RoadSchool

Work on the beach house continues
April 25, 2003

The work on the beach house goes on and on. Here's Max nailing down new sheets of plywood. We covered the entire floor with new sheeting and raised this room's floor 1-1/2 inches to match the rest of the house.

On his lunch break or after a day's work, Mitch likes go skim-boarding.

Spring Break in Mission Beach

These 1920's beach cottages were built with an exterior "single-wall" construction. That's 3/4" thick boards with paint on the inside and 4" wide strips of siding nailed onto the outside of it. No interior space for insulation, wiring, or plumbing. (Cheryl says it's one step above a tent.)

We added a modern frame structure to the inside of the exterior walls.

It's amazing these walls actually held up the roof. Even when I cut through old paint with a razor knife I wondered if the roof would fall in. We installed plenty of temporary supports and then reinforced the roof structure, interior and exterior walls. For added seismic strength, we added metal straps to all the rafters and joists, to wall joins, and in all corners.

After a day of work, we often drive to a neighboring beach community known as Ocean Beach. This is Cocoa's favorite place in the world. It's called "Dog Beach." Even after an hour of swimming and chasing her ball into the surf, we have to drag her back to the truck. This is an off-leash beach where the dogs can run freely. On weekends there can be 75 dogs running around having a great time.

Back at the RV park Cocoa loves to sit in the back of our little truck and watch the world go by.

All of the interior walls are framed and we have completed the electrical wiring. Next, we'll run the TV cable and phone lines. We've also hung the interior doors.

Last Saturday, Mitch helped out at the RV park with their annual Easter Egg Hunt.

"Friendly Wolf", Chelsea and some other kids
"Friendly Wolf" with Max, Chelsea, Austin, Philip and Micah

That's Mitch in the "Friendly Wolf" costume.

On the bandstand stage

Parading through the park

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