In our push to complete as many outside details as possible before the rainy season begins, this past week we focused on the north wall of container #4.
Ramiro and I fabricated and installed 21 support braces just like the ones on the hangover overhang at the front of the house. Here we are on the second day:
Ramiro is welding the brackets onto the container. After we had a few brackets installed, we lifted the 2″x6″ carriola into place and welded it to the brackets. This made aligning the remaining brackets quite easy:
When we had all the brackets in place, we ground the welds smooth with the angle grinder and prime painted them. While the paint dried, Ramiro sanded the side of the container. He used a wire brush on the angle grinder to remove the areas of heavier rust around dents and dings. Here is Ramiro hand sanding the container:
While Ramiro sanded, I took the last three hours of the day and hand sanded, two-coat primed, and two-coat finish painted (latex) the outside east wall of my shop. We still need to paint the window blocks the teal/green trim:

This is the same color as the rest of the house. In full sun the color looks blue-ish. In actuality it is a soft gray green, almost the color of sea foam.
The next morning we slipped pieces of roofing metal, that I had previously cut, into place on top of the brackets:
Armando and Pancho joined Ramero and me to mix and place the concrete slab above the roofing metal:
I used the 2″x6″ metal carriola instead of a 2″x3″ so that we could have more thickness and build in a drainage channel on the top of the slab. Here is the finished slab:

I cut a six-inch hole in the roofing metal and inserted a PVC pipe as a downspout to carry off rainwater.
We finished the slab at 11:00.
The back garden was filled with weeds so I asked the guys to weed for an hour and then they could take the rest of the day off.
At noon, Armando took a shower (now at the end of the dry season there is very little water at his house) and he and Pancho left right at noon. But Ramiro said that because he arrived a bit late that he wanted to work a bit more. I told him it was okay if he wanted to leave, too, but he insisted on working for another hour.
The garden now looks like this:

And Christine T. — even though the dirt is dry, dry, dry, your plants are growing by leaps and bounds. One of our neighbors told us last night that this plant is in the taro family and that the young leaves, stalks, and roots are edible. The grasshoppers sure love to eat it!
Here is a panoramic view of the back garden from the roof. We need more plants!
A couple hibiscus bushes have bloomed, including this dainty one:
Armando and Pancho have been rocking the container support columns:
And Cynthia, after placing an order on January eleventh, finally* received from the States two spray cans of mold release for use in slumping glass. She is going to make lamp shades for the lights over the kitchen counters. Stay tuned.
*The mold release took two-and-a half months to arrive because it had to be routed through the Panamanian Pharmacy and Drug agency (among others) because one of the many ingredients in the spray could possibly be used in the production of illegal drugs. Really? I mean really?
Tomorrow Ramiro and I plan to paint the north wall and its windows and then move on to other exterior walls.
I think that’s all for this week. Thanks for stopping by.