02 December 2014

I think everyone has had a dream at some point in their life of owning a house on the beach or ocean. I know I have … many times. Wake up to the sound of waves crashing on the shore or like this villa, look out over the ocean and watch the changing hues throughout the day and seasons. A place to go to escape the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives.

The harsh realities of ocean-side or ocean environment property ownership can turn your dream home into a full-time job. And I knew this before taking this position at Silk Cotton Villa . Bottom line is the ocean environment is rough on a building and its guts, no matter how it is built or with what materials. It just needs a lot of TLC.

This villa has a lot of decks and patios with steps going down to the lower yard in the back. When it was rebuilt over 20 years ago, the design included step lights built into the walls to light the steps and patios for safety and ambiance. These step light inner boxes are made of metal. And as we all know, metal rusts. And here, in this environment, it rusts to the point it disintegrates to just metal flakes and pieces (see photos below).

This project subject: Replace about 20 step light inner boxes.

This might sound easy, but it isn’t. First, since the walls these lights are embedded into are made of concrete and plaster, the replacement boxes needed to be at least close to the same size as the originals. Just finding that box and getting 20 delivered here was a project in and of itself. But we finally did get the boxes we needed, although just slightly larger in width.

Because the width of the new box is about 1/2″ wider, replacing meant chiseling out the opening so the new box would fit. Then there is the case of the new box conduit knockouts not matching up perfectly with where the wires are inside the opening so there is plenty of “MacGyvering” to make each box fit in the opening and be wired safely.

There are 8 of said step lights on the lower pool patio lighting steps down to the yard. Replacing all of these was last week’s main project. The photos below show some of the before and after work.

Now it’s on to the east patio located off the owner’s apartment where there are about 12 more of these step lights to replace. You just take your time and try to do it right. I’ll make an update post when this whole project is completed.