Down to the nubs

Here's the crown of one of the big plumerias by the library, down to its winter basics. Quite a change from the mass of fragrant yellow blossoms that form by the thousands in spring, summer and fall.

Robert has never liked their seasonal leaf-drop. He thinks they look too bare, and a little desolate.

I think they look sculptural, armatures I can hang my spring hopes on. That's a rare thought in a place where the four seasons are warm, bake, broil and hurricane.

But even now, you can find a few hangers-on around town -- our equivalent of the last rose of summer. A sweet farewell.

Fitting and proper(ly random)

Row on row the little guest bathroom grew Monday and Tuesday, with Hank setting, spacing, tapping, adjusting and readjusting the tile, and Ray making cuts as required with the wet saw on the porch.

One exception: When the cuts are rounded, as around the shower control, Hank gets out the hand grinder and trims as required. If I tried that trick, I don't think I'd have a finger left.

But he's steady as you go, rank after rank, with occasional asides about what fun it is to make three shades of tile (two of which are almost identical) look randomly chosen.

Hank's a meticulous guy, but he rises well to the challenge of randomness.

Photos don't do justice to the glass strips (about even with his left elbow in the bottom photo). Yesterday FedEx delivered the light fixtures, which look as if they were custom made to match the glass, and are merely fantastic. I put them upstairs to keep them out of harm's way.

They sure won't fit into our locker at Old Town Self Storage, which is already tight at the seams. Today we went over to rearrange it a bit, to get ready for the two big chairs for the den being delivered Thursday. We opened the door, looked around, moved one small box, shook our heads and locked it back up.

Heavy lifting

One lifts, one measures and one screws it tight:

Another section of fence goes in Monday, and you can tell from the light that it was the prettiest day in a long time. Temperatures were in the 80s by midafternoon.

The guys are marching down the north edge of the lot -- and without some horrible hitch, they'll have that whole side done by the time Arnold leaves Wednesday for Christmas at home.

Weathered

Footnote, from Monday morning's Citizen:

. . . More than three inches of rain fell between Friday and Sunday, the most rain in a three-day period in the Keys since Hurricane Katrina dumped 10 inches in August 2005, said Jim Lee, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Key West. Sunday's rainfall totaled one inch, setting a new record for the date, he said.

The average rainfall in Key West for the entire month of December is 2.14 inches. . . .

Wet blankets

The rain started Friday night, so we holed up and ate from the pantry.

It was still coming Saturday morning -- bad news if you wanted to set fence sections in place. So Arnold and Mr. B worked on baseboards and door trim in the den and master bedroom.

More drizzle Saturday afternoon, so we did laundry and the dryer promptly stopped working. Think bungee cords as laundry lines, and then think how well clothes dry in rainstorms. Thus the necessity of naps.

Still more rain Saturday night.

We dropped our plans to go to the old city harbor for the lighted boat parade ("Deck the Hulls," "The Bight before Christmas" and other festive nicknames -- here's a Rob O'Neal picture from last year's fun). Carryout from Fausto's and DVD's? How festive.

About 5 this morning, it was down to a trickle, and the laundry was merely . . . damp. We learned that they'd canceled Saturday's parade and rescheduled it for tonight -- but we have reservations to burn off those tickets from La Te Da. Alas. Avast.

Welcome to Key Wet

A serving of greens

I've been looking at plain wood and drywall for so long that I'd almost forgotten what color looks like.

And then today, when I hauled out the guest-bath tiles for Hank and his assistant, and Hank said, "Wow!," I remembered what a great mood I was in when we put these three shades of tile together with the stone and two kinds of glass. Hank and his assistant, Ray, are starting Monday.

The new view of our deck

Our deck -- indeed, the whole rear of our house, including the big glass doors to the living room and kitchen -- have been wide open to the world since our project began at the first of the year.

Here's the way our deck looks to the rear neighbors now, as of this week.

We're not trying to be un-neighborly. We just want some privacy, security -- and the reassurance that no one is going to wander in and fall into the pool.

Arnold, Mr. B and Nate (ripping louvers in the second picture) labored all week to round the corner, fill the back and then start back toward the front along the north side of our lot.

The more we look at the panels, the more inclined we are to paint the columns brown (they've already been primed) and let the pressure-treated louvers and their frames weather down to a nice, unobtrusive gray.

We might give them a quick coat of water sealant, but after that . . . no more maintenance. We hope they'll be camouflaged pretty well from our side by plantings anyway.

Between seasons

This is the lull between Fantasy Fest (and the the end of hurri- cane season) and the top of the post- Christmas tourist boom. The old city harbor, from our seats at Conch Republic Seafood, is quiet.

After a few cool days, we're back to t-shirt weather.

And it's time to say good-bye for a while to royal red shrimp.

Big and meaty, from 2,400 feet down a bit west of the Dry Tortugas, they're remarkably sweet. Key West pinks -- our everyday local catch -- are always really good. These are always remarkable, worth waiting for every year.

They say the biggest ones are 3 years old. With drawn butter (sinful) or cocktail sauce (merely decadent), they last about 3 minutes after the lemon goes on.

Welcome words

"Isn't that nice," said Hank, the guy Bobby D sent over Thursday morning about perhaps finishing the tile job. "That great old symbol of welcome, smiling down over the front door."

I looked again at the pineapples Arnold had cut (this one is just tentatively set in, so don't look too closely at the spacing). And I thought about the difference between the original design and our newly created reality.

All of a sudden I thought back to one morning in our motel room on Duval last January. We were down to meet Ref and discuss his bid for the project, and we'd worked over the plans with the architect and the city for more than a year, so it's safe to say I was familiar with them.

But as I woke that morning, I remembered the last dream that flickered in my about-to-wake head: I was standing in the house's front door, I looked around and saw the plan clearly rendered in 3-D for the first time. I was overwhelmed and woke up beaming.

So many of those little dreams since, and so many more awakenings. How lucky to have those dreams and how much luckier to see them take even better shape (and color) than they hinted on the page.

- ■ -

Back to Hank: Terrific references and interesting clients -- our project is extremely modest by comparison. He called Bobby and talked for a few minutes, then came back in and said he had a little job to finish up, which meant he could start Tuesday.

The mudman goeth

Bobby D, the tile man, was ashen when he got to the house Wednesday morning. He said his son was in the hospital -- something heart-related, but as yet undiagnosed.

While the docs were doing their tests, he said, he'd finish the grout on the last shower -- here's the stall before he wiped it down -- but wouldn't be able to do the rest of the job.

His son apparently has some monster project farther up the Keys, and dad's going to take it over for him to take the pressure off.

Such is life, and we certainly wish Bobby and his family well.

By late afternoon, Lori at Island City Tile had come through yet again, and we had another tile guy on site to give us a quote on the rest of the project.

A southernmost salute

To celebrate Sweet Babs' new website, the view from our lunch table at Saluté Tuesday. Not quite palapa chairs, but close.

The pavilion on Higgs Beach is where Yoga by the Sea meets.

Happy feet, sad wallet

We haven't walked on the shower floors yet -- but they're fun for our eyes to wander across.

Bobby D, the tile guy, put them down in all three bathrooms Tuesday. In the master bath, in the top picture, they're slate squares -- apparently devilish things to cut, because the slate has a tendency to break off in layers.

It's easier sledding in the two guest baths; the tiles are studded with aqua glass dots, and his saw makes short work of it all.

Lining up materials for the rest of the job, Bobby noticed one glitch that had an interesting solution: Our ceramic wall tile is about a quarter-inch thicker than the iridescent glass tiles we'll be using as decorative bands throughout. Arnold and Bobby palavered, then sent me on a quest for backer board they could cut into strips to shim out the glass.

(Bobby had suggested simply doubling up the glass -- but considering its price, I ruled that out pronto, as they say in Murano.)

Home Depot sells 3-by-5-foot HardieBacker sheets for about 9 bucks, but it was on back(er) order. So we went over to Manley deBoer, the local lumberyard, and picked up a sheet -- for 12 and change.

¡Caramba, what a markup!

On one hand . . .

. . . It's a terrific railing, and there is no other hand, because we decided to install it on one side on purpose.

Arnold scowled at the staircase the first few times he went up and down it. There's a 45-degree segment at the landing, narrow at the pivot, that Ref had been forced to install because the blueprint didn't work as drawn.

Arnold worried about the step width there, and we finally figured out that a handrail along the narrowest part -- left side coming up, right side going down -- would force people away from the wall and onto the widest part of the step.

It's a tricky mix of compound angles, and an elegant solution to a problem we didn't want to trip anyone up.

- ■ -

Among other developments Monday:
• Arnold and Mr. B finished installing the cement boards lining the showers.
• That allowed Bobby D, the tile guy, to come in and pour the second layer of the shower floors. Robert and I made a quick trip for thin-set and mastic he wanted, so he can get on with prepping the walls for tile.
• Medicine cabinets arrived -- four weeks ahead of the promised delivery date. Sheesh.
• Our sewer hookups passed inspection, so the dirt can go back into the trenches and the yellow hazard tape can come down.

Hat trick

Yes, that's Robert stage left at the Tropic Saturday night.

Julie Andrews -- OK, it was really Christopher Peterson -- was announcing that his head full of edelweiss had captured a top prize at the evening's sold-out "Sing-Along Sound of Music."

With native edelweiss in short supply on the island, he had to settle for some greenery purloined along Southard, a fistful of baby's breath, a bit of styrofoam, a hair band and some florist's wire.

Partici- pating loons also included a cloister's worth of nuns, several brown paper packages, doorbells and sleigh bells (yours truly) and a well-choreographed front row of Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La and Ti.

Speaking of La and Ti, Robert won tickets for a show and drinks at La Te Da, which has come a long way since José Martí made it his home here, delivering revolutionary rhetoric from the balcony.

Sliced pineapples

Here's how Arnold's pineapples turned out in Frank's loft railing. To give you an idea of scale, each single slat is 5½ inches wide.

We're planning to pickle the slats and paint the posts and rails.

I can't tell you how much we like 'em.

Good fences

As promised, some explanation of Friday's frantic activity. Earlier in the day, Frank had used the table saw to bevel one edge each of 138 slats, generating that big sawdust pile you saw yesterday.

Then Frank and Kurt set up the laser transit, marked the fence posts (set in concrete months ago) and used a Skilsaw (Frank) and Sawzall (Kurt) to cut them to uniform height:
They attached 2-by-4's to the outside of the posts (to give us maximum planting room between deck and fence), built frames for the slats and attached the slats to the frames:
The beveled edges are toward the inside of the fence -- and a central strip gives them rigidity and prevents sagging:
The guys had left for Macon -- with deep thanks -- by Saturday, when Arnold talked about top treatments with Robert and me. We decided against big horizontal boards and decided on much simpler (and less costly) caps at each post:
By code, the fence can be only 6 feet high from ground level. Our raised deck (to the level of the first floor) means we'll have to plant some fast-growing foliage -- hardly a problem in the tropics.

Comfort food

Sweet Cousin Sally, who took us in for our Tennessee Thanks- giving, asked to share a vicarious meal -- my birthday dinner Friday. Well, since she asked. . . .

It was a chilly night (in the 60s, with stiff breezes), so we bundled up, stayed fairly close to home and hit La Trattoria. When I wrote about the place's sale last month, I was apprehensive at the loss of an old Duval Street standby.

Not to worry. Just about the same staff (sans Michael), same menu, same music, same mood, same delicious fun.

Appetizer? As ever, tortellini alla Romana, in a cream sauce that's worth licking the plate for (actually three plates, since we split one order).

Wine? Nero d'Avola -- wonderfully rich and not that expensive.

Main plates? Robert got the dentice alla Med- iterraneo -- yellowtail snapper with capers, tomato, lemon, white wine, butter (it's the delicious top picture). I got the piccata di petti di pollo: chicken piccata -- lots of butter, lemon and capers. I ate half of his, and vice versa. Woo-eee.

For dessert, the Godiva dark and white mousses, with a little bottle of bubbly Moscato thrown in for good measure.

Fantastico.

A pile of work

I can remember when I'd have looked at this and thought, "That's one heck of a pile of sawdust."

These days, I think of it as evidence of a heck of a lot of work.

I'm just going to post a few other hints of Friday's developments. There'll be some shots of the finished products tomorrow. Suffice it to say, it was one a terrific day. At one point, I turned to Robert and said, "See how lucky I've been to be here for all of this?" He understood instantly.

Gimme a ho, ho, ho!

This is the Christmas face of our rental, the historic Kerr House in Old Town. The fellow who built it a century and some ago also did Key West's Old City Hall and the Custom House.

Our landlord, Steve -- a wonderful guy, who makes us feel like guests rather than tenants -- decked it out when he came down to pick up his pup, Cal, after a visit on the Left Coast.

I didn't know he had it in him.

Take my breath away

First thing Thursday, Arnold put me on the phone with Shawn.

There was some confusion about the heating and air contract (I'd agreed to a bigger secondary unit that the contractor recommended, and that upcharge is indeed mine). Shawn just wanted to make sure of the facts before our HVAC guy gets here with the equipment next week (we hope).

As we were chatting, I wandered into the house with the cell phone, telling him how much I appreciated all the hard work Frank and Kurt had done in the last month -- and as I walked from the den into the big room, Shawn heard me gasp.

Frank had turned posts, 2-by-4's and 1-by-6's into a loft railing overnight. The gaps in the panels are where our decorative cutouts will go, with one pineapple silhouette spread across the two central boards in each section of railing.

(And what an improvement from the architect's interpretation, where the fruit are marching shoulder to shoulder across every board.)

Like so many parts of the house, an entire feature had sprung to life thanks to incredible sweat and skill, and it took my breath away.

"I hope you can hear how wide my smile is," I told Shawn. He told me he sure could.

A little later in the morning, when Robert arrived and I brought him in to look, his reaction was like Dollie's a few weeks back, when she first saw the paneling on the ceiling:

"Wowww!"

Connections old and new

When Robert got to the house late Monday morning, he had to come in by the den door (I'll tell you why in a minute), and I had him close his eyes.

I led him toward the sound of a hammer and told him to take a deep breath. He inhaled and smiled: "Cedar!"

Lots of it was going up in our den closets. Arnold said that with our louver doors, the room would always have that great scent, which is fine with me.

Cedar makes me think of so many people -- my Mom, and the chest she got from her father; my grandma, and her closet in Milledgeville; Amanda, and the big chests we got from her (and one of them is coming to Key West).

- ■ -

Now, about the side-door detour.

For one thing, Mr. B and Nate were finishing up the front-porch floor -- solid as can be. But more to the point, the plumbers had finally fixed their backhoe (it had broken down in mid-job Wednesday) and dug our two sewer-line trenches.

If it rains in the next little bit, we'll be the only cottage in Old Town with a moat.

How does Paradise taste?

I always forget that the Cuban mix from Paradise Cafe is so big.

Actually, I'm not at all bothered. I've just guaranteed that I have an equally delicious lunch tomorrow.

Figuring the angles

Note the cuts on the ends of these pressure-
treated posts, sanded smooth for priming and painting, and drying out a bit on the rear deck Wednesday morning.

Frank had figured the angles: The posts are notched, where they'll join the second floor, and then beveled where they terminate along the edge of the loft. At the "inside" and "outside" corners of the deck rail (the third and fourth posts from the left), the bevels are compound.

Of course, besides the carpentry tutorial. . . .

Robert and I settled on a pineapple figure for the deck rail panels, I sent an appliance delivery back to the Miami warehouse (we'll take the stuff later, when we're in better shape to accept the whole load), Arnold showed the guys exactly how he wants the porch wood fastened (Tap-Cons every 24 inches, and countersunk stainless screws otherwise), Kurt was finishing up on the interior trim, we all interviewed another painter (who seemed really sensitive to ceiling-staining issues, maybe because he's worked on a lot of houses in Aspen and Vail). . . .

Sounds like a busy day, and it was. Darn productive, too.

Christmas color

Lights and decorations are going up all over town -- I'll try to get a shot of the ice-cream parlor next to the paint store when the light is right -- but it feels a little strange when the backdrop isn't a blanket of white, but drifts of passionate fuchsia.

On to the porch

Kurt was putting up the beams -- false and otherwise -- for the porch fans this morning (the false ones hide the wires, and the real ones help support the fans), and it was obvious we'd reached a new stage.

Carpentry inside is all but done -- just little things like doors to hang, and they're a week or 10 days out. So today the first part of the subfloor on the porch went on.

Here Arnold is T-nailing the very first of the nailers, which will sit under the decking boards.

"Glue 'em, nail 'em, screw 'em," he said.

Ref had worried for months about how he was going to attach the deck to the old concrete, at one point even considering cutting trenches, recessing pressure-treated 2-by-4's in them and using them for nailers. Months ago, I talked about this method with Shawn, and we settled on this one. It should provide terrific stability.

The concrete T-nailer is an extra-strength gun from Ref's arsenal -- Arnold says it's really handy for attaching studs to concrete block -- and we'll probably try it directly on the ipe wood, too.

Memo to Mrs. Frank

1. Your husband is one fine carpenter.
2. He said you'd like to see more of his work.
   
3. His window trims are beautiful.
4. I wish I had a better lens to be able to capture more of the ceiling he built.
5. He misses you a whole lot.
6. I hope you have a good supply of Bud Lite in the fridge when he gets home.

Mixed pickles

While everyone else was working hard this morning, we pickled some scrap boards and took votes.

Kurt and Frank were working on window trims. Mr. B and Nate were getting the work trailer out of the way so the plumbers could dig their main line. The plumbers were putting pan liners in the showers. Franklin was sanding his drywall. Arnold was channeling pineapples. . . .

And we were thinking about more intense yellows.

The board running sort of top to bottom at the far right was the pickling test we ran a few weeks ago. The others were from this morning -- more intense yellow by far, and the variations thanks to drying time and the vagaries of wood.

The intensity was fine by us -- and happily in line, in the yellowest parts, to the wall paint color we picked months ago. Unwilling to re-invent the wheel, we decided to go for it.

Sleighing on Duval

There we were at Willie T's Saturday night, minding our own business, when the Christmas Manatee rolled past.

It was the city's Christmas parade, of course, and Duval Street was full of cops on motorcycles, a live manger scene from First Methodist, various snow queens, elves and helpers . . . .

And the Christmas Manatee, on the First State Bank float. No wonder some people think it's Key Weird.

Ta-daa!

Friday morning, there was enough light again to get a picture of the non-
finished product.

Arnold sent Mr. B out on Thursday to get some brown paper and tape, so everything could be protected -- but I persuaded them to hold off until I could pick Robert up at the airport and bring him back for a glimpse.

I think they understood the implicit problem: When Robert arrived, the scene would have looked like Christmas morning with a 3-year-old
if they'd wrapped it.

Even so, with any luck the wraps will come off Monday when Mr. Granite comes calling with his tape measure.