Cannon Beach Thanksgiving Memories

We left Mayne Island with the power out... and after driving all day in the rain arrived at Cannon Beach to find the power out within hours after we got here.  So the next day we went out for breakfast in Seaside... where they had power.  Getting there we had to go thru some severe flooding of the road.

Adjacent to the road was this RV campground.  Shelby thought he saw a sign that said "Dry Creek RV Park"... but Sher set him straight... it is "Circle Creek RV Park."  I guess that is because the water circles the place.  Still very appropriate.

Late afternoon the sky cleared a bit so Alan and I went for a walk on the beach.  The wind was having fun with the waves.

As the sun was setting the rain was moving back in... and before we realized it we had to hustle home.

The tide was out more than I have ever seen before here, so we explored up the beach to the north.  Coming back I took this shot of Alan with the famous Haystack Rock in the distance.

As I was taking this sunset shot the rain was pouring down on us.

The golden sun reflects in the windows on the houses... beautiful, eh?   This was happening in pouring rain and we were getting soaked!

Thanksgiving Day was a continual storm and I never once even ventured out the door.  It was delightful today to see the sun come out and wind subside...

A perfect time to go for a walk on the beach with the family.

"love builds up the broken wall
and straightens the crooked path.
love keeps the stars in the firmament
and imposes rhythm on the ocean tides
each of us is created of it
and i suspect
each of us was created for it"

--Maya Angelou 

Sher and Seth.  This young man is getting taller than his mother!

"I hope you always have a shell in your pocket... and sand in your shoes."

Occasionally we would get surprised by a wave that comes higher up the beach than most others.

Shirley was enjoying taking pictures of the foam on the leading edge of the waves... until she was caught off guard and got totally soaked up to her knees.  I found this quote for her.

"My life is like a stroll on the beach... as near to the edge as I can go."

“Don't grow up too quickly, lest you forget how much you love the beach.” -Michelle Held

There was lots of photos taken... with pictures of those taking pictures.

And even some selfie photos.  

Not to be left out, I had Shirley take my picture too... I wanted to show off the hats that Sher made up for the Thanksbirthmas '11 celebrations.  A lasting reminder.

Huge breakers.


"If you want to know how much I love you, count the waves."

The sand dunes were begging to have some pictures taken of them...

The blue sky was perfect today with the sand and the grass.

When Maizy and Lucy saw me over on the sand dunes, they wanted to play and climb around in them too.

It is wonderful to see these two sisters play so well together.

When Lucy was getting tired Maizy carried her quite a long way without a word of complaint.

There is endless variety in the sand dunes and the wild grass.

I love the patterns that the water etches in the sand on the beach.

And these patterns just happen randomly.

So simple. So beautiful.

Construction Update November 12 to 19, 2011

This morning we awoke to a skiff of snow on the ground!

I guess because we are about 600 feet above sea level, we get some snow that would not stay even a hundred or two feet lower.  Our temps rose to over 8 degrees C. this afternoon... so a lot of the snow melted.

The early morning sunshine and snow on the pampas grass.

"A day without sunshine is like, you know, night." -Steve Martin

It is good to see so much of the roofing getting done.  This shot taken out of the side dormer window looking back to the peak.

Out of the same dormer window this shows the loft roof done... and the old shake roof on the living room and bedroom.  This is the last shot before it got torn off and replaced with new standing seam metal panels.

While Lance and his boys tore off those old shingles....

Brendan and I set up our longest ladder and Lance's long extension ladder to install the facia boards on this most difficult side of the house.  Monday was Brendan's last day working here so I tried to get everything done where I needed his help.

This is what this side looks like with the facia boards on.  I still have a narrow top board to do on the top of the dormer facia... but I will do that tomorrow if the roof is dry enough to walk on it.

Looking back from Deck Three the new dormer plywood exterior stands out.  Once the windows are in and they are trimmed with white boards it will blend in with the rest of the place.

This is likely the last photo of this part of the roof before the shakes got torn off.

Brant is flashing around our new skylights that will be over our master bedroom.  This wonderful idea provides beautiful daylight in our formerly dark bedroom.

On Friday afternoon I removed the insulation inside the skylight curb and cut thru the drywall.  Shirley was on ladder in the bedroom to catch the 22" x 46" piece of drywall so it didn't fall on the floor or the bed.

We will finish these off with drywall and paint them when we do our new closet... hopefully we can fast track this so we get it done before Christmas.  Our new mid-term goal is to get the pantry and the closet finished ahead of the studio... so we can get our house back to normal as soon as possible.

Lance was a little reluctant about tearing off this side of the roof on Friday... the clouds around were dark and unpredictable.  But once they decided to do it I was amazed at how quickly this crew tore off the old shakes and had it cleaned up ready for the Titanium underlay and metal panels.

I was on the phone when I looked out the window Friday afternoon and saw these huge snowflakes falling out of the sky.  By the time I could finish the phone call and went out to take this picture all the guys were off the roof... and the roof was papered.  

The snowstorm only lasted 20-30 minutes and soon after the guys were back up there putting metal panels of roofing in place... they got a good start on this section.

Coming in after shooting some snow photos the morning sun was on this yellow hibiscus.  Sad the blossom only lasts a day.

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." -Dr. Seuss

Construction Update November 6 to 11, 2011

On Sunday I worked by myself putting down all the plywood sheathing on the roof that connects our house and the new closet for our bedroom and then extends over to the mid point.

On Monday the day started off with some serious rain.  We tried to work anyway, but we got cold and kind of wet... so Brendan suggested he would be happy to take off the rest of the day and go to town... which was fine by me as I thought we wouldn't see any roofers that day.

Within an hour of that decision Lance and his crew showed up and decided he wanted to start on the new roof over the studio.  We already had the Titanium UDL down, so even in the rain he could work here.

So I had to get cracking and get a couple of skylights set up on curbs and cut out the plywood between the TGI's... so I pushed and got it done before stopping for a late lunch.

Lance has a machine that takes 24-guage pre-finished metal off a roll and can form any length of standing seam panel right on site.  On the first day they did most all of the highest roof and up to the skylights on the lower roof.

When it wasn't raining Brendan and I put up as much facia board as we could.  Here we are doing the facia on the new pantry.

This is Lance is putting down the first layer of "torch on" roofing on the pantry.

This section of the our closet and bedroom is now ready for the metal panels.

Don't these metal panels look good?  This is the canopy that connects to the new closet lower right.

Lance with two of his boys are doing the second layer of "torch on" thru the cricket.  With five skylights so close together, this section is extremely time consuming and difficult.

On Thursday Shirley helped us clean out all the junk stored in between the trusses.  There was a lot of junk up there that we inherited from the previous owners and didn't even know what all was there... plus there was some of our stuff up there as well.

Then Brendan and I installed plywood on most of the ceiling in the garage.  When the old shake roof gets torn off, if we didn't have a ceiling here there would be a lot of debris that would fall into the whole area below... and it would be a huge mess to clean up.  Now we can just vacuum in the attic and then set insulation between the trusses... and save the mess getting into all our stuff.

With a ceiling in this area it makes it easier to heat this space if we so choose... plus it really makes it a nicer environment.

This time of year painting outside is not practical... this type of paint has an emulsion that needs some warmth to get it to dry.  So we have turned our cottage into paint shop for a few weeks... with poly on the floor.  Shirley has been painting almost every day here this past ten days.  The good news is the end of the facia boards is within sight.

This next week I will take more photos with the finished facia boards installed.  It is looking really good, but with the rain on the weekend we didn't take any more exterior shots.

Once again, thank you Shirley for the photos.

Construction Update October 30 to November 4, 2011

On Sunday we returned the trailer we rented from a friend in Sidney... we needed the trailer to bring home  the custom cut 1" x 12" cedar facia boards... some of which were over 18 feet long.  Our return trip back took us to Saturna first, so we got to see our home with renovations from the ferry.  Pretty cool, eh?

On Monday we went to town again. Since Brendan was setting up the fireworks for their Halloween party it gave us a chance to run some errands and pick up some supplies for the project... like skylights, white Flood paint for the facia boards and some cedar shingles for siding.  I only bought a square of shingles, as I wanted to get started on figuring out if we are going to pre-paint them, or how to put them on the wall.

Is it not a little ironic that we are taking the cedar shakes off the roof and now planning to put cedar shingles on to the wall?

As we were taking off more of the cedar shakes over our master bedroom closet I called Shirley to take some pictures of the crop of mushrooms that we have growing on the roof.  It amazes me that the roof still keeps us dry.

On Tuesday Brendan called and said he needed another day off to clean up after the fireworks... so Shirley was recruited to help me build the east wall of the dormer... the one with the two 24" x 24" windows just above the ladder.  Shirley also helped me finish the 1/2" plywood sheathing in the section.

On Wednesday Brendan and I set up the rafters over the last section of the dormer.... and Shirley caught us putting them in place.  We then built the last section of the wall between the lower TGI and the upper dormer rafter... another tricky project as each stud was a different length with a different angle on the top than the angle on the bottom.  Now that we have it done we know how to do it more quickly.

Ever since we put up this five-ply LVL beam I have wanted to trim it off to the right length... and on Thursday when I started to build this canopy roof I took out the chain saw and did the deed.

Since paint doesn't dry very well this time of year outdoors... and there is always a threat of precipitation, we got the brain wave to put down some poly on the floor and use the cabin as a paint room.  When we moved the first batch of boards into the cabin it was already raining.

This week Shirley painted the first five boards with two coats and we set up another batch of seven boards... so we will have enough to do the upper roof and dormer when these boards are dry.

I made up a list of windows this week and am looking for candidates who would like to bid on making these 36 windows.  In the last two weeks since we added the dormer in the loft, we eliminated one round window from the plan and added eight more!  So glad we did it... it was a now or never decision.

On Friday we made some serious progress on the roof over our new master bedroom closet and the canopy extension to the cantilevered beam.  Since we had to open up the roof to marry the new roof into the old one, at the end of the day I put poly over that area.  We have rain in the forecast for the weekend.  Weather permitting Lance has scheduled to start roofing here on Monday.

This is a pretty boring picture... but the results are awesome.  We are taking out the service pole with meter base in the previous photo and changing the way our house will get power service.  In fact we will eliminate two poles and over 275 feet of power line.  We will then come directly from the pole in the triangle on our circle drive, which is about 125 feet from back corner of the garage, so we will hardly never see it from inside the house... or when driving up to our house.  

This photo taken from the loft shows the ugly service pole and the green second pole on the left... they will be removed... and along with it goes all the wires you can see thru the top windows on the right.  In an ideal world electricity is to be enjoyed but the power lines are never to be seen.

Wesley, our electrician, has installed a new 200 amp panel in our garage and from there we will go to a new panel in our new closet... so all that wire will be hidden in the building.  We are setting aside four feet of wall just for electric panels in the closet... and it will have clear floor area in front of them so it will meet code.

Currently when  breaker trips we have to take clothes out of Shirley's closet to access the panel and get a flash light to find the problem... not cool.