Pics of my Kids, our Home including during Building, Pool Construction, and Pizza Oven Creation.

[Lancer]

Basically what I've been doing since I left.

We're adopting the kids, Abby and Augustine, they're wonderful.

I'll be editing stuff in. Power goes out here so I do stuff a bit at a time.

Our home has always been a place for kids and parties. Here among construction mess my wife, Dolores, leads the kids in a game which includes songs and clapping. Dot, the little girl shown here having a hard time getting her hands together is now maybe 8, not sure. She's a good kid and doing well.



Theben and Zkribbler and myself went to the Apolyton House, the first one. On the way we met these happy kids and I took a few pics.



Friends and family came over and enjoyed the ocean because there wasn't much here besides. Where I'm sitting now in my study is maybe 20'-25' above this location and a little to the left. At the time I had only ideas accumulated from years of contracting and not a lot of money.

[Lancer]

The construction of the first story of the 4 story. Concrete is being poured into forms. Again, family and friends. "Family gets you the job, working hard keeps you the job." These guys are all hard workers...



A cat wandered up in those times and we fed it and named it, Lushington.



Pa-in-law, Pa Mente, examining the floor pour.

[Lancer]

Uncle Iking troweling flat the pour.



The end of a hard day's work, cheers Ray!



I...I love this mixer. Its not just a mixer mind you, its...etc...

[Lancer]

Man, as I go through these ancient pics, some of which I've never posted before...lots of memories. For instance this is the kitchen of the 4 story. Back then it was an epic improvement to the lot. Now we had a place to cook besides a campfire. On the other side we added a CR (bathroom) and shower which you can see. Huge improvement though it doesn't look like much.



Oh my! What a pic! This was one hell of a good party at the beach. These were good times. I'm glad I'm looking through these old pics!



An older Dot, still years ago. Big ol ice cream cone!

[Lancer]

This is Zkribbler, one of the best friends I've ever had. Its a friendship based on history, respect, and trust. In history one builds friendships, trust is the cement without which there can be nothing, and respect is the ground its all built on. My friend, Zkribbler...(and his grand, 2 story, living room windows)



The pics suddenly moved to our in progress 2nd story bedroom. Maybe they'll move back to the early days.



The Jagna house. When you pony up big time you become Hermano (sp) of fiesta, iirc. You get this statue of Joseph, I think, in your house. Dozens of ladies contribute time to a show, and we improved something on the street, but what it was escapes me. Had to be very careful with the thing, its hundreds of years old. I know I never posted this pic before.

[Lancer]

Out on the water with Elmer and Sho, two great guys and two of the best dart throwers ever to grace our board.



The gals cooking lunch for the guys. What's in the pot ladies?



Zkrib took all the workers to a movie, one of the Terminator films. The ladies went to a different flick but enjoyed it just as much. Zkrib is a friend of labor, using his attorney fees for free to help the working man.

[Lancer]

How things move along. Here we are already up on the 4th floor looking up to the Dragonfly Suite, a place for kids. There's a foam up there and enough room for an adult or 2 kids to sleep. There's a light with switch and a plug for charging cell phones. Outside the windows at some times of year there are hundreds of dragonfly's.



This is the ladder down from the Little Bird Suite which is on the land side of the house opposite the Dragonfly, essentially a 5th floor tucked into the roof framing. Pictured are the French doors of the living room of the house on the 4th.



Back in time a ways. I've saved different pics at different times and am working through the file backwards. Here is the amakan siding going on. I put it over plastic because amakan isn't waterproof.

[Lancer]

Absolutely refused to use ropes. When I insisted they quickly forgot them. Amakan doesn't match, got it cheap in qty in Mabini.



This stuff...



Abby is here helping Tatay so it takes Tatay about 5 times as long.

Going back in time as we go forward through the file.

[Lancer]

The roofer doing the roof. "To build a house out of cement you first have to build one out of wood." -



Little Bird Suite...



Fourth floor, from one BR across the hall to the other BR. To the right before the bookshelf is the LR, to the left the ladder to the Little Bird.

[Lancer]

Water tank is in the roof next to the Little Bird.



Bathrooms use on demand heaters.



Boom, its done. Weird file.

[Aeson]

How has the tarp held up under the amakan? I know if exposed to sunlight the tarps degrade pretty fast, but that shouldn't be a problem in that application. Not sure what else would happen to it if it's protected from the sun ...

[Lancer]

A few tack nails iirc, just to hold it in fair weather long enough to get the amakan on and that is nailed through 1x2s. The amakan is estimated to last 10-15 years. The tarp can be replaced at that point. Stuff is cheap enough... Replacement at that time can be done with wood scaffolds built off the 3rd floor. Soon we'll have to varnish it again which we initially did with cheap plastic varnish. Next time we'll use better stuff.

I want the 4th to blow through in a typhoon rather than act as a huge sail 4 stories up, and its very lightweight.

Hey, 95 page views, that ought to buy another fraction of an inch of pipe.

This is the white roofing you should at least search out at YYs. Last a lot longer and has translucent sheets to let light in. Its the same stuff as on the BQ atrium. In fact I went to the mall office at BQ and they gave me the # for the engineer he got it from. I called him and found the stuff. Since then something like it has come into stores cheaper.

[Dinner]

Why does the first floor not have windows? It seems like a very odd design. Also, is the lot extremely small or something? I ask because the set back seems so narrow plus where is the garage? Surely, even on an island you'd want an electric golf cart or something plus they're great places to store stuff.

[Lancer]

There's another structure now built, I just haven't gotten that far in posting pics yet Dinner. You can see the large gate though towards the far end of the wall. Now there's a building behind that and the bottom section is a garage and a portion of it is a pump room for the pool. Another portion will be a cold room for proof (or proving?) pizza dough for our coming pizza restaurant business.

No golf cart and, sadly, no golf on the island. Its one thing I really miss.

First floor has windows on 2 sides. On the road side and the (facing) left side the wall is solid to help carry load and move the building along with the ground in a quake. Made it through the 7.2 that hit up in the hills of Bohol with only paint chips off in one bathroom so something worked.

Yes, its kind of a small lot.

[Lancer]

Decreased weight as we went up to better weather quakes. The 4th is very low weight, like a US home. The floor is jemolina joists with 3/4 plywood over instead of poured concrete. The 3rd has a 3 1/2" thick poured floor instead of the normal 4 1/2" and has extra metal bar to help make up for it. If I wanted the solid walls and poured posts to move the house I thought it best to reduce what they needed to move. The 3rd also has no walls, just railings. That's the bar floor.



First story windows. Unfortunately we changed window suppliers, it didn't work out well.



The guys that built the spiral made a mistake as well. As I stood there it occurred to me that the last step would put us right into a wall.



So we dug it up, cut the central pipe and my amigo, Peter, and I spun it roughly 45 degrees. The welder welded the pipe back up. Problem solved.