Island fest

This weekend, it was time to hang with the guys. It was Island Fest and the weather forecast was all good.

I started out Thursday night by seriously loading down my truck with way too heavy lumber. Because Menard's is such a pain-in-the-azz to get lumber from, it takes sooo much time to stop there and it just adds hours to the island commute, I bought (40) - 2' x 10' x 12' from Home Depot in North Olmsted. Seemed like a great idea. You can't tell by this photo, but I was bottomed out pretty bad and the back tires were squashed. When I did get to the highway, the maneuverability was terrible. Floating all over the road. Anyway, with fingers crossed, I did make it as the last vehicle on the 9:00 pm ferry leaving Marblehead.

All loaded down and ready to head north west...

Bad idea

For the record, when building this cottage, there is an enormous amount of material that needs to be transported up to the beloved island. I have spent countless hours at Lowes, Home Depot and Menards. I am extremely happy to be getting near the end of the BIG projects and then can bring up less stuff every weekend. That being said, I will still have several more trips to get this deck project finished!

Friday morning, I had conference calls all day until late afternoon. So around 2:30 pm I finally got outside to start working on the deck. Around 6:30 pm, Rob was on the ferry and ready to get the party started.

50% done with the joists

I think I have approximately 40 to 50 (2' x 10') joists left. I hope this is enough to finish the wrap-around to the back. It will be close, I think I still may need 1 or 2 more boards.

After picking up Rob at the ferry, I got a totally random text from my old friend Lenny. It's been a few years since we have spoken or hung out. He was on the island for his birthday. So we met the whole crew down at Dockers on the water. Fun night that turned into a rough Saturday morning. Brad finally showed up on Saturday afternoon to join me and Rob.

Rob strumming the guitar

Saturday night at the Caddyshack we got to see one of the best bands to play on Kelleys, "Almost Famous" from Cleveland. We went to high school with the bass player and we always try to catch their show when we can. As usual, they had the place rockin' all night.

Almost Famous

Next steps:

• Finish the deck joists...

Stenger Family Weekend - Let's do this!

Last weekend, we hosted the extended Stenger family - Al, Lori, Andy, Emily and Tessa. My mom joined us as well for good times had by all. The weather was nice and we had some big fun.

Here is a nice shot of "the fam" from the KI Cantina - enjoying some fresh margaritas and mojitos.

Stenger family at the KI Cantina

Earlier on Saturday, we stopped at the West Bay for food, drinks and to watch a band. 

Andy, me and Al - West Bay Inn

You know there is no way I can be on the island and not do some type of work on the cottage. I had a vacation day on Friday, so I got started bright and early with hanging some deck joists. Saturday morning, Uncle Al helped me out a little to get things squared-up. In the photo below, I think the joists are about 30% done.

Front deck - joists

Front deck

Saturday night, Bonnie brought out a Chinese lantern that everyone in the family signed with a Sharpie before launching it into the evening sky.

Chinese lantern

Sunday morning a light rain came and stayed all day. We had to pack-up the crew and get everyone on the ferry. I had to load up some of the unneeded deck material from Menard's that I ended up not using. For the record, returning material is a huge hassle at Menard's. I am considering just buying the rest of my stuff from Home Depot because they are easier to deal with, although the prices are slightly higher.

Next steps:

• Finish deck joists!

4th of July

Finally we got some nice weather for the long holiday weekend. I headed up to the island on Thursday night to meet Bonnie and the kids.

I brought up Anna's queen bed that we got from Amie and Scott since they recently moved and bought a new one. This completes the set and is the last piece of major furniture needed other than a few small things here and there. I think her room looks great.

Anna's new bed

Here is photo of my baby girls being silly sisters.

Anna and Sophie - sister love

Saturday night (4th of July) we went out for some food and to see a band at the Caddy Shack, before going to watch the fireworks from the West Bay Inn.

Kids - Caddy Shack

Cottage progress continues, slowly but surely...

We (me and Winston) finished setting the back deck posts on Friday and let them set-up overnight while we started on the front beam installation.

Front deck beams started

Saturday, Winston helped me with the side deck beams. Then on Sunday and Monday I finished hanging the the beams by myself. So far, so good.

Back deck beams done

Monday afternoon, Zig stopped by to fix a piece of cracked vinyl siding. Luckily, I had several spare pieces I was storing down in the crawlspace. Zig popped out the bad piece and replaced it in like 5 minutes! wow, big thanks Z!

Bob Cisar and Zig

Next weekend is the big "Stenger Family" weekend we have been planning for a while, so I think there will be more partying than work going on.

Next steps:

• Start hanging deck joists

The deck project and great flood of 2015

Crazy weekend. The deck project has been stalled by almost 8 weeks from the original start date. It was time to get moving. No surprise, but I have been having trouble getting ANY quality contractor up to the island to help. When in doubt, do it yourself!

The bad weekend weather forecast was looming, so I broke ground on Friday morning to start setting posts. Chris's guy, Winston, was available to assist with much of the bull work. By early Friday evening, we had 18 of the 26 posts set with concrete, dirt and gravel.

Deck posts - front view

Deck posts - front view side

Deck posts - side view

I took a photo of the working deck plans below. This is the latest iteration. I seem to change the layout every week. So this is most likely not the final version.

Working deck plan

Bonnie poly-urethaned the adirondack chairs to be used back by the fire pit. Looking good and ready for some relaxing.  

Adirondack chairs

Saturday night comes and brings with it horrible rain and storms. Apparently, it rained over three inches in 4 hours. This is the view outside the front door around 8:00 am. Driveway - gone!

The great flood of 2015!

Missing driveway

Flooded back yard

From the street

This is a photo shot by me standing in over a foot of water, in the middle of my side yard, looking at the Arnold's new cottage. Looks like "water-front" property. This is insane.

Looking south towards Arnold's

Catch basin drain - overloaded mess!

Deck wood submerged or floating

Bon's Pilot needed to get to higher ground

 View from Arnold's new deck back at the cottage

The ferry was shut down (AGAIN) for the entire day. Also, the Rockin' the Rock Music Festival was moved from the downtown square to inside the bars/restaurants.

When the world give you lemons, make lemonade. Since there was nothing we could do about the weather or the flood or the ferry, we decided to go downtown to see some of the Rockin' the Rock bands perform. Here is Bon, at the Pump, kickin' it with the tambourine. 

Bon Bon

By early Saturday evening, the water started to recede. By Sunday morning it looked like normal again with a few typical puddles. So crazy. I couldn't work on setting any deck posts because the ground water was way to high and the yard was still wet. I had been postponing a boring crawlspace project and decided it was time to hack at it...

Problem:

The crawlspace access is below grade and would allow surface water to enter the doorway whenever we had heavy rain. This was a problem for years and kept the crawlspace from being completely dry. Plus it looked aesthetically awful from the outside. This is one of those nasty jobs that I deferred for a few years...

Solution:
After researching online to find something to fix this, I found this modular enclosure system from Menards. This was a major pain to install. Had to hand dig out the old soil mess and then make room for this new system. Then attached to the block wall with tap-cons. Next, I filled inside the enclosure well with nice clean landscape grade pea gravel about six inches deep just below the access door opening. The photo below doesn't do it justice, but I am hopeful this will dry up the crawlspace access problem for good.

Crawlspace access enclosure installed

Next steps:

• Finish setting deck posts and then start on the beams...

Anniversary and Father's Day

June 20th was our 17 year wedding anniversary. We spend the weekend kid-free until Sunday when we all celebrated Father's Day together with the my mom, the Trapp's and the Kanengeiser's.

Saturday, Bon and me (along with the KI neighbors) made a day trip to Put-In-Bay for a few hours. Here we are at Mojito Bay. You can see Bon with her favorite coconut drink. Happy girl.

Mojito Bay

The US Brig - Niagara, docked at Put-In-Bay harbor

The whole family came up for our Father's Day Island Tradition. We grilled out, hung around outside and took to kids on a golf cart ride.

Aunt Amie and ALL the kids!

Hanging outside with the fam

Not much progress on the cottage. Although, I have lined-up a new contractor to break ground on the deck next Saturday. So hopefully some more good news, progress and photos to follow.

Relaxing weekend

No big cottage news to report. I'm still trying to shore-up the deck contractor and plans. Saturday night, my cousin John and his family came up on their boat. We had dinner with them and the kids played for hours. On Sunday, our good friend Jen Varos came to visit with her son Bek.

Sunday Funday

Bon and Jen

I had to head home early Sunday evening, but Bonnie and the kids are staying until Thursday.

Run the Rock

Bonnie ran in the annual "Run the Rock" 5K race. Anna and Sophie spent the weekend at Nama's house, so it was just me, Bonnie and lil Neil on the island.

Bonnie running the 5K

 

Small boy

For Bon's post race celebration we met the neighbor's at Dockers for Bloody Marys.

Dockers with the neighbors

Cottage progress: 

I did paint one door and accompanying jam. This is sad, I have been having fun on the island and not spending too much time working on the open projects.

No deck progress, still trying to get a new contractor.