Met with Landscaper today - yay!

I was at lunch with C and got a call from the landscaper that he was ready to meet in 20 minutes. This isn't as last minute as it sounds - he had told me early in the morning that he would call when he was on his way. I ran home and met him right away, and he gave me a contract which, I am happy to say, looks great. It is right in line with the other prices we got and we feel best about this particular guy. He guesses the work will take 1-1.5 weeks if he works straight through, but he may not be able to due to having the deck constructed by the general contractor simultaneously. He doesn't think the deck will be a major interruption - once the water lines are run underground, the deck can be worked on and the entire rest of the yard is available for the landscaper to work on. The only thing we are waiting on is the contract from the general contractor for the deck, gate and steps.

We are replacing the concrete side steps off of our side door because the gas meter is underneath and the space is so tight that a worker really can't get to it. We are going to have nice wood steps with a hinged top so the worker can get to the meter and have lots of space. This in and of itself wouldn't be a priority since the gas meter is new and probably won't need any work for a while. The problem is that there isn't a proper shut-off valve. If we ever need to get the gas off in a hurry, we'll need to grab a wrench and squeeze into the tight spot and manually shut it off. We've asked a few plumbers if they could install it and they all said no, that the space was too tight. So, we're doing the steps now. They will look a lot better, and since the whole back and side yards are going to be done, it would be a shame to have nasty, cracked, stained concrete steps with all nice new gates, etc.

I also got to Lowe's today to pick up some supplies. While there, I drooled over the garage organization products. I can't wait to tackle the garage. According to a lot of design websites, the garage is the new "hot" area of the house, so in the last few years there have been a ton of new products for garage organization. Although we desperately need to get some garage storage and organization (it would be so nice not to have the shop vac and air compressor in the house), I don't see this happening any time soon. There are just too many choices and too many decisions to make so I need to wait until I can give this project the attention it deserves.