When in doubt, be Dorothy

Tuesday is my appearance before the Historic Archi- tecture Review Commis- sion about our windows, 3 p.m. EST.

If you have energy to channel, send it. Billie Burke will be on my shoulder, but I will very much be John the small and meek.

Going down the road, I'll try to bring as much sense, heart and courage to the presentation as I can.

On my way up to Old City Hall, I could stop in Flying Monkeys for inspiration -- and a pair of these.

Dorothy: Weren't you frightened?

Wizard: Frightened? Child, you're talking to a man who's laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe. . . . I was petrified.

What a ride

Captain Outrageous -- artist, bon vivant, raconteur, political candidate -- had a stroke Friday night, and a heart attack on the way to the hospital. They airlifted him to Miami -- his first trip out of the Keys in 15 years, but his brain was dead by the time he got to the mainland. He was 66.

I didn't take pictures of the impromptu memorial at the gate of his house on Caroline, draped with beads and decked with flowers. Instead I repeat the picture of his car I posted in November, even more to the point now than then:

Marking the Passage

We were out at Higgs Beach for lunch the other day, and the West Martello Tower -- a fortification for Ft. Zachary Taylor dating from the 1860s -- was just steps away. Since it's one of the venues for Sculpture Key West again this year, as well as headquarters for the Garden Club, we made our way there to look around.

Parts of the structure are amazing ruins. Some say guns from Ft. Zach or offshore ships used it for target practice after the war. But a historical marker across the street gives another part of its story:

Near this site lie the remains of 294 African men, women and children who died in Key West in 1860. In the summer of that year the U.S. Navy rescued 1,432 Africans from three American-owned ships engaged in the illegal slave trade. Ships bound for Cuba were intercepted by the U.S. Navy, who brought the freed Africans to Key West where they were provided with clothing, shelter and medical treatment. They had spent weeks in unsanitary and inhumane conditions aboard the slave ships. The U.S. steamships Mohawk, Wyandott and Crusader rescued these individuals from the Wildfire, where 507 were rescued; the William, where 513 were rescued; and the Bogota, where 417 survived. In all, 294 Africans succumbed at Key West to various diseases caused by conditions of their confinement. They were buried in unmarked graves on the present day Higgs Beach where West Martello Tower now stands. By August, more than 1,000 survivors left for Liberia, West Africa, a country founded for former American slaves, where the U.S. government supported them for a time. Hundreds died on the ships before reaching Liberia. Thus, the survivors were returned to their native land, Africa, but not to their original homes on that continent.

As part of this year's sculpture show, Lauren McAloon conceived "Passages" on the highest rise of the Martello.

Belaying pins on stakes symbolize their voyage.

Tribal motifs symbolize their lost land and lost lives, and the consecration of the ground in 2002 by Adegbolu Adefunmi, a visiting Yoruba prince, and William McKinzie, a member of the local memorial committee.

(Ground-penetrating radar had mapped part of the cemetery earlier that year -- not the first time the community took interest. When the Africans arrived in 1860, the town built them barracks and a hospital, contributed clothes and food, paid for the burials as more sickened travelers died, and finally subscribed to send the survivors home.)

Hundreds of blue bottles, traditional symbols of mourning in slave com- munities, stand in ranks on the fence spikes ringing the high ground. And tall, thick bamboo cylinders, notched into huge flutes, turn the constant wind into a low, steady moan.

A mass of mango

When I'm judging colors, or comparing masses of them, I usually take my glasses off. If you'd done that this morning, this would have been your vision of Roy rolling our soffit color on for a test.

Without sharp edges to distract me, it's easier for me to get the flavor of the ceiling and walls against the soffits. Of course daylight played some tricks -- bright places certainly didn't look the same shade as those in shadows -- but by the time he'd gotten a good coat on, I liked what I saw.

Robert's less sure; he thinks it's odd. I think it will grow on him.

Deeper and deeper

Kenny, the HVAC guy, came by late Friday to drop off some copper and PVC pipes -- the former for the coolant, the latter to protect the former -- and couldn't help but notice the excavations at the front step and driveway.

The Irish crew had been working all day to get the left side smooth. Once it's done, with grid sections braced into their dirt box, they'll channel into the dug-out part of the front yard.

"What the heck are they diggin'?," Kenny asked.

It's still on the QT, I said, but I guess I can tell you at this stage: This is the terminal for the new Key West-to-Havana tunnel.

(Auld) Sod, plants, roots, rocks

Dave and his fellow Hibernians were there bright and early Thursday to dig beds to underlay the brick walkway and the permeable pavers -- pierced waffles of concrete that will let some of our rain drain down instead of running off.

The walkway part -- just from the left gate to the centerline, and from the front gate to the porch steps -- was relatively easy going, the plumbers having scraped everything up pretty thoroughly when they put the sewer connector in.

So we turned our attention to our landscape architect, Craig, who came by with his early working drawing.

It was a blackprint, not a blueprint, but the plants gave it plenty of blue, red, yellow, green, silver, orange. . . . I stooped and squinted and turned the plan to help my mental eyes and finally saw the dream in perspective. My real eyes filled up a bit. Beautiful. I even saw where the night jasmine would waft across the porch, and added a day-bloomer on the other corner just for good measure.

Less lovely and far less abstract was what Dave and the boyos -- Declan and Ted -- were encounter- ing in the parking area: They'd uncovered huge roots from our sapodilla stretching exactly where the underlayment needed to go. No one had any idea they were there.

So out came the pick and the pry bar -- and then the Sawzall -- with much wrenching and sweating to get to about eight inches under grade. As they labored mightily, yet with grace, I thought of the generations of sandhogs who had dug so much of the country's structure. Properly directed, these lads could bore straight to the mantle.

And they proved it when, just under the roots, they hit huge chunks of cap rock. More pry bars, picks -- and a sledge, too. They clawed out what they could, and busted up and hauled out the rest.

Late in the day, Deco said his body was telling him he needed a Guinness or two soon for nourishment and encouragement, so he could start the new day refreshed and restored. I wished him Sláinte.

The grass is . . . purpler

We got away from the vapors long enough to have lunch on Higgs Beach at Salute, and I got an eyeful of color when I gave a close look to the beach grass brushing our table.

A case of the vapors

Roy needed something to throw over the window to protect it while he was lacquering the doors, so we found an old Pollock in the closet and hung it up.

The more I looked at it, the better the Pollock looked with the light coming through it, and maybe the varnish will protect it against further damage before we return it to the museum. . . .

Sorry, but I'm a little off my head since inhaling all those vapors today.

For a while, all I had to do was to get out on the porch. Then farther out in front of the house. Then I started moving way upwind. Standing in the street, I still felt my head spinning when our neighbor Martin came by with his dog, Fluffy, sniffed, quickly commented, "Ah, varnish," and moved along smartly.

Hank came back to see about repairing the granite installers' damage, putting in the bathroom floors and doing the backsplash -- and retreated after getting some rough measures. By the time he comes back tomorrow or Friday, the vapors should have dissipated.

Dave, the Irish guy who's doing our brick walks and pavers, came up around noon to say his fellas had been celebrating a birthday Tuesday night, so. . . .

They'll be here Thursday, barring another birthday.

Let us spray

Things are looking down -- only in in the literal sense.

These, of course, are our doors, ready for a coat of prep-stuff, a little sanding, and then a few coats of lacquer.

I spent an hour or so helping Roy put them up into position for spraying, holding while he nailed.

It wasn't a procedure I'd seen before, but when Arnold came into the room, his first words were: "Ah, you're making a spray booth."

So we were.

Shutters! (mostly)

Our windows -- eight of 'em, anyway -- have shutters, thanks to Troy (right) and his assistant, Robert.

Turns out the ground-floor windows could accommodate standard wood shutters, in stock at Strunk's, after just a little trimming.

So on Monday, they got 'em, cut 'em, hung 'em and marked them for painting and re-hanging.

We're special-ordering the ones for the gable and dormers.

Wide screen

Since it's Superbowl Sunday, we went out to the widest screen in town, Smathers Beach.

The crowd was sparse, the sky was starting to spit, the game was slow and all the players were inexplicably masquerading as seagulls -- but the definition was higher than you could believe and the mild 70s breeze felt great. The Cuban and Cuban pork sandwiches beat the usual stadium food, too.

Two down . . .

And Kenny to go.

Which about as much fun as waiting for the HARC hearing. Having having filed those papers Friday, there's nothing I can do about that until the event itself, Feb. 13. Maybe they'll give me a pre-Valentine heart.

As for Kenny, our HVAC man -- I'll ac-cent-uate the positive and say that he has not literally stabbed me in the back. Yet.

Chip, the pool plumber (on the left), and Denny, the electrician, were there on Friday. With all that hooked up, it's now up to Kenny.

This is the man who has, to put it very charitably, been inaccurate about his schedule to me -- what? A dozen times? Two dozen? He must get his -- my -- air conditioners up and running before I can order the floor wood. I hear the metronome. Start the music.

Sunshine on a stem

Key West is full of ixoras -- pretty much non-stop bloomers with hundreds of tiny red flowers on blossom heads. But when we were looking around town for plants to talk about with Craig, our landscape architect, we were surprised to find that this beauty on Fleming Street was an ixora, too: an aureum.

When he gave us its botanical name, I said, Yes -- gold. Aureum indeed, standing there today in a mild breeze and high-80s sunshine. (Heck, it's 80 at 10 p.m., under a full moon as big as the tropical night as I write this.)

I took a closer look at it and saw . . . our walls, on petals instead of wood.

Roy had been wrestling with his old, second-hand sprayer, and then buying a new one, to put a light coat of satin polyurethane on our paint-wiped walls and stained ceilings today.

Look at the sheen on the near wall he'd just sprayed in this picture, and compare it to the blotchy hit-or-miss reflectivity of the raw wiped paint on the far section. That little touch of poly compensates wonderfully for the differing absorbencies of sapwood and heartwood, and it's everything I'd hoped for.

And the ceiling: Well, it's starting to look like big, sweet strips of caramel -- warm, just glossy enough and oh, so tasty.

Thanks, Mr. Cole

I was driving out to the east end of the island today for a haircut from Armando, listening to Diane Rehm on the Miami NPR station, when my inner CD started playing, loudly.

Out of nowhere, Nat "King" Cole was singing, doing keyboard while his two backups did their usual subtle magic.

"You have to ac-cent, the positive. E-lim-inate the negative. Latch. On. To the affirmative. Don't mess with Mr. In-Between. . . ."

I heard it, and then I heard it. I started singing along.

Before long, I'd graduated to "Straighten Up and Fly Right."

After the haircut, I got back to the house and started taking pictures that might go with our architecture commission plea. I had fresh eyes when I went up to the loft and saw our ceiling and windows playing in the light as if they'd just been introduced to each other.

Later in the day, Robert and I went out to Higgs Beach for the sunset just like the tourists, smelled the air, got sand in our flip-flops, had a glass of wine, watched a schooner drop its sails a few miles offshore, tracked the Tortugas seaplane, saw clouds band the sun like Jupiter, daring me to complain because I didn't have my camera.

I didn't care about a camera. I latched on. To the affirmative.

Sunset is affirmative, and I'm by far, come what may, the luckiest person I know.

Thinking of Molly

I've been alternating between tears and laughter today, thinking about Molly Ivins. I'll miss that voice. Then I saw this bumper sticker and thought: Those who share her spirit live on.

The no-bell prize

This was not the best of days -- it does get tense as the days dwindle down -- but things did get done.

We ordered a few extra door sets, towel bars, TP holders -- all those glamorous things. Picked up tile for two bathroom floors. Researched finishes for the fir front door. All's well.

And then: A, having left town, passed the paving bid on to B, but B wouldn't be able to do it either, so C stepped in. D had a dispute with E over contract terms. F had a dispute with G about code requirements. H and I disagreed about a whole raft of things.

Early in the day, I'd found spray paint that would turn our twig door pulls, which are cast bronze but look like really cheap gilt, into a simulacrum of oil-rubbed bronze. By the time I drove some flipping screws into a flipping board to support them for flipping painting, I was flipping out.

Then the UPS man drove up with our doorbell (ring it when you click on that link) -- an old-fashioned, honest-to-God, twist-and-hear-it bell, also in oil-rubbed bronze. Makes such a cool old sound, and works even when hurricanes leave us with no power. I gleefully ripped the package open and found . . . the really beautifully detailed twist and beaded escutcheon for the outside of the door, in a lovely oil-rubbed bronze. No bell.

I am happy to report that the twist is so well made that it didn't suffer any damage at all when I flipped the flipping thing the flipping length of the flipping house.

Seeing red again

. . . And not just about windows, though we did start the day with a strategy session by phone with our architect, Dennis.

The second phone call was to lock down the order on our floor materials.

The third was incoming: A frantic call by Roy, our painter, who'd been unable to find our shade of door stain at Sherwin-Williams.

No wonder, we said: We'd gotten it at Benjamin Moore -- and he called from there to say he'd nailed their last quart.

We high-tailed it to Strunk's, and picked up the last two quarts of Provincial on the island, cornering a small market at best.

Then we went out to see Stacy at the bath fixtures store to get our toilets in line and ran into . . . a member of the Historic Architecture Review Commission. I was happy to see her, but when she started asking about our project, told her that, ethically, we shouldn't discuss it, because we would be appearing before her soon. So we talked about her renovation project.

All the time, Santos was working away in the den, re-redding the tongue-and-groove wall and its trim. Nathaniel wandered by late in the day, poked his head in and said, "Y'know, I was worried about all that red, but now I think it's the prettiest room in the house."

Awfully nice to hear.

A chilly blush

This pink-tinged variety of bougainvillea began showing up at the plant stores here in recent years, and as I saw this sprig peeking out from a whitewashed fence on Truman Avenue today, I couldn't help thinking of fair skin reddened by a chill, brisk wind.

Robert doesn't get it, but those of us who've been here awhile are bundling up -- you even see some people in stocking caps and scarves -- because temperatures are dipping into the low 60s.

No big deal, until you remember most of us have no insulation, no heat and no tolerance for much under 75. Good thing we're not in Orlando, where it's supposed to hit 28 tonight. I'm not even thinking about anything farther north than that.

Meanwhile, on the finish front . . .

We take a momentary break from my obsession with windows (I was up at 3 a.m. researching Historic Commission guidelines) to bring you
. . .

Our obsession with floors and doors.

You can see just a bit of the floor choice here: that little block of santos mahogany at the bottom of the door, and that patch below. It comes with a terrific finish, and it's significantly lighter than the kitchen cabinets, which I think will set them off beautifully.

And the door. We took two trips to the paint store, and Roy one, before coming up with a winner.

You'll have to stick your head inside the tiny guest room closet and peer at the back of the door to see our first test, a far too dark shade of mahogany. This one is darker than the ceiling, lighter than the floor. It's a Zar stain shade called "Provincial." What's next? Urbane? Rustic? And who the hell names these things? Still, it made our day.

Noncomformists

These are the old guest-room windows from a year ago. Click on them if you want a frightening look at what used to be there.

Trust me, this is going to be part of the photographic evidence the Historic Architecture Review Commission gets when we make our case for mercy in terms of window materials.

I hope you'll forgive me, but I haven't been quite right since Friday's shock about HARC. (Actually, I've been sleeping like a baby, as the old joke has it: Waking up every 30 minutes to cry.)

In addition to the points I listed Friday, this argument from analogy took form:

A few months back, Sullins, our architect friend, mentioned an oddity in HARC regulations. Owners of a building that's "nonconforming" by HARC standards -- not historic, not "contributing," perhaps a concrete block structure with aluminum windows -- are allowed to replace it with another nonconforming structure, rather than one meeting historic design standards.

What's the chance that windows conforming neither in style nor material nor wind-code compliance can be replaced by windows that conform at least in style, and up the ante by adding incredible hurricane safety? I'm just asking -- and looking at every window I see in the Historic District.

A huge favor

Robert and I ordered an awning in late December and, as luck would have it, it arrived Friday.

I mentioned it to Shawn and wondered whether, since he and the guys were in town. . . .

So there we all were at Home Depot at 11 a.m., with Li'l Shawn at the wheel of their huge diesel dump truck, the back jammed with equipment going back north, sliding 21 feet of ungainly shipping tube over the truck bed and lashing it down.

Installation would take "15 minutes," Robert had been told.

Shawn was too bright to buy that (he hasn't been around Robert long enough to know that "5 minutes" is usually about an hour), but even so I don't think he figured on four hours.

They had to rip a few boards into 2-by-10s, lag-bolt them just below the ledger board (not smack in the middle, as I'd thought), then lag-bolt the brackets to the new boards.

Robert and I performed such high-skill tasks as unwrapping, handing drills, tools and bolts up ladders and fetching sodas.

Of course, Shawn engineered it beautifully, and everything clicked into place after a big heave-ho.

We gave the crew yet another round of thanks for yet another job above and beyond -- though I did hear Shawn say, "Next time I come to Key West, I'm not bringin' a hammer."

I'm devastated

This is the way our house looked a year ago, and there is a good chance that the Historic Architec- ture Review Com- mission prefers the way it looked then to the way it looks now.

The problem is our hurricane-resistant windows, and in the worst case we may have to rip seven of them out.

This all came up today when I went to the HARC staff director, Diane, to ask whether it might be possible for us to use aluminum shutters -- which really do look just like the "real" thing, wood, which HARC has always required.

There's a shutter maker in Key West who has done all he can to emulate the look of painted wood, and he's had some success getting his things approved in Truman Annex, and he keeps trying to get his products approved in Old Town.

One topic led to another -- since hurricane windows don't require shutters, I thought perhaps the question would be moot -- but then Diane said our metal frames are unacceptable to HARC and would have to go.

When she told me that, I had to sit down rather suddenly, and it took me a few minutes to collect my thoughts.

I went back to the house, told Shawn and Arnold what the problem was, and retreated to the apartment to assume the fetal position.

- - -

So now I'm filling out an application for an appearance before the full commission to seek a revision in our plans -- to wit, approval for metal frames because:

■ The windows we inherited were bad, storm-unsafe, relatively new, un-historic aluminum, many built smaller than the historic window openings. Our windows, though not compliant in materials, far better reflect historic architectural standards, are storm-safe and are true to the sizes of the building's original openings.

■ Before his untimely death, our builder installed the windows in good faith and in strict compliance to structural and hurricane codes. It would be unfair to penalize those of us who survive for his error.

■ Our neighbors along the street enjoy a wide variety of window materials -- some wood-framed, some vinyl, some aluminum (even jalousies). Ours at least show a historic style. Is it fair to penalize us for making our windows both congruent to historic style and safe thanks to new materials technologies?

■ Though their interests are obviously different from historic preservation, the city building inspectors who approved every stage of our project over the last year never alerted us to the possibility of a problem, despite their experience with projects in the Historic District.

(If you can think of other, better arguments, or refinements in these, or ANYTHING, please -- please-- don't hesitate to share your insight in comments or e-mail. I need all the help I can get here.)

At any rate, Diane says she'll search out variances that may tend to support our case. After seeing my faint and hearing the circumstances, she became quite sympathetic.

Also, our architect, Dennis, says he will be there with me in late February to make the case before HARC. If they deny us, we'll have recourse to the Board of Adjustment, to seek a variance on appeal. If the BOA denies us -- well, I guess we'll have to post a sizable performance bond to get our certificate of occupancy, and then special-order seven windows, along with seven million antacids.

I will look at this as an opportunity to invite HARC into a new era, to help it realize that technology and architectural preservation can coexist. I hope the commission can look ahead in hurricane protection, as well as back in history.

A few loose ends

Yep, that's Frank from the Macon crew. And yep, he's cutting up some work that was previously thought finished.

But sometimes life is like that.

He, Shawn and Li'l Shawn are down for the weekend -- mostly to pick up some equipment of Ref's to take back north, but also to fix some problems with pocket doors. It seems as if everyone hates pockets but Robert and me.

In this case, the pressure of the tongue-and-groove apparently buckled the box the door slips into. A little work, but nothing insurmountable.

Want a low-stress job?

The Keynoter has had a display ad that's intrigued me for a few weeks:

Do you like to take walks on the beach at the first light of day? Would you like to earn $10 an hour while walking the beach? Then this is the perfect job for you.

The City of Marathon is hiring several individuals to be our Turtle Nest Surveyors to work 3½ hours a day April 15 to October 31 for our two beaches. Our Turtle Nest Surveyors must be licensed by the Department of Environmental Protection through Save-A-Turtle. The class will be held in March. . . .

I'll pass along the contact number if you're interested. And it's BYO sunscreen, of course.

White belts

Not the best fashion statements, but they can be really striking features on a house.

On the rear and south sides, a wide piece of wood called a ledger board marks the depth of the joists between the first and second floors.

We could paint them yellow for less emphasis, or leave them in white to frame the house with the rest of the trim.

The vote's for white, even though this piece will be broken up by the roll-up awning over the big door to the living room.

(Sorry about the sky color, by the way, but a cold front was starting to blow through; it was dropping to 60 and spitting rain. Everybody who lives here was in sweats and a jacket; the turistas were still in T-shirts.)

Call it chameleon

"Ooba-
tooba?," asked the woman from down the street, looking at the card- board- wrapped island and counters.

No, I said, "peacock green."

And only when we got to the upstairs bath was there enough light to see the details.

The sunlight shows up the green and brown flakes in the black -- but it's still too bright, and the dark places too dark, for you to get a proper view.

Besides, it looks different against both colors of tile, and I'm sure it'll look different against the slate backsplash in the kitchen, too.

Blue and happy

The soffit at the top is the same color as the one at the bottom, and the beam -- it's just a trick of light, because all the blues are the same shade, and apparently pretty eye-catching.

A nice couple staying at a guest house down the street stopped by to compliment me about the house's appearance this morning.

Arnold plans to paint his porch ceiling this blue, the sincerest form of flattery, so I gave him the chip to match.

Dennis, who runs the guest house two doors away, calls it baby blue but says he likes it a lot anyway. Roy, the painter, calls it sky and wrote the number down so he can do all his porches in it.

Nice. But people are still perplexed by our two tones of yellow. Under the porch is the real color. The rest is just tinted primer -- but Roy thinks the exterior will be finito by the end of the week and no one will doubt the shade.

Everybody says the yellow makes the house look a lot bigger. I told Arnold I'm not going to wear yellow anymore.

Another day in paradise

It was one of those days today -- lining up a return visit by the tile guy, dealing with the HVAC guy, the electrician, the pool guy. Bleh.

Robert and I decided to head over to Higgs Beach for sunset, and sat under a palapa where a few guys were quietly shooting the breeze about linguistics, classic cars, the way they dream. . . .

The sun started setting, and people who had cameras got them out. Another guy strummed a guitar and hummed softly.

One guy sitting near us said he'd been working on his house for two years, and I told him I'd recently had a few days of construction panic. Even so, I said, probably more to convince myself than him, the worst day here is better than the best in lots of other places.

"I hadn't thought of that in a while," he said, shaking his head. He smiled: "Thanks. You just made my day."

And that made mine, to remember the power of a word of encouragement.

Master classes

I was watching Arnold and Mr. B working on the upstairs doors today and at one point, preparing to take a Skilsaw to the bottom of one of them, he looked up and smiled:

"Eighty percent of carpenters would take the door off the frame before doing this," he said, "and only 10 percent would use one of these," pointing at the saw.

He then proceeded to demonstrate why he earned the 10.

Hanging doors is more complicated than I thought, but simpler, too: Get the frame plumb and square, and you're home free. At one point, to tug an already-nailed frame just a bit forward, he drilled a screw in and one tug with a hammer's claw did the trick.

Mr. B looked over at me and laughed. "It's a classroom up here," he said.

Later in the day, shooting the breeze with Scott, who keeps up the Duval House down our street, Arnold came up with great reverence.

"Guys like him have 10,000 pages of carpentry lessons in their head," Scott said. Personally, I think that's an understatement.

Counter measures

Germán and his crew from Miami came by early Monday for our counter installation, and they were still finishing up the third bathroom after dusk. A long day, and a productive one.

It took all five of them to wrestle the big pieces off the truck, up the steps and into place.

This was the big L -- one piece that makes up the right side of the kitchen counter. (Germán is in the red shirt, by the way.) Just at the left edge of the picture is the cutout for half of the undermounted sink.
Luís -- "Lucho" -- is Germán's right-hand guy, and he shaved the left piece along the sink wall to get a perfect fit. Better to start with too much than too little.

The guys wrestle the left piece into place. You can see the sink cutout on the right end.

Then it's time for the island -- one very big, heavy slab.

Luís made the cutout in place for the cooktop, along with diamond-grinding the epoxied seam at the sink. By the time he was done, it was all but invisible.

Finally, the cooktop (yes, it's a Maytag, and their biggest) goes into place. And it fits, with a tolerance you can't believe.

An edgy day -- but nothing snapped: not the big angled piece, not the sink cutouts and most surprising of all not my nerves.