The devil is in the details....

The Devil is in the Details....

April 25th  --  I finally got around to painting the "claws" on the claw foot tub a contrasting white to the black, which is something that I've been meaning to do for a while.  This fits with the overall black and white motif of the guest bathroom.  Somewhere in a box in the garage is a set of bright red towels, which will eventually hang on the towel bars in this bathroom.  Tomorrow this bathroom with get the "construction" clean treatment. 

It is paying attention to the little things that counts -- inside the house and outside the house.

I continue to be amazed by how exacting the landscape crew is when cutting and fitting the large pieces of flagstone into the mosaic that will be the patio.  Once the flagstone is set, they will put sand and soil in between the stones.  I will grow lemon thyme in the spaces between the stones -- yes, I know I will have to weed -- which will eventually provide a nice contrast between foliage and stone.

Here is the view from the upper-level sitting room windows

Now I am standing in the front yard looking west at the south side of the house.  Eventually, there will be a privacy fence about where I am standing.  There will be a small planting bed between the edge of the flagstone patio and the privacy fence.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
The flagstone patio wraps around the deck, but does not extend to the alcove between the entry to the greenhouse and the east wall of the mudroom.  

There will be pea gravel in this alcove where I will eventually move the gas grill and the potting bench. 











You can see in this photo (taken from the west end of the house looking east) how the walkway from the patio to the rear-entry back porch and garage is beginning to take shape.  



There will be either pea gravel or wood chips on either side of this walkway which will then turn into another mini-patio that will wrap around the rear-entry porch.  This will also tie into the entry to the garage.







This last photo is the view from the back porch of the rear-entry to the mud room and shows how the walkway will be laid along the exterior of the mud room on the south side of the house.

Only one of the landscape crew will work half a day tomorrow. 

My job this weekend will be to lay out the 1" x 6" planks and the 4" x 4" planks so that on Monday, the landscape crew will cut the 1" x 6" into 8' lengths and the 4" x 4" into 18" lengths which will form the sides and corner pieces, respectively, for the raised beds for the backyard that I will assemble.

Just in time for summer...

Just in time for summer....

April 24th -- It started raining late yesterday afternoon and poured all night, but that hasn't stopped the landscape crew who were back at it bright and early this morning.  They are moving the large slabs of flagstone onto the patio and cutting the pieces to fit into a mosaic puzzle!  They are also choosing the slabs as "balance points" so that they can make the flagstone patio as level as possible.

The following photos were taken from the upper-level sitting room as I am looking down through the top of the pergola.

The landscape crew is making great progress and their supervisor told me that they will also work half-day this Saturday.

By the end of today, they have almost made it around the deck and close to the greenhouse.

At the rate these guys are going, it looks like I'll be able to have a veggie garden this summer!

Progress: Outside and Inside....

Progress:  Outside and Inside....

April 23rd -- The landscape crew is making very good progress and they are meticulous and so clean up everything at the end of the day.  They have installed the sprinkler heads for the parkway, the front flower bed, the front lawn and the drip system that will go to the front perennial bed, shown in these photos:

You can see the front lawn here and if you look closely, you can see the post holes that have been dug for the front privacy fence.  This fence will shield the south-side deck and provide a border between the front lawn, a flower bed and the flagstone patio.

They cleared the lawn and leveled the ground for the flagstone patio that will go around the south-side deck.  They also completed the irrigation line that will provide water to the lemon thyme that will be planted around the flagstones.

The earth has also been leveled for the flagstone walkway from the patio to the garage, which also includes the entrance to the green house and the little alcove where the potting bench and gas grill will be located.

They ground has been leveled for the flagstone that will go between the garage and the rear-entry to the house.

There has also been great progress in the backyard. The main irrigation lines are in, and the ground has been leveled and the location of the raised beds is starting to take shape.  I wanted the smooth parts of the old walkway to stay as a way to break up the pea gravel and to serve as a walkway to the gate at the rear of the lot and a way to visually separate the raised beds.  You can see where the landscape crew has piled the lawn and soil that was removed from the area where the flagstone patio will go around the south-side deck.  This is perfectly good soil and will be used as a base in the raised beds.  My arrangement with the head of the landscaping company is that he will cut boards for me (that I have salvaged from left over materials) and I will assemble the raised beds.  I will need to start measuring the wood that I've saved so I can figure out what lumber I will need to buy to complete the raised beds.  Once they have been assembled, I can also figure out if I will need to order a delivery of top soil.

Here is a pile of the red flagstone that will be cut into smaller pieces and will form the patio around the deck, the walkway to backyard, garage and rear-entry of the house.  These photos don't do justice to the red color of the flagstones.

Dirt will be graded so that water stays away from the back of the house, where I will eventually have a shrub bed with plants that will be able to tolerate the blazing sun from the west.

Inside, there are still several things that need to get done.

The fabricator stopped by today to take measurements for the two remaining counter tops -- one for the upper-level second bathroom (he also took the sink to under-mount it) and one in an extra vanity in the basement that will be used for the future microbrew center.  After the counter tops are in, the plumber will come back to install the remaining bathroom fixtures.

Some of the other things I am doing is with the help of friends.  For example, there are three windows in the bedroom that need covering.  Two were easy as they are the size of "ready-made" blinds, which took less than 30 minutes to install (with the help of friends).  For the third window, a tension curtain rod is on its way, and I will find a small curtain for it or make one when I can get to the sewing machine that is somewhere in the garage.

The other inside thing that was done today was HUGE.  Remember I put a ton of effort into planning a surround sound system for the Gathering Room.  Today was the moment of truth to see if all the planning and 'in the wall' wiring would actually result in a working surround sound set up.

The ginormous TV has already been mounted, but today was the day to set up the AV digital receiver, sub-woofer and DVD player.  While all of the cables have not yet been appropriately managed (that is still a work in process as I am trying to hide as many cables as possible), the AV cabinet is now housing, well AV components!   After making cables with banana plugs that go between the wall jack --to connect the 4 ceiling speakers and center channel speaker -- to the AV digital receiver, and "fishing" more cables through the port in the wall behind the TV that connect the TV to the receiver and the DVD player, the moment to power up all systems came.

It will take some time to learn how to use the receiver, but ta-dah, there is sound!!!  First, the sound from the TV now comes from the ceiling and center channel speakers.  Second, the DVD player is connected to the TV, so I can watch movies.  Third, the TV is connected to the Internet so I can stream content.  And, fourth, my iPod and other sources for music (AM and FM) are now connected to the AV digital receiver and I have wonderful sounding music from the speakers and sub-woofer.  Of course, I need to master the gazillion different remote control devices I now have (AV digital receiver, TV, and DVD player), but there will be time to figure that out or to decide to go down the path to a universal remote control device. 

 The sound, well, sounds great!

Yesterday I finished lining the drawers and shelves of the kitchen and laundry room cabinets.  I hope to start moving my kitchen things back in this weekend.  

Diggin' this.....

Diggin' this.....

April 21st -- There were some wonderful April showers over the weekend, which means May flowers and planting season is not far behind.  And, right on cue, the landscape crew arrived and decided to begin digging the trenches for the new irrigation system.  While over 80% of the former lawn will be (or has already been removed), the new irrigation system will keep the city-owned, but homeowner maintained, front  parkway green, along with a bit of lawn in the front yard.  The rest of the irrigation system is designed to have two drip zones -- one for the perennial beds and raspberries and the other for the raised veggies/flower beds for the back yard.  A "blank" irrigation lead is being installed for a future shrub zone for the west side of the house.

  Here is the parkway and the front lawn. The photos that follow show the trenches for the irrigation system.
 These photos show the trenches for the irrigation system.

Here is the irrigation line that will water the lemon thyme that will be planted around the flagstone patio off the south side deck.

Here is the irrigation line from the flagstone patio around the rear-entry to the garage.

Here is the irrigation line that will go to the raised beds to the back yard.

Speaking of the backyard...the landscape contractor and I marked off where the raised beds will be.  There will be two approximately 3' by 8' beds running east to west here for greens and cutting flowers, while I will try to rescue the flower bed that runs along the garage, shown here.

On this side of the backyard we marked off two 8' by 8' raised beds for veggies.  This will also leave room for a planting area near the fence for "climbers" such as a hops ladder, and other crops.






The first load of flagstone should arrive tomorrow!  The post holes for the front and rear fences should be dug later in the week.

With all this work beginning now, there is an even chance that I might actually have a veggie garden this summer.

Fifty inch flat screen....

Fifty inch flat screen....

April 20th -- During the week before the super bowl back in late January, most televisions went on sale as the new models were about to hit the stores.  I have not purchased a television for about 20 years, and the analogue TV that I do own works great.  After I connected it to an analogue-digital converter box when over-the-air broadcasting switched from analogue to digital several years ago, I went from about 8 broadcast stations to 35, but there really isn't much I'm interested in watching other than the local and national news and sports.  I use the TV mostly for watching movies that I stream.  I am not a cable or satellite subscriber because I disagree with how these companies operate (support net neutrality!) and unless they move to a "pay as you go" model so that I could subscribe only to those channels I want to watch instead of 100s of home shopping or foreign-language channels, I will continue to watch movies or stream content.   Nevertheless, an upgrade was in order, and after much encouragement from a very persuasive friend,  I purchased a 50" smart TV and have been storing that TV in said friend's house since February.  Although the TV mount was already installed, I wanted to wait until alot of the dust-making parts of construction was over before bringing the new TV in.  This weekend we installed the new TV in the Gathering Room without a hitch.

The flat screen LCD technology is amazing and although I have a temporary "wireless" connection to the Internet, I was able to surf the Internet and stream on the new TV.  Once the floors are refinished in my upstairs office, I will move my computer and router back in and then there will be a hard-wired Ethernet connection between this TV and the Internet.

The TV works great, but as is the story of my life, there weren't enough of the appropriate cables and connectors to hook up the surround sound system (including subwoofer) to the digital AV receiver.  In a few days once all the cables are on site, we should be good to go.

Some of my friends have said that between this home entertainment set up and my green house, they are worried that I will never leave my house again and that they won't ever see me unless they come over!  

No more alternative sleeping arrangement....

No more alternative sleeping arrangement....

April 19th  -- The finish carpenters also attached their head board gift to my old bed, which will be replaced and moved into the guest suite when the house is done.  This means that I am no longer sleeping on the floor and am back in a real bed!!!  Yippie Skippy!  I located some pillows and sheets, but still need to find the rest of the bedding somewhere in the garage.

Late yesterday the last of the construction trash pile was removed from the front yard and it looks like there might be signs of life in the grass that was underneath.

Promptly at 7:00 am a very nice fellow and one crew from the drywall delivery company arrived to repair the two concrete slabs on the sidewalk in front of the house that were damaged during the drywall delivery.  They only had to use their jackhammer for about 15 minutes and told me that they rented a smaller, relatively quiet one.  

I also contracted this fellow to replace the front step of the walkway leading to the front door of the house, which had water damage and crumbled after one hit of the jackhammer.

After they removed the old concrete, they made frames and waited for the arrival of the cement truck.

The cement mixer arrived before 9:00 am.

The sidewalk had been repaired along with the step of the walkway to the front of the house.

I hung around the front of the house to make sure that no one walked on the wet cement, and that motivated me to weed out the iris bed and apply some new compost.

The crew went off to recycle the old concrete and returned about an hour or so later to make sure the concrete was setting.  They told me they would return the next day to remove the frames.

No two- or four-legged creatures walked on the wet cement and only my initials can be found in a corner if you look very carefully!