That's actually been the one major downside to the whole project. The side where the fence is down is one of the two major streets in and out of our neighborhood, and we are in a very active walking community. Lots of families with strollers walking the dog with kiddos on bikes. I just wave at everyone who stops to look and close the blinds before it gets dark.

While it was still dark this morning, I heard the plastic moving around like it was being blown around by the wind. It went on for a few minutes before I finally realized someone was out there moving it. I quickly got dressed and went outside but had missed what I assume was the project manager removing the cover for the inspection. It was about 20 minutes before the sun was up, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't the inspector anyway. Regardless, I was able to get a couple better pictures.

Our builder uses a website that is supposed to show the dates of all the steps. It could be a really great tool...if they actually filled in the dates. It does have all the steps listed though, and I counted 6 inspections. Belly steel, gas, p-trap, bonding loop/deck, pre-plaster, and final inspection. We asked the project manager the other day how long it takes to get an inspection scheduled, and he told us that our city is so small that they don't have an inspector - they outsource it to a 3rd party company. He said quite a few cities in the Dallas area use the same company, and it's usually just a day or two wait. He called them while he was here around 2 or 3pm yesterday and got our steel inspection set for today.

The plumbers showed up just before 11:30 this morning, and they were done about 4 hours later. These are just the pipes that will run through or under the gunite. They will dig the trenches and connect to the water some time later. It was cool to watch them use a heat gun to bend the pvc in places. The crew kindly recovered all edges with plastic (even though we don't have any rain in the forecast until Sunday or Monday I think), so these aren't the best photos. The project manager stopped by while they were working and scheduled our inspection for tomorrow. Gunite is next!

It's a Texas blizzard! Well, this is what blizzards look like in the Dallas area anyway. It's been snowing here for over an hour, and there is no accumulation. Shouldn't affect the schedule. 20210110_135623.mp4

Agreed. Our state requires masks as well; however, we can still gather so weddings are still on. No one but the wedding vendors are wearing masks when I show up to deliver. My venue owners, planner, DJ, and photographer friends say just a few guests wear them (usually the grandparents), and social distancing doesn't exist beyond the ceremony. The only reason it happens then is the venues are setting seats in groups of 2 and spreading them out. Once people get to the bar, everyone's hugging everyone else. And forget distancing a bunch of drunk groom's men on the dance floor.

I didn't get out the t square, but it is oddly satisfying to look at their near perfect grid lines.

@Matt Hopefully the end of March or the beginning of April...your invite is in the mail.

I agree. No swim up bar, but I have been eyeing this... Good point. A 6 ft avalanche of dirt and rock would be no fun. No one is here today. We got a little more rain yesterday evening, so that may have delayed things. We're supposed to get more rain and maybe even some snow over the weekend. We're pretty laid back about the schedule since it's winter, but it's a lot more fun to see the work happening than to look at an empty work site.

It really is! I think it's a lot easier to see the shape with the rebar in, and you can tell what feature is supposed to be where. I'm dying to get to the far side to see what it looks like, but there's just no good way to get over there right now. Thanks. DH is an engineer and he was sure the plumbing would have to go in before all the steel, but we learned that they put the rebar in first, lift it up with bricks, and then dig and thread the pipes through the openings. It's been interesting to watch for sure!