Villa Lagoon
Gulf Shores, Alabama

You can see the window and door openings now. 

(Right)--The entrance stairs will hug the side of the wall and come down both south and north. Here is the footing for the outside wall of DAC-ART blocks that form the staircase. 

Everything had to be inspected before we poured concrete. The inspector came Tues. Nov 13, 2007. The concrete was poured the next day, Wed. Nov 14, 2007.

Concrete Mixer trucks lined up to be ready to start filling the pump as soon as the one before it was empty.

Workers smoothing the slab concrete that was poured with-in the DAC-ART walls of the garage.

The openings for the vents were boxed in so the back-fill concrete would not flow out thru them. The vents will have louvered registers inserted into them and a decorative metal grill on the face of the blocks. 

Looking down and to the East, Phase I is now visible from above. It is the first time that the metal roof of Phase I is visible. The typically low angle on the roof and the height fo the building make it almost impossible to see the roof from ground level. Now I am glad we went with the buff colored roof material instead of the aqua that we originally wanted. 

Mike, Don and the team from New Stone Age Builders have done a fine job of cutting blocks where necessary. These blocks were originally poured for a different house, so we have had to adapt them to suit our needs.

The rebar sticking our from the first floor porch slab is there to go up into and through the 15 " columns blocks that stack over it. . 

A double row of DAC-ART blocks is here on this wall which runs between the entrance hall facing the front door and the garage. This is necessary to support the custom niche which will be in the entrance hall and crated on top of these blocks.

I am researching a gypsum board substitute called Magnesium Oxide wallboard. It is imported from Asia by a handful of people in the States. Looks like it might be just what we need. I have contacted the various suppliers about supplying product for Villa Lagoon. The properties of this Sheetrock substitute seem like it would be well suited for this hurricane zone home. We really do not want to include any materials that would 'melt' if the roof ever had damage and water entered. 

The generous garage will have ample area for storage and shelves along the walls. Windows in the upper blocks will allow natural sunlight to fill the room from both east and west.

The photos below show the first floor (elevated) looking north towards Fort Morgan Road.

This space will be the entrance hall, staircase and guest bedroom/bath. The entrance hall is a generous area that will function as library as well as the hub of the house.