Cypress and more Cypress

Posted on March 13, 2011 by admin1

Our cypress and decking for the master and office areas arrived nearly two weeks ago. We are using 6″x 12′ select cypress boards for our ceiling throughout the house. Emily and I spent 2.5 days last weekend and a few hours yesterday sanding and “pickeling” (white-washing) this wood. Our friend Miah came by last Saturday to help sand for a few hours. The “pickeling” technique is pretty straight forward; sand the board, apply a coat of paint and wipe the paint off with a rag. We were going for something really light, and I think we found our groove after the first 20-30 boards. To date we have completed 180 boards. It really feels like we have completed 500. We have a total of 320 to finish for both wings of the house, not including the outdoor covered space.

What else? We continue to get the dreaded “not included” from our builder. I won’t go into detail on this, but I feel that I would now be able to write a pretty air-tight building contract. Unfortunately this was a skill I lacked prior to building. In any case, I trust that we can get through this.

WAPA got our temporary power hooked up Friday. Funny story, they actually came out Monday to set us up, however, our house number wasn’t big enough on the temporary pole, so they told us to make it bigger and the will come back, 5 days later.

Work on the house these past two weeks consisted of finishing the rafters, painting the rafters, pouring the back wall for the pool deck, getting the pool area ready, and getting ready to pour the guest “wing” walls. We finished Friday by actually pouring the walls. For those keeping track we have now used 247 yards of concrete.

We have also signed a contract for AC installation, met with Gaston from PVC Windoors out of Miami, and spent plenty of time talking to vendors about roof coatings, cistern coatings and paint.

3-1-2011 - The arrival of the cypress

3-1-2011 - Deck Wall forms

3-1-2011 - Rainbow

3-3-2011 - Rafter Work

3-3-2011 - Finished Pool Deck Back Wall

3-5-2011 - Miah helping with sanding the cypress

3-5-2011 - Cypress Drying Station

3-5-2011 - Emily working on the cypress

3-7-2011 - Footings for powder room/pantry that will connect to the main living

3-11-2011 - Pouring Walls

3-11-2011 - Pouring Walls and Painting Rafters

3-11-2011 - Pouring Walls

3-12-2011 - More Cypress

3-12-2011 - Finished rafters, starting pool, and poured office walls

3-12-2011 - Finished rafters (and temporary support)

3-12-2011 - Finished rafters (love this shot)

3-12-2011 - Emily

Onward and Upward

Posted on February 24, 2011 by admin1

As the title (I know, cliche) might suggest to some, we are in fact moving upward. Work on the roof began this week. Yay! It was supposed to begin last week, but for some unknown reason it didn’t begin until Tuesday. But the good news is that it has begun.

Whenever I mention to any of my friends/family in the states what it is costing us to build this house they are generally shocked. I am shocked too, but I do understand, to some extent at least, why it is so expensive. In terms of materials, nearly everything has to be shipped in. The cost of shipping is borderline ridiculous. An example: the three bundles of lumber in the two photos below came from Miami last week. I spent around $3K for this lumber. For me to get these bundles from the lumber yard in Miami to my site involves three different shippers. A local in Miami, the freight shipper from Miami to St. Croix (CaribTrans is who we are using), and the local in St. Croix to get it to the job site. Total cost of the shipping was right around $1200. Your first question is “why not just buy it locally”? And of course that is a great question. Unfortunately, even with the cost of shipping, I was still saving money. In addition, the local suppliers didn’t have quite a bit of the sizes of lumber I needed. We try to do things local when it makes sense, but most times it is just too cost prohibitive to do so.

2-16-2011 - Lumber purchased from Miami

2-15-2011 - Lumber from Miami

What else have we accomplished these past two weeks? Let me walk you through it. First we were able to get the back/ocean side garden wall up. I was a little surprised by the height of the poured walls. Not including the footers, the walls stand nearly 8 feet high, with half of that being above ground. This wall isn’t moving, it is solid. The original design called for a gate in the middle, but since we are keeping much of the sea grape the gate would end up opening right into it. So we shifted the gate to the one side.

2-14-2011 - Garden Wall Footings

2-15-2011 - Garden Wall Forms

2-18-2011 - Garden Wall Forms - Ready to be poured

2-18-2011 - Garden Wall Being Poured

2-22-2011 - Garden Wall

In addition we decided to take advantage of the space underneath the office to use as storage, so we put in a small opening for a door and poured a floor under there.

2-14-2011 - Under-Office Storage

We also poured the slab/floor for the guest bathroom and the office. This puts us at nearly 200 yards of concrete used so far. Shortly after the office wall forms started going up.

2-16-2011 - Guest Bath Plumbing

2-19-2011 - Guest Bath and Office Floor

As mentioned above, the rafters started going up for the roof over the master.

2-22-2011 - Roof work begins

2-23-2011

And finally, a few random photos.

Our Beach

Bird and Moon

View from a friend's home

We Have A View

Posted on February 12, 2011 by admin1

A fairly productive two weeks I suppose. We now have walls on the master side of the house and the support walls are in place under the office and guest bath. We have roofing lumber arriving on Monday from Miami so the roofers will start immediately on getting the roof framed on the master side. The idea is to have the work staggered so that both the concrete and roofing crews can stay busy at the same time.

During these past two weeks we also received some rather shocking invoices from our contractor that we believed to be part of the contract we have with him but he doesn’t feel that they are. I think we have come to an understanding but time will tell.

We are hoping that all the stresses we are experiencing in building this house will be worth it. Part of my doubts were erased the moment I walked in to check out the view from our newly formed master bedroom. Ahhh, some of that stress went right out this window.

2-11-2011 - Master Bedroom

The photo above is where we are today. Below are some of the photos leading up to this one.

2-3-2011 - Walls - All the electrical/plumbing conduit and window blocks must be in place prior to pouring the walls.

2-4-2011 - Emily and the dogs checking on the progress

2-7-2011 - Exteriro wall forms now going up

2-7-2011 - Exterior wall forms now going up

2-9-2011 - Walls formed, ready to be poured. This is the master "wing". Yes, "wing" sounds pretentious but I am unsure what else to call it. The "wing" consists of the bedroom, bath, closet/dressing area, and exercise room.

2-9-2011 - Walls formed, ready to be poured, heavily supported

2-9-2011 - Pouring the office foundation walls

2-9-2011 - Pouring the master walls - Equipment provided by T & K Pumping Services

2-9-2011 - Pouring the master walls

2-9-2011 - Pouring the master walls - View from up on the hill in Judith's Fancy

2-10-2011 - The day after, the forms are being removed

2-10-2011 - This is the view we are left with in the master bedroom after the forms come off

2-10-2011 - Master side of the house

2-10-2011 - Master Bath

2-11-2011 - Office foundation walls

2-11-2011 - Master Bedroom door to deck

2-11-2011 - Master Walls

2-11-2011 - Master Wing

Sunrise over Christiansted from our rental

Walls, the Office, and Solar

Posted on January 30, 2011 by admin1

This week the crew split in two with one group starting work on the walls of the master side of the house while the other worked on footings/walls for the office slab. I worked on finding the right solar guy and finding an AC installer. These guys need to do a tiny bit of work in or I have AC units picked out and have an idea of what I want to do with solar. The plan is to do a 2-3KW solar panel system in addition to installing a solar hot water system. We also plan on putting up a wind turbine, but that may come later on. We considered doing just a wind turbine but have broadened our plans a bit. When we moved to St. Croix in 2008 electric cost us 52 cents a KW, roughly four times what we were paying in Dallas and about five times what my family in Pennsylvania were paying. Thanks to the price of oil dropping considerably since then our rate currently sits at 36 cents a KW. In any case we figured that producing some of our own electric was one way to fight the rising cost of electricity since it doesn’t appear that WAPA (Water and Power Authority) will be fixing things by harnessing alternative energy themselves in the near future. For those interested, the three solar companies I have spoken too this week are Solar Delivered, West Indies Solair, and VI Solar Depot. No decision has been made yet.

Office Footings 1/25/2011

Office Footings 1/27/2011

Master Walls - 1/27/2011

Progress - 1/28/2011

Slab Pour

Posted on January 23, 2011 by admin1

The week was spent preparing to pour the slab for the master side of the house and the guest bedroom. Both the plumber and electrician had their crews there on Friday. Saturday morning was the pour (23 more yards).

Slab Pour 1-22-2011

Slab Pre-Pour 1-22-2011

Slab Pour 1-22-2011

Slab Pour 1-22-2011 Guest Bedroom

Our contractor John Hebert

Slab Pour 1-22-2011

Large Cistern Wall Pour

Posted on January 15, 2011 by admin1

Another productive week. The large cistern walls were poured on Thursday afternoon (34 yards of concrete). We probably went a little overboard with the size of the cisterns because if they ever fill up we shouldn’t need water for years. 48,000 gallons is not a small amount of water. The small cistern ceiling is ready to pour as well, but we are awaiting electrical permits so the electrician can do his thing prior to pouring. The guys have worked each of the last two Saturdays, but will lose a day on Monday because of MLK day. Onward we go.

1-10-2011 - Preparing the large cistern wall forms

1-12-2011 - Large cister wall forms are ready

1-12-2011 - Large cistern wall forms are ready

1-12-2011 - Gooch

1-13-2011 - The Pour

1-15-2011 - The forms are coming off

Moving to St. Croix

Our journey from Texas to St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. Our several year adventure from planning a move, finding jobs, and building a house in the Caribbean.

Category Archives: Building A House

Cypress and more Cypress

Onward and Upward

We Have A View

Walls, the Office, and Solar

Slab Pour

Large Cistern Wall Pour