Cleaning House! 4 DAYS UNTIL OPEN

This will be a short post because it's 1:30am and we just finished painting the houses and putting down most of the lines.

It's been an exciting and draining evening painting the last of the houses to stay on schedule to open this Saturday for our All American Bonspiel!

I don't usually use members names because this is a blog about our clubs journey to what we like to call "Dedicated in the Desert." But I have to give a shout out to Karen Tait, who started the club 10 years ago and is our Mother Hen of the club (most of you know her as our amazing Bonspiel Chair), who was the one to grab the ice crew mop and literally "clean house" tonight.

Let me explain...Once the houses are sealed with a fine mist (in the last post), it's time to clean the houses and put a final seal on them 8-10 times with a clean (new) mop head, getting heavier with water each time, then allowing it to freeze and repeating. I don't know why, but it seemed symbiotic and fitting to see her seal the first house on our dedicated ice. We all know that we wouldn't be here without her vision to pull together Canadians to curl in the desert. (A little club history for you.)

We also put in our red and yellow curling stone indicators. Oh, soon we will be able to put our rocks on the ice!

And lines to divide the sheets...pretty cool, eh? No, I'm not Canadian. I just married in. ;)

While we were cleaning house on the ice, a team of volunteers was cleaning house on the front end (of the building).  All of the things were moved out of the common areas to prepare for a cleaning crew coming in the next day or two. The ADA front ramp is near completion along with a new raised ceiling.

We are now down to a laundry list of odds and ends that we are finishing up, like adding doors. It's always fun to come off the ice at the end of the night and see what they've accomplished. (I will have more volunteers in photos next time !)

And our general contractor (head honcho and curler) was putting in an air control system with venting for the ice house until 1:30am with us. It's the little things, right? Little on his list...

At the end of a painting night, it always reminds me of a scene from a big party. And I feel the same way in the morning, exhausted and just want to take the day off!

But we are SO CLOSE to OPENING in 4 DAYS!!! So sleep is at a premium and we are all pushing "hard, hurry hard" until Saturday.  And it's all coming together.

When I took one last look through the viewing windows and my tired eyes tonight, I saw 4 sheets of ice, 8 beautiful, bright and vibrant houses, 2 bright-as-day hog lines, many frozen pieces of yarn dividing sheets and areas, cute felt cut outs of A, B, C, D and little curling rocks, real curling rocks and a broom. And then we shut out the lights using a real light switch instead of the breaker box. Wow, this warehouse has come a long way...until tomorrow, bloggers, when we are one day closer to curling on dedicated ice in the desert!

Let There Be Rings!

We have rings!!!   Raise the roof, we have a house...

Yes, that's right...we have started our rings! So you are probably wondering about our process.

What does it look like to paint a curling house?  Well, we started by mixing the powdered paint with deionized water. The red is fluorescent pink powder (and very hard to get off of your hands if you choose to forego your gloves even for a moment, trust me). The blue looks like a light powder blue.  Just add water!

And then we took the circle cutter to carve the rings into our nice new white ice.

And start to paint the inside of the 4 foot.

After the honorary first edge went to our in house "Ice Man" and apprentice to Tim Yeo, the rest of the ice crew took over for painting.

Next it's time to seal it in by using a fine mist. Repeat misting 10 times and then pebble 3 times.

Next it's time to put the yarn down for the hog line. We use red and black yarn, four inches apart, the red being the true line and the black is a base to color in. This can help to teach new curlers where to release the rock.

Once layed down and stretched, it too is misted with water.

    

And then gets painted.

We finished 3 rings and a hogline in 6 hours (5-11pm). I think we have a routine now and the next few will go faster.

Also, on the other side of the viewing windows, the painting continues to hurry for opening. 

The ceiling tiles are finished up.

And the ADA railings are being installed.

Another long night, but we are almost there...

Painting The Ice!

The day has finally come when we are painting the ice!  The anticipation mounts as volunteers sign in and write comments like "painting ice--woo-hoo!!!"

We arrive at 7am (which has become the norm for some of us) to take the Ice King for one last drive before painting.

Even I got a lesson, so I know how to use it! Women ice makers...how many of those are around? Hum...

Side note:  The last few days have been tough, as we have been troubleshooting a condensation issue. The dehumidifier arrived last week, but the city will take 2 weeks to come out to certify and turn it on. The ice was cold enough, but condensation has congealed on our nice (recently painted) white ceilings. And with the ceiling arches, we have spent much time working with rented and purchased  industrial fans to keep the air moving around the ceiling to reduce any droplets forming that could fall on the ice.

So back to today...Who says we don't shovel snow in Arizona? We were thinking about selling the wheel barrel of snow in the street or giving it to some lucky child who has never seen it before (happens regularly out here), but it melted in the 75 degree sun before we got very far.

More of the ice crew have arrived and are prepping the ice for the spray.

Tim Yeo, Master Ice Maker Extraordinaire (that what we call him), arrives to check the work that has been done and help us with the paint.

This 75 gallon unit is used to mix the deionized water and the white powdered paint. It's kind of like adding powdered sugar into the mixer in baking because it goes everywhere, right?

Each paint bag us 25lbs and we started with 7 bags. We filled the mixer up 3 times to cover the surface.

So what does it look like while this is going on? We use a very long hose that connects the mixer and the sprayers.  Two people hold styrafoam walls up and walk with Tim to block the spray from the walkways and viewing windows.

If and when the sprayers clog up, it's time to stop and clean them out.

Starting with the outside, it looks like this.

It takes a crew of about 10 people who make this happen, like the volunteers that keep the hose moving (not letting it melt the ice) in addition to the others mentioned prior.

So what else have we been doing? Well, some of us were spending our Friday night happy hour finishing up the ADA bathrooms. (Regular happy hour will be so boring after this club is built. Some of us don't remember what our "normal" life was like.)

The ceilings and walls are being finished in the warm room and kitchen. I think many of us can't wait to be done with drywall so we can start "prettying up the joint." (And I think we all need our cars detailed after all of the drywall dust we have tracked out over the last few months.)

And our rocks have arrived safely from our old hockey rink to our new dedicated curling club! (Who is jumping up and down with me?)

The first round of painting the ice is complete and it's only noon on Sunday. Some need to get to Briar parties while others continue to work. More to come over the next few days...'til then ice bloggers. ;)

The First Official Flood is Complete!

We finished the spray layers, which took 6 days, 16 sprays and approximately 25-30 minutes each. Once all the pipes and zip ties were covered (and with Ice Master's approval), it's finally time for flooding. 

Today we did 3 floods, 3 hour apart and the ice looks great (even after the rainstorm last night and a bit of scrapping this morning).

Even the hose was wrapped with nylon rope to prevent it from melting into the ice during flooding (and a bonus is it's easier to move).

The day was full of finishing up drywall on the long wall (backside of the ice house). All hands were on deck for this one! 

The ADA restrooms are finally looking less like a construction zone and more like a nice entrance.

The viewing windows continued to be mudded and sanded before painting.

And lunchtime was filled with Thai take-out, a beverage or two and watching the Brier (the Canadian Men's Curling Championship) on one of our new warm room TVs.  Yes we now have TV and WiFi...woo-hoo!  'Til next weekend, bloggers...one step closer to opening!