Doors

2 doors down, 1 to go. We've had a door for the bathroom for a bit, but it was kind of a temporary fix. Now I thought that you just stuck a door in the open hole, threw in some nails or screws and called it done. Not so easy...first you have to put down the wall covering (in our case the paneling is the final wall covering), then fit the door in, make sure everything is level and then use the trim to keep the door from falling out. Mid-December Michael and our good friend RJ took the day off of work and went down to work on doors. At the end of the day we had 2 doors fully installed and a little more paneling on the walls - great job guys!

Last room without a door - paneling is all set, so just need to get the door set and trimmed out.
2 doors that close and are all trimmed out

Birds are Back

In the first post 'Calm Before the Storm' you'll see a somewhat similar picture with the white bird in the lagoon. The lagoon is certainly not back to pre-Ike conditions, but I guess there is something good in it to make it worth a stop for the birds. We hope that our turtles come back one day soon!

Kitchen

October and November were big months at the beach house for 2 reasons: 1) we completed the kitchen cabinetry and countertop and got the sink working, and 2) we started spending the night down at the beach house (previously we'd been making day trips which were getting a little old).

Cabinets are in! These cabinets make Michael and I especially happy. For a number of reasons we strongly disliked the old cabinets. These are standard height, the drawers are easy to open and close...doesn't sound like a lot to ask for, but definitely something we were lacking!
Dishes are back in the cabinet.
Getting a kitchen sink was a HUGE step forward. When you are having to use the bathroom sink and tub for your only source of water in the house, it really means a lot when you get the kitchen sink back up and running. (by the way, the missing panel in the sink base is here in Houston for us to have for matching flooring, etc.)
This was technically the first piece of countertop that was installed. Michael became quite the laminate countertop installer. I don't think that he is going to be volunteering to do it again anytime soon, but I think he did a great job with everything especially considering he started off knowing nothing about the process!
Running water - yippee!
A real bed - another yippee!

Progress

There was a lot of work done between our start date in June, July, August and September. Not all of it very glamorous or worthy of photographs. Here is a quick list though

• Lots of cleaning
• Moving plumbing in the kitchen so that the sink is now under the window
  
• Replacing a large portion of the plumbing under the house that the contractor didn't do so well
• Also fixing some of the electrical wiring that the contractor didn't do so well
  
• Installing insulation in the walls between the bedrooms and the living room and bath
  
• We hired some great local handymen to fix the old gross ceiling
  
• The guys were so great we also hired them to install plywood on all of the interior walls and then the house was officially "closed up"
• Lots of overhead ceiling priming and painting (followed by lots of back and shoulder pain!)
  
• Yours truly installed all of the lighting fixtures in the kitchen area and the ceiling fans throughout the house (well, Michael helped with the ones in the living area because those suckers are big and heavy)
• And there is probably more, but those are the highlights - pretty impressive looking list if I do say so myself!

Classic Lee

July 2009 - The only thing missing from this picture is a beer in dad's hand! So there are a couple of stories here...
1) There is something about mowing the grass on a riding lawn mower that just seems to make Dad (and now Michael) happy. Even though there might be complaints about "having" to mow the grass at the beach, once the mower is cruising along there is always a little bit of giddiness. Especially when there is a beer in hand.
2) This is a new mower to the beach house, but it is the fraternal twin to the lawn mower that we lost in the hurricane. The old mower is playing with the old boat somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico we have to guess. This mower came from Michael's co-workers house. He randomly had a mower he needed to get rid of right when the grass took off at the beach and we needed one. Originally we figured we could get by with a push mower for a year or so. Nope, the grass grew back fast. We aren't really sure where our property line is exactly now that some of the old landmarks are gone, but we are doing our best guessing.

Our Turn

After all of the gloom and doom after the hurricane, not knowing if we were going to have a beach house, throwing out 30+ years worth of stuff in the house, dealing with a juvenile contractor and all the highs and lows, on June 30, 2009 Michael, Jean and I headed down to the beach to officially begin our part of the rebuilding. A bit of a daunting task to say the least, but when we drove up to the house this flower was one of the first things that caught our eye. Mom planted these flowers (no clue what they are called - clearly didn't inherit her green thumb) ages and ages ago. When the monster of a bougainvillea was still there these got hidden a bit, but here they were blooming away like nothing had happened. Not sure how the salt water didn't kill them. Fortunately it killed the bougainvillea! Gave us a nice boost and we took it as a sign that we were meant to still be there.


So here we go, step 1 - a functioning bathroom with walls

This pic commemorates the 1st interior wall in the house, June 30, 2009
Nearly final product November 15, 2009
The bathroom door was the 1st door in the house!

The Final Result Part I

Not the final, final result, but the final result of the work to the exterior. I wonder how long it will take before it is finally done, or will it ever be!

New deck and stairs & house pre-paint
View of the East side
Southwest corner
New house!

Memories

Before I post the final results of the outside remodel, here are a few memories from much earlier days at the beach house.

Summer 1993
September 1990
September 1990
Mother's Day 1990
Mother's Day 1990
Dad's Birthday 1987
Summer 1986
Summer 1986
September 1985
September 1980
Labor Day 1979

Rebuilding

Another little miracle, the county deemed our house acceptable for rebuilding, so we got started in the spring of 2009. Knowing we had some handy men in the family and to try and save a little money, we opted to hire someone to redo the outside and we determined we could handle the inside work. So the contractor got started stabilizing the house, rebuilding our deck, putting in new windows, extending the house about 6' to the South (basically making the old original deck part of the house), putting on new siding, fixing he plumbing and electrical and getting the floor back together.

One of the first steps was rebuilding the decking so that they had a better way to enter the house than our precariously placed "plank".

Not outside work, but another super bonus of the remodel was finally getting a 2nd bedroom. Michael and I especially are super excited about this new feature!


The plywood showing is the new extension of the south wall. Makes the place feel huge.
New piling to replace the 1 random one that we lost during the storm.

Let the Clean Up Begin

We knew things were not going to get any better if they just sat in the house all soggy and gross, so in November Michael and I took on the challenge of cleaning out the house. Solid wood furniture and plastic furniture was pretty much all that was spared. It was oddly fun throwing things out the window and over the deck!

In the previous posting I mentioned that the decking was missing so we had to use the ladder to get into the house. Here is a shot of the missing decking and our make-shift bridge into the house. It was relatively sturdy and we survived the experience, but I don't think that there was anything safe about it.
Here is everything we threw over the deck.
And here is everything that we thew out of the window or thew down the hole in the floor.

Bedroom

Nice little hole in the floor. Did work well as a garbage shoot down to the ground.


Everything piled up on the curb waiting for the county to haul away. Michael did a very nice job of organizing everything. If I had been piling it all together it would have looked much different, probably more like it did when we 1st thew it over the deck.

Chaos After The Storm

It took a few weeks before we were able to get down and see the damage ourselves. We were able to see the house still standing from some of the satellite images that were taken after the storm, but of course could not see well enough to understand what kind of damage we were facing. Dad and Jean were the first to venture down and witness the destruction. I don't think that anyone can explain how our 30 year old house survived when all of our neighbors houses were wiped off the map entirely.

Road to the beach. We have a beach front view now!
Woven wall hanging and bedspread are untouched somehow.
The paneling was not in great shape before the storm, but it wasn't this bad!
Note the ladder going up into what was the sliding door. It was the only way to get up into the place since the decking was missing.

Here is the sliding door that is missing in the picture above.
Chaos all around, yet the tissue box didn't seem to move an inch. The door handle in the bottom center is on the door that was against the south wall, now in the center of the house. Recliner moved about 6 feet as well.
Pictures still hanging straight and again, bedspread just like we left it. Sad to see that the 1st comfortable couch we've had at the beach is now ruined.
In the pre-Ike post you'll notice how lush this tree was. Not so much anymore. Old stairs are also gone. And of course the entire underneath has been wiped out. Dad's boat trailer stuck around, but the boat is gone.
This is where our neighbor's house to the East once sat. Now it is a new lagoon. Can't fathom how this happened.
And here is the old lagoon. Now it has a nice sand bar in the middle.