Add 2 Doors To Poolside Storage Area

 Well, another day and I made up some doors to fit around the base of the circular part of the upper patio after framing in two openings.

The original cubby hole where pool things were kept and the other hole that had bars on it certainly didn't add anything to the view.

Erin checks out my handiwork. Looks a lot tidier now don't you think. I may eventually build in a shelf inside the right-hand door for more poolside storage. Wendy says this bigger area with the gravel floor could be a good place to store flower pots for the winter.

Now all it needs is a new coat of stain.

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New Railing. Another Day at Erin's House.

Code requires that we have a railing on both sides of the steps to the pool. Wendy and I went to Lowes and picked up the final pieces we needed to re-use the balusters that we 'stole' from another part of the structure which we plan to fill in with plastic lattice. 

Picture above shows Wendy cleaning up the balusters that came from the opening to the left of the stairs.

This area was a bit of a hodgepodge. I'm not sure what the purpose of this space was. I guess you could tell kids that we put the bad children in there? We plan to fill in this opening with some framed latticework which should hide the gravel nothingness . Later I may build a box in there to store pool things and put a hinge on the lattice frame for easy access.

Above and below are both my visualizations from Photoshop. Tomorrow I hope to be all finished the deck changes and we can look forward to re-staining the whole thing. I'll post more pics tomorrow.

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Old Gate - New Gate

 Here's the 'before' and 'after' of part of my deck modification effort at Erin's new place: (a view from the kitchen sliding door)

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Try Shooting Into The Sun...

 I looked out the window and saw the Daylilies lit up by the evening sun. I just had to run outside and snap a few pictures with the dazzling summer sun lighting them up from behind. Here's one of the best...

Try it yourself for a dramatic effect. Click the pic to enlarge it.

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A Deck Reno...

 Erin's new place has certainly been a source of much activity for me for the last few months. After a couple years of almost total isolation due to the pandemic, the 100 or so jobs, large and small, have kept me busy and helped me save my sanity while shedding pounds too. (lost nearly 20 lb. since Christmas) I think I still have about 30 things left to do. This weekend Wendy and I have been working in the summer heat making some changes to Erin's pool deck. (I could still afford to lose another 10 or 20 lb.)

Fortunately we 'inherited' some drawings of the original intentions so that helped me and somewhat confirmed that my design would be feasible.

When she closed the deal on her house it came to light that there was an open building permit from way back in 2014.  That's not all. We were also informed that the pool deck was too close to the lot line and we needed to request a 'minor variance' in the zoning bylaws in order to close the outstanding permit. The city had a few items that had to be corrected before they will do a final inspection. (don't know when that will be)

A big ungainly gate with such a large 'swing' you had to move furniture to open it. It was a do-it-yourself nightmare. I had tried to fix the warped, sagging monstrosity earlier with a turnbuckle, to no avail. We decided to change its location and reduce it to normal size.

The plan required three new posts be bolted in. One side of the new gate opening will also support a new handrail on the left side of the stairs to comply with city bylaws.

Another post (and changes to the guard rail) needed to be bolted to the side of the deck joist.

The previous owner built the deck himself and kept adding things on, whilst omitting to apply for a permit. A bit of a 'dog's breakfast'!

Finding places to install our three posts required a little ripping and tearing. What luck! The joist was right where it needed to be. (see red square). A stainless steel tie was saddled to the joist to hold the post.

In spite of it being one of the hottest weekend of the summer so far, everything went relatively well. I'll post more pictures when the project is complete.

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Deck Box Project at Erin's Place

 You might remember my visualization of May 7 showing an idea for a deck box to cover an unsightly and dangerous hole in the patio deck at Erin's new place. The furnace and water heater vents as well as gas and electrical services to the pool and hot tub were certainly an eye-sore.

Well, the finished product doesn't look exactly like the the above GIF but it turned out pretty good. Maybe even a little less imposing than my original plan.

It will be a good place to store the cushions from the patio furniture and other outdoor items. We finished up just before a much needed rain began.

The goal of my design was to hide the gaping hole but not just cover it over. Since the pipes were above the deck level a raised platform was needed. The plastic storage box on top just gave the patch a "raison d'etre" or a use for the otherwise awkward area.

I was worried someone would fall through the hole and the natural gas service for a barbeque grill was just hanging loose beside it. 

I wonder what the previous owners had in this spot? There was no evidence of any screw holes anywhere so maybe they just lived with it the way it was.

With some boards from Home Depot, a little ingenuity and "on the fly" construction and Wendy's help painting, we managed to come up with a suitable enclosure that the new deck box can sit on and still let air circulate without restricting the furnace exhaust. 

One-by-one and little-by-little I'm getting through my list of things to do.

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An 'Artsy' Shot At Canadian Tire

 Outside the front doors of the Wellington Rd Canadian Tire Store in White Oaks, there is a neat old (1947 to '53???)  Chevrolet pickup truck. 

While I waited for Wendy I snapped this picture. I enhanced it in Photoshop, Just for fun.

Above is the original shot.

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Lunch At The Ponds

 Wendy suggested we go to Olde London Fish and Chips to pick up a takeaway lunch to take to the Westminster Ponds for lunch.

A great idea! We don't remember ever seeing so many flowers all at once on the pond.

We really enjoyed getting out for a meal.

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Accessibility For Seniors

Our outdoor tap on the deck is very awkward to access, especially for the older members of our family. In order to reach the tap it is necessary to get down on your hands and knees. It doesn't matter your age, this was a hassle over the past thirty five years or so.

My design visualization shows a new, vertical board with two taps mounted a few inches above the deck. Not only easier to reach but it eliminates an even harder to access splitter valve attached to the tap. I can still get to the old tap to undo the new hose connection to drain the added taps for the winter. I find these Photoshop visualizations allow me to better plan my projects so when I go shopping for the parts I know what I'm buying.

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Caulking Expansion Joints Around The Pool

 Brosco Concrete's Stan and Alicia returned this morning to finish the leveling job by caulking the cracks to prevent water from entering under the slabs and doing more damage.

With the temperature heading to the nineties it was good they arrived at around 11 instead of the originally planned 2pm.

The pool looks great. Too bad they didn't bring their bathing suits, the water is perfect at 83F or 28.3C.

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Slippin' and Sinkin'...

 Over the years gravity works incessantly on the surface of the Earth. The effects are noticed even more when your property is located on the side of a hill. You can see from the picture below that some serious movement has occurred on the north side of or pool deck.

Not only is the concrete slanted towards the garden, but two of the the concrete slabs have slid north down the hill revealing a much wider gap between them.

The movement is very slow but is driven by gravity as well as the freeze/thaw cycles each year and the constant erosion of the soil underneath the slabs from rain water.

Tim jr. and I decided that we could try pulling the slabs back into place. I had already arranged to have a local cement contracting company come to level the slabs, but they informed me that they did not include re-positioning the slabs so we had to get this job done on the weekend before they arrived on Monday morning. 

First we had to clean out all the sand, soil and stones between the affected slabs.

The work went well and with the use of the garden hose we cleaned the cracks ready to drag the slabs back together.

We used a socket wrench of the right size hammered into a hole already drilled in the slab by a previous concrete leveling job I had done about 18 years ago. 

We borrowed some chain and a Hi-Lift jack from Uncle Doug and rigged it up using the existing cracks from two slabs away to give us plenty of weight to pull the offending slab.

Tim watches as the slab pulls slowly back to nearly where it was originally.

About 18 years ago or so, I had the slabs levelled by a 'mud-jacker". Nowadays the preferred method is to use polyurethane foam instead of black mud to inject into the voids under the concrete deck.

Stan and Alicia arrived with a 5 ton truck equipped with everything required  including 350 feet of hose which will easily reach the pool area.

After drilling some 5/8" holes in the concrete the chemical mixing gun is positioned on plastic nozzles hammered into the holes in calculated locations on the slab.

Stan uses his hand to feel for any movement and skillfully adjusts the chemical and the air pressure to gradually and slowly hoist the slabs back into the correct alignment. The foam them almost immediately hardens in place. 

Above you can see the foam oozing out between the slabs.

Some foam also found its way out through the holes left by the previous mud-jacker of years ago.

The slab magically rises and gravity has been defied for another few years.

The pool looks great. Stan suggested we have all the cracks caulked to prevent water intrusion and further erosion, so that is now booked for a future date. Stay tuned for that procedure in a future post.

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A Most Wonderous Squirrel Visited Our Bird Feeder Today

 We have seen a lot of squirrels with colourful tails but never one as beautiful as this:

This squirrel is truly amazing! When I startled him his tail exploded! Awesome!

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"The Turtle Girl" Our Daughter Erin Saving Turtles...

 We are very proud of Erin's efforts through her job, Director of Biology at the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority: 

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