Has it been 5 weeks already? Still, we are indeed anxious to get this building up!!
Ready Installs and Cormier Homebuilding were busy this week. We also had Mike Astrella and his crew doing some electrical work. Moving forward for sure.
Backfilling the foundationMore sand for backfillingMike Astrella working on conduitsDrilling out hole for septic accessBackfilling progress – and repair on foundation chip.Concrete piers for the deck came on Wednesday. Deliveries would start to accelerate.Close up view of chip repair. Looks good!Wednesday progress.By Wednesday, this was the view of the progress from upstairs in the house.
Friday and Saturday would see more deliveries. Some lumber is still on back-order, but not too much.
Friday saw a delivery of lumber – mostly LVL’s and floor joists.Saturday saw a BIG delivery of even more lumber.Lots of lumber!End of week – here we are progress-wise.
With any luck, Tropical Storm Henri (which hit us Sunday with rain and wind and will affect us through Monday) will not cause any delays this week.
Hope you are enjoying these posts – and this journey.
The fourth week of the project (through August 14th) saw some progress, as well as some headaches. I’ll let the pictures below help to tell the story.
View from the house
Looking from my normal parking spot on the driveway
This is where the project was early morning Monday, August 10th. By Tuesday, August 10th, we started to see some dirt moving.
On Monday, serious work began on moving dirt. More of the old driveway was removed, as was some overburden. Unfortunately, on the previous week, one of the less-experienced excavator operators hit the new foundation and chipped off a piece.
AAARGH!
That was not pleasant to learn or see. It’s repairable, but felt awful as it’s brand new. As this week was about digging a trench for the water line and a second trench for the power and coax cables – and would require digging close to our house foundation – the owner of the company doing the subcontractor work for the excavation (Andy Cormier), took charge of the digging. That was a relief as having an excavator hit the house would have been a nightmare.
This is Tuesday, August 11th. Andy is digging the electrical/cox cable trench. More of the old driveway was removed and some cracked as you see here to the left of the open cellar bulkhead. It will all be repaved anyways.
While Andy digs, Frank drills a hole in the foundation for the electrical & coax conduits. You can see the “ding” on the foundation’s car door above his head on the photo on the right.The electrical/coax trench being dug.Setting up a form to repair the chipped edge.
Here the water line trench is started (separate and distant from the other electrical/coax conduit trench for obvious reasons).Electricians work on the conduits in the foundation. My wife Lynn is inspecting above!Long view of the trenches – looking very WWI in the back yard…At the end of Wednesday, August 11th, the water line was in and its trench was backfilled. The electrical and coax cable conduits were inside the foundation and ready for backfill there too.
At this point, it became a waiting game for the wiring inspector, as both the conduits in the remaining trench, and in the foundation, needed to be inspected before being backfilled. We lost time as he did not come until Friday morning. As Andy was not sure as to when he would come, he had moved his excavator to another job site. This would delay the backfilling. Also, the wiring inspector wanted thicker conduit installed where it attached to the house (schedule 80 versus schedule 40), in case it was struck buy something. He also wanted more sealing where it went through the siding. Therefore the electricians had another task for the following week’s work.
The end of the electrical/coax cable trench by the house on Friday.
While construction was on hold, Saturday was a big day as it involved Massachusetts having a “tax-free weekend”. This is when – as a “gift” from the legislature – businesses can sell items up to $2,500 with none of the 6.25% Massachusetts sales tax applied. While I wish that we had been allowed to start this whole project a couple of months sooner, this was a boon. I am purchasing all of the project materials so as to get the points on my credit card. This requires some degree of management on my part. I had spent the week working with Ready Installs and their vendors to line up as much as I could get to be ordered on that weekend. A few items (mainly big doors) did not qualify, but a lot did. One of the biggest orders would be from The Home Depot store in Shrewsbury, which is about 45 minutes away. I also knew that there would be a LOT of people and contractors thinking similarly about the tax-free weekend. So, I got up before 4 AM, got myself ready, and was the first in line before the Home Depot opened at 6 AM on Saturday. No worries as getting up early is my norm. I got the order – and all the other orders in – and saved a substantial amount of money overall.
Yes, I am awake…hell, the sun’s almost up even…The project at the end of the week. The next week will hopefully show more progress!
That’s Week Four, ending August 14th (for those non-US folks – our calendars end on Saturday). Looking forward to more progress in Week 5.
Thanks for looking! FYI – for those of you also following my Aztec project – the BIG REVEAL is coming very soon! If you are not, you should take a look here at the first installment – there are four now and one more to go.
Not a lot happened this week on site construction-wise. We had visits from Ready Install‘s excavation, plumber, and electrician contractors. These were to determine what was needed to build and to coordinate activities. We did get a water line delivered and insulation for the foundation to protect against frost. Definitely was hoping for more progress, but hopefully next week will be better.
Insulation for foundationAnd a waterline.Jon Victor (on porch) helps measure for electrical work estimates.
Saturday was the highlight of the week – we went to Spotlight Design Center on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester and worked with Leanne Richard at Spotlight Design Center to finalize the design on the mini-kitchen that will be on the second floor. She was a true professional and extremely knowledgeable and helpful.
Spotlight Design Center in Worcester.Lynn and Leanne discuss cabinetry choices. I am letting those choices be all Lynn’s!
Leanne did a nice job with her CAD design for the kitchenette. She was very thorough.
Leanne working on the program. Remember, this is a 16′ x 24′ building!Adding lighting to the design.Final design. Looks great.
After this, it was off to Home Depot to look at some options for flooring and appliances.
I know Ready Installs is chomping at the bit, but again, I hope to see faster progress this week at the site.
This week on the Garage+ project saw the installation of the concrete footer and the walls – as well as inspection of the foundation. The RJH Concrete crews, under Andy Cormier Homebuilding, did a great job and worked fast on a few warmer July days. The photos below tell the tale.
The concrete crew arrived early on Monday, July 26th.They got to work quickly to place forms for the footer.Footer placed – an earthen excavation wall collapsed on the right but that was no problem. Note how sandy our soil is!Footer view from the second floor of our house.By Monday afternoon, the crew stripped the footer forms.On Tuesday, July 27th, the wall forms were delivered and assembled on the footer.Crew assembling the forms.By Tuesday mid-day, two concrete trucks arrived and the placement of the concrete began. One of the two delivery trucks – because of our underground leach fields, the trucks had to deliver with every extension possible to get to the back walls.Extensions in action.Some of the concrete finished work on Tuesday.It was a hot day, but the crew worked hard and fast.Finishing work proceeds on the concrete walls.On Wednesday, July 28th, the forms on the walls were stripped to reveal this!Same view as above but a different angle.On Friday, the foundation was inspected and passed!
This upcoming week promises to be full of activity as well. Stay tuned!
It’s been a very busy time here at home since my last blog post in early June. Some of you have wondered if I had gone past my expiration date. Rest assured, I, for better or worse, am still on the top side of the fairway (or maybe the rough anyways).
This post will be a bit different than the standard fare I usually offer here. Yes, the title of my blog is “Life, Golf, Miniatures, & Other Distractions”. Too often, however, I neglect everything EXCEPT miniatures here. But as I now have a good deal to share on all of these, well, I guess for once I’ll give equal billing. You see, I have been building my Aztec cityscape. It’s a tabletop wargame set up that needs its own (and probably multiple separate) posts.
That is NOT the subject of this post – you did read the title friend?
No, this time instead, I’ll ramble through each of the aforementioned title topics about “stuff” that has gone on in the last month. I’ll share some hopefully interesting photos and a few observations that will (maybe) make you say wow! Or Hmmm! Or Huzzah! Or WTF? Or a combo? Your choices of course. Chuckling is allowed and strongly encouraged
As its been over a month since my last post, sit back and enjoy – I think that I did for the most part.
Life
This section is dedicated to the more important parts and events of my life – you know, the ones that I don’t usually write about. But they are important – and yes, even more important than minis or golf (oh please don’t make me write that again but it’s true). Most of this section is organized chronologically, but not aligned with the other sections – a lot of this is about family, vacations, and food!
Let’s start here with my wife Lynn and I celebrating her birthday back on June 12th. We got a pair of 2.5 pound lobsters and had a great meal at home!
As the pandemic really kept the planet at home, and as I am often remiss each summer in taking my wife to the beach as often as she’d like, I felt that it was important that this year I make an effort – especially as she was to be on vacation – to get her to the beach. Now, she likes Newport, RI, but I’ve always preferred Hampton Beach, NH. And she likes it too by the way – so I’m not a total ass! As her vacation weeks were fixed (I’m always off so no big deal for me), we looked at the calendar and June 28th looked like the only day of her first vacation week that would not be rainy. It also was hot as hell – so, we made the 90 mile trek to the New Hampshire coast.
Looking out towards my UK friends from under my umbrella. You are over there somewhere.Beautiful day at the beach.The north end of Hampton Beach.As New Hampshire is The Granite State, it was nice to see these old rocks at low tide. We were just sitting behind these by 100 yards.Same area as previous shot. looking at the ocean.
Now please understand, the water here is truly cold – usually not warmer than 50 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s 10 degrees Celsius for you metric types). No Gulf Stream here to warm the water. As this day the air temp was 89 degrees Fahrenheit with a slight breeze (that’s 32 degrees Celsius for you metric types) – it felt like we were in a convection oven even under our umbrella. I took a couple mile walk to get the photos and some exercise and despite sunscreen got a (mild) sunburn and a couple blisters from the hot sand! Amazing to experience such heat with such cold water so close. Yes, I know that it gets hotter in other places (and I’ve lived down South too plus some time in the Sahara), but for us this was really hot. Lynn and I decided to head out for the boardwalk and some old (like us) video games, shade, and a snack, and some shopping. Oh yeah, and especially shade.
I think we were fully cooked.
After our little saunter along the boardwalk (which was much cooler), we decided to head out and grab dinner. Years before we met, unbeknownst to either us, both of us were aficionados of Brown’s Lobster Pound in nearby Seabrook, NH. We both had gone there since we were kids. It was nice to discover we had that in common when we met, and have been there every time we went through the area. We always get steamers (steamed clams) and lobsters. It’s a BYOB place, so we grabbed a few adult beverages and grabbed a nice spot on the picnic tables inside and waited for our orders.
LOVE THIS PLACE!The place does a LOT of business – here is the outside takeout line for fried food.Always good to park at low tide…The causeway by the restaurant – soon in a future post you’ll see how it inspired my Aztec causeway colors – but not now! LET’S SEE FOOD!Start with steamers…End with a couple of 2 pounders!
That was a fun day. The rest of the week was rainy, to include the weekend. On the third of July, we managed to gather to celebrate Buck Surdu’s birthday…ok, we did not do that… 😁 – but we did get in a belated Father’s Day for me, a partial belated birthday for Lynn, and a day early Independence Day celebration. I got some cool gifts and cards! As it was my second Father’s Day celebration without my Dad, it felt better, especially with family.
Me, my Mom, my daughter Ellen, my wife Lynn, and the cute little one (no, besides me) is my granddaughter Tabitha who is four and a half now.
A week later Lynn and I were again having seafood withdrawals, so we hit a favorite place of ours, Red Crab Juicy Seafood in Worcester, MA (just 10 miles away). It specializes in Cajun seafood.
What a menu! And you can order every special on any day!
Spicy hot seafood, a gorgeous wife, and a Corona!
Ok, enough about food. We have been working on replacing our garage since before the pandemic. It looks like a Dr. Seuss house, only less useful. The previous owner of our house had won the Massachusetts State Lottery back in the 1970’s when it was a $50,000 drawing once a week (now it’s made up of dozens of games and much bigger payouts). He’s long dead now. In any case, my understanding is that with his winnings he bought a new car, one that was too big for his garage. The easy fix for him was to cut off the end of the garage, cut the stringers on the left side, and use scab lumber to extend the garage in both directions. As you will see from the photos below, while his fix lasted his lifetime, it was not going to rival the pyramids.
The garage as seen from our house’s 2nd floor. If you look closely you can see the roof’s deviation at the back where the extension was done. I have spent a lot of effort with a roof rake over many winters trying to keep the roof from succumbing to the weight of snow on this bad roof. Our septic leach field is under the grass and goes right up to the driveway – so a two car garage replacement was not practical. The electric door still works – but barely. The door itself was shaped to the ground underneath instead of making the ground level. The door panels are particle board and warped due to exposure to moisture. This project will also encompass replacing the driveway, and installing a second floor and deck on the new building. We are also replacing the current deck we have now attached to the back of our house.Door on side rotting away.Roof and stringers rotting away.Here you can see the warped door panels and the siding barely hanging on (I nailed it back on after a winter blizzard nearly took it all off).The inside is totally NOT critter-proof, and structurally suspect. We have not stored a car in here for years – it’s been a shed basically. Mice did significant damage (>$800) to one of our cars in it, and after that no more was it a true garage for us.It is a mess. We just emptied it out as the demolition starts soon.The structure is put together somewhat haphazardly – and again it is a critter home.The extended area with recycled lumber is shown here – and somehow there is no ridge pole – unless you count that thin piece of plywood masquerading as one. Structurally, the left side is supported by a huge beam (approximately 7″ x 5″), which supports the weight of the left roof extension as the stringers were cut and sort of renailed together. All that weight rests on a pair of 2″ x 4″s – set in…I think the ground. I can’t see any proof of a footer at all. Again, not built to any code I ever read about.The other end of the beam is supported by a 2″ x 6″, that also has the wiring coming in from underground…somewhere…probably under the driveway.
Now our good friend IRO is converting a carport into a shed using recycled materials, and is doing a FAR better job than was done with this monstrosity. In any case, it needs to go. We knew we wanted to do something extra here as we wanted some entertainment space and a deck to overlook the pond in back. Before the pandemic, we hired an architect, Lasse Aspelin, to design us a new garage with a second floor and a 16′ x 16′ deck, plus a new deck for the back of the house. We now have cleared the Town’s Conservation Commission, Building Inspector, and Zoning Board of Appeals (not going to bore you but that took a long time – over a year), and demolition starts this week. Here is what we are going to build:
Garage front.Side viewDeck detailSecond story roomThe garage interior. The new building will have all utilities, to include gas, water, and a mini-kitchenette and a bathroom on the second floor – perfect for entertaining.The new house deck as will be seen from the garage deck.
It’s a big project, but one that will allow us to fully benefit from our home and property for years to come. Plus, now at least one car can come out of the snow in winter! We have hired Ready Installs of Shrewsbury, MA to do the project – and they are working with subcontractors like Andre Cormier of Cormier & Sons out of Fiskdale, MA.
News Flash!! As I write this post, Andre showed up with the excavator and we are excited! He even might let me take the first whack! Have some preliminary silt protection (for the pond) installed and the power cut to the building, but we are that much closer to starting!
The cavalry has arrived – or at least Andre and his excavator!As stated in Blade Runner, for the old garage, “Time to Die”.
Golf
I play golf at least two-three times a week. 18 holes on Tuesday in a scramble format on Tuesdays, 9 holes of medal play on Thursdays, and 18 competitive holes of some type on the weekend either in the club sweeps or a tournament. I have taken a couple of lessons this year and am making some swing changes which is not an easy process. I have also been hitting range balls at least once a week.
In May, I got fitted for new clubs (my last new set was 10 years ago). I got on the launch monitor and was fitted for Ping G425 MAX driver, 3 wood, and 3,4, and 5 hybrids. For irons, Ping 710’s. Basically, I’m brand loyal to Ping. More on that in a bit.
I played in two tournaments – one was a scramble in the monthly “Tour of the Brookfields” on June 19th. I did not lead my team to victory, as we ended up only -4 (67) and 63 won our flight. It was another rainy and cold day too, so a tough scoring day.
The final scores – my team was in the Palmer flight on the far right at 67.
On July 1st, I got good news and bad news on my new clubs. The good news is that the G425’s finally arrived. The bad news was that the irons would take until mid-August – remember they were ordered in MAY!!
My old woods – Ping K15 driver, 3- and 5 wood, and two Cleveland Hybrids (a 2 and a 4), and a 5 iron go in as trades.
My new toys!
These new sticks were available for the second tournament, the Member-Member at Quail Hollow in Oakham, MA on July 11th. I played with Dan Befford as a partner. I shot a 96 (net 79) so I felt like I could have done better, but the new clubs were a help. We did not win anything, but we did have a good time.
Miniatures
Some of you are saying YES, finally!
Again, I have been working on my Tenochtitlan cityscape components over this timeframe. They will be my entry into Dave’s “Season of Scenery” painting and modeling challenge – but I did get a few things done in June miniature-wise that would not count towards it.
I decided that based on my last post, where I showed the raid scenario I ran at the Mass Pikemen, that I needed a few things made. Both were fairly easy. The first was a cornfield that could provide some nice tabletop scenery as well as potential Aztec cover. Inspired by Chris Rett’s creation, I stole his HO scale cornfield idea and built one for myself.
The JTT Creations corn stalks – I had two boxes of 28 so 56 in total.I decided to have a blank row between the rows of corn to allow the figures to be place in the field. I used 6″ popsicle sticks and marked 7 holes equally spaced on each for 1/16″ drilling with my Dremel (after painting).Used Vallejo texture paint and some others to highlight and shade the sticks, then drilled and glued the cornstalks.Finished cornfield! This is the 15 row configuration with spacers.I could also leave one space out and do 7 sticks x 2 as you see here.
I also wanted a few magnets for affixing to my steel figure bases in games of Feudal Patrol™ using my Civilizations Collide supplement for the Spanish Conquest. These would be for situations such as loading the falconet, figures losing a shield or a weapon, or just getting away from the leader for any reason (see below).
The magnets I have for my games clockwise from the upper left: figure that is captured and being dragged off, “READY” and “AIM” for falconet prep to firing, “UNARMED” for a figure that drops a weapon or has it broken, “OUT OF COMMAND” for an individual figure that has strayed too far from its leader, “NO SHIELD” for when a figure has a broken shield, and “WEAPON MALFUNCTION” for a sling, bow, crossbow, or arquebus that has a repairable issue.
On June 26th, I took that game (replete with my new magnets and the cornfield)on the road to Great Stories in Uxbridge, MA. There, I reran my rural “Surprise Raid on Outpost” scenario again.
We had 5 players, and the randomness of the setup put the Tlaxcalan archers on the left flank of the defenders. The Aztecs had better luck this time but still fell short of victory due to their incurring excess casualties. You can see a lot of the pictures of the battle here and here (I was too busy as GM to take more than the one’s below):
The raid begins. Even Chris Rett and Mike Paine and Ted Salonich got in the action!Ryan is happy (his Tlaxcalans did a lot of damage), While Chris is waiting to unpin her Conquistadores – which eventually happened.Aztecs full of arrows…The sole Aztec to survive the trek to try to get into melee with the bow-wielding Tlaxcalans!
As a result of this game, I will be adjusting the victory points and making some “BERSERKER” markers.
I offered a raffle prize from my stash and Ryan won it. I wanted it to have a good home.
There was also a store raffle, and I won – and got my grandaughter the Minnie below!
After the game, Minnie for Tabitha!
Lastly, on the miniatures front, I was happy to see a couple of my ideas and posts shared! One was a What a Tanker game shout out (in English) from Naval Gazing, and one was a French post from Small Maya that was dedicated to this blog! Check out these posts! Very nice and thank you!!
As I wrote, as my cityscape is finished, I will start posting about it!
Other Distractions
Ok, I did not know where to put this, but “Other Distractions” seemed to be about right.
I walk a lot for exercise – especially if not a golf day. One of my favorite hats has been a gray “Aussie Chiller” hat that works well for a sunny walk or golf. On a windy day, because it’s one size too big, it can fly off my head in a stiff breeze. I’ve had the hat for several years.
Two days ago, a Sunday golf tournament I was to play in had to be canceled because the course was too wet – we’ve had nearly 5 inches of rain in July and 1.7″ came Saturday night. The weather broke, and I went for a walk with my Aussie Chiller on as the wind was low.
However, during my 5-mile walk, a dump truck drove by and the breeze it made took off my hat perfectly like a frisbee. Unfortunately – this happened as I was walking over the spillway for Lake Lashaway. Helplessly, I watched it land in the torrential spillway’s dead center, never to be seen again.
RIP Aussie Chiller hat.
The watery spillway grave of my Aussie Chiller hat.
I did order another one, but as you can see, they are NOT cheap.
Oh well, until next time dear reader – I now have a month of followed blogs to read!!!
But, as always, let me know what you thought of this post! Happy Summer! (OK Happy Winter Aussies!)
Mark A. Morin 