A whirlwind week

This was a whirlwind week. I started graduate school, and we had really hoped to be further along in the remodel by now. Because the yard isn't done, I actually have to drop our dog off at day care which adds a level of complexity to an already complex schedule. We really hope to have the yard done within 1-2 weeks. I spent all of my breaks this week on the phone with contractors. How do people remodel when they can't be home?

The yard is almost done what we are calling "phase 1." That means we have gates, fencing, grading, drainage, sprinklers, a privacy hedge, access to the gas meter and grass. All we are waiting on is finishing touches on the gates and getting the chain link fence installed behind the trees. I have to cut several holes in the ficus tree hedge to allow a man to put a post. There has to be room for the post and for the man to operate a post digger. I also have to shave a few inches off the back of the hedge so they can put the fence material up. I hope to have this done by Wednesday so the fence can go in shortly thereafter.

I also sorted out the electric this week - according to the electrician who installed the sprinkler electric, the rain we had tripped the GFCI, and there is no problem. He said if there was any moisture at all, the GFCI should be tripped. I also had a handyman out to rehang the interior doors. This has been on our list forever - our prior incompetent contractor had me order the wrong depth of door jambs for the interior doors. He admitted he screwed up but basically said since I put my credit card down to pay he wouldn't fix it. So we ordered new jambs and had to have the handyman rehang them.

What's with the electric?

I went out to turn on the sprinkler this morning (since the power had been out it hadn't run in a few days) and found the power out again. Once again, it was the GCFI that had been tripped and I needed to press the reset button. I cannot imagine what is causing this because nobody used any power on the garage circuit at all. We don't know if moisture is getting in somehow or what. Now I am in a bind because I don't know if it is something the landscaper did or something the electrician did. I specifically did not want multiple contractors working on this for this very reason. I'm stuck in the middle trying to figure out who did what and who can fix it. I think the landscaper may have done something when he was here last week because it just started happening. But of course, I'm sure he'll deny it and then I'll have to call the electrician and pay the minimum visit charge. He'll probably deny it too. I wanted the landscaper to take care of all this, but he told me halfway through the job that I had to hire an electrician to get the outlet put in. At that point I had no choice since he wasn't willing to do it and we had a signed contract. Ugh.

The general contractor was supposed to be here between 10-11 this morning and never showed and hasn't called as of yet.

Painted the gates

Today I was out all day and the general contractor was supposed to come by and finish up by painting the metal gate frames, finishing the wood and patching the stucco. He did paint the gates, and they look great. I'll post pictures when they are totally done. He didn't do the stucco or wood though. He did call me mid-morning to tell me the landscaper was here and couldn't fix a broken valve in the sprinkler system because the electric was off. I had noticed that the garage light wasn't working when I was in there last night, but I assumed it was a burned out bulb. I asked the contractor to try flipping the breaker. I got home around 6, and got another message that he had tried flipping the breaker. I went out to the garage and hit the GFCI reset button and the power came back on. Since the garage was locked, they didn't have access to this button, but it doesn't sound like they even thought of it. I called them both and hopefully they will come back out tomorrow.

Gate frames up, stairs almost done

The gate frames are up and they look really great. The red color is primer, but the funny thing is that I was going to paint them either red or black. I like that this is so close to the color I want so I can preview it. They will be here painting on Monday.

This is the driveway gate. The reason they are not equal size is that the left is a person door which you can easily open to walk through without opening the whole thing. There will be redwood in the panels.




This is the side gate, which will also have redwood in the panel. The stairs are coming along nicely. The side of the house almost doesn't look like a fixer upper now!

Quiet today, but hopeful news

There were no workers today, but stairs and gates may be done tomorrow.

More work on stairs

The crew was here working on the new side steps. We seem to be reinventing the wheel daily, and I'm not sure why. I've been clear and consistent about what I need, so why do we have conversations every day about all kinds of alternatives? Yes, I do need a 3' x 2' space, yes I am sure, yes I verified it with the gas company, yes I want the cement demolished, etc, etc, etc. I really hope there is no problem with the space - the whole point of doing the stairs was to get a 3' x 2' space for the gas meter so we can have a shut off valve installed. If I end up with less than that, I am going to be mad!

We got our first quote on the chain link fencing and yikes it was high! We had hoped not to spend too much on this - it is mainly for dog containment and will be 90% hidden by trees. We still have two more quotes coming.

The gates can't come fast enough

Ugh, in the last few weeks, these are the people we've caught in our yard:

A woman walked up our driveway all the way past the house into the backyard. She was looking for a rear house on the neighbor's property. I hope she didn't leave footprints on our new grass!

A guy was gleaning recyclables from the our trash while it was still on the side of the house. He walked across the front lawn and into the side walkway and took a seat on our stairs while he went through the trash. I don't mind people taking our recycling, but it's not okay to trespass well into someone's yard to do it.

A woman walked right up to the side of the house at 3 a.m. to put something in our trash

These are just the people we've caught in the last few weeks - I don't even want to think about all the people we haven't caught in the 19 months since we've owned the house.

The crew was here today working on the new side steps.

Stained walk way and gate

Today I worked on staining the gate and walkway. I had to finish today so it was dry by the time the contractors show up in the morning. It was a relief to get it done so there won't be any water damage.

Side steps and a gate

Today we got our side gate at the back of the house in. This is so nice to have, and it looks great. Prior to having the gate, you could look from the street right into our backyard. There is also an elevated walkway for the 2-story building next door and they could look right in as well. The crew also worked on demolishing the concrete side steps so they could be rebuilt in wood. It was so loud!

Here is the gate laying on the ground being built. I love the way redwood looks.



Here is the back of the gate, which is visible from the street and from the property next door. There will be another gate at the front of the house and the hedge will grow in so the back of the gate won't be as visible.



Here is the gate and the elevated walkway viewed from the yard. I had to stain the walkway and the gate after the crew left and I couldn't start until 4:00, but I figured I'd have plenty of time before it got dark at 7:00. I finally quit at 7:30 and I wasn't nearly done. I am nervous about having unstained wood sitting out so I want to get it done ASAP.




This is the side step after demolition. There used to be steps on this side of the landing. These steps will be rebuild of redwood with a trap door to get to the gas meter.

steps to side walkway

Today the general contractor's crew was here working on the steps from the elevated walkway to the side of the house. I love the design! This whole area looks so much better now and makes so much more sense. I love that it actually looks like it was designed that way and not that it was a MacGyver solution to a strange set up (which is what it is). The hedge and gate look great too.

Here is a shot from the side of the house looking toward the backyard. There will be a gate at the top of the steps. The small gap between the bottom step and the ground is to allow for water runoff. I thought this was quite clever and I didn't even think of it. Things like this are the reason I wanted this particular contractor on the job.

Here is a view looking down the side walkway from the yard. The landing is 3 feet which is to make sure nobody falls after walking through the gate that will be here.








The metal guy was here unexpectedly today and replaced one of the previously installed metal gate posts. I didn't even know about it. I hadn't inspected the posts that closely, and it turns out one didn't match! I don't know what he was thinking. The general contractor (the metal guy is a subcontractor) made him come out and replace it saying that he didn't want me (the customer) to balk at paying for a gate with mismatched posts. I was so glad he did this, and that I wasn't pulled into the drama. I would have been mad. Things like this are another reason I wanted this particular contractor on the job. As much as this seems reasonable, my experience has been that most don't behave like this.

Here is the welder melting the welding from the first post.

Walkway in progress

Things look much better already. The walkway is almost done, and with the steps to the driveway the yard looks much more inviting. There is actually an obvious way to get from the driveway to the yard near the house without climbing over a retaining wall. Having a step there just seems to invite you in. The whole set up looks more planned and less random. Very exciting!

Here is the beginning of the walkway. It's made of plywood because it is only supposed to be temporary fix until we can figure out what we want to do back here. We want some sort of patio but just aren't sure enough of what we want to sink a bunch of money into it. This will let us live with the yard for a while and make a decision when we have better information.






This is where the walkway opens to the side of the house. There will be a gate here and stairs down to the walkway.



This was a pleasant surprise. Our back neighbor's house is on a higher lot than ours, so for years they looked out on the junked cars, piles of tires, rusty boat, trash dumpster, cement mixer, etc the prior owner had in the yard. Today the back neighbor dropped this plant off with a note about how nice the yard looked and how much they are enjoying it. What a nice surprise!

We have grass!

Ladies and Gentleman, WE HAVE GRASS! We've waited almost 2 years for this historic day. The yard was one of the main reasons we wanted this house. The bamboo privacy hedge is in as well, and it looks great. I can't wait to see it grown in. The landscaper is done except for a visit 2 weeks from now to reset the sprinkler timers and go through the setting procedure with me. The general contractor was here was well and started the elevated walkway.

Unfortunately, we can't walk on the grass for 21 days. The landscaper was adamant about this, and told me 3 times! We used sod, and it doesn't have any roots. Walking on it can cause the pieces to shift and make gaps, and your footprints can leave permanent indentations. We have a friend who walked on her sod prematurely, and the footprints never filled in.

Today, I feel a huge sense of relief. The yard/exterior project is well under way and going smoothly. We may have waited a while to get these two particular contractors, but they did do a good job once here. This is our last big project for the foreseeable future - YAY! Our next few projects include finishing the interior window frames with shellack, shellacking all interior doors, buying window shades/window treatments, staining exterior doors, interior trim, interior painting, and flooring. There's a lot more to do than I've listed - but you get the point. After the yard, we are really into a whole new level of projects that are less complex, less costly, less lifestyle detracting, less urgent, etc. We are also into a lot less "R&D," which in this case means Research and Decision making. We have really turned a corner.

Here is the sod delivered:




Here is the bamboo delivered.




Here is the grass during installation.




And here is the best picture of all, OUR GRASS!




Here is how it looked the first time we saw the house. It gives me heebie-jeebies just looking at it. What you can't see is that most of the area from the back of the garage to the back of the yard is paved over with concrete.






I can't get over how great it looks. Here is a view looking toward the house.



And the back of the garage. The sprinkler controls are visible on the back of the garage. The transplanted lemon tree is visible along the wall.




Here is how the back of the garage looked when we first looked at the house.







Here is the bamboo installed. It will be nice to have some separation from the 2-story apartment building next door. Our bathroom window is right in this area and while the window is frosted (and we've tested it, you cannot see through it), it is still weird to see people walking by 6 feet away.




We had them put gravel down around the bamboo (we may do the whole side walkway in the gravel as well). I like the way it looks a lot.



Here is the side walkway viewed from the front of the house. Eventually there will be a gate at the front of the house to keep it private.



And here is the start of the elevated walkway. This crew doesn't fool around - that is going to be one solid walkway!

A quiet day

Today was a nice, quiet day. I took care of some things at home and made some phone calls. It was great to have a day like this with no contractors since last week was so busy. It would seem that you could get just as much done with people working since you are not working with them, but it just doesn't work that way. I get way less done (probably less than half) when people are here working.

Yard day 5 (Saturday)

Today I was quite pleased that the crew was at the house working and that all went smoothly (at least I think it did) even though I wasn't there all day and didn't actually see them. The landscape crew finished filling in the sprinkler trenches and installed "Benda-Board" edging to define the border between the grass and the planting beds. It looks great! I can actually see the layout for the first time. They also dug out the bed for the bamboo hedge. The bamboo and the grass will be delivered on Tuesday, and by the end of the day they should be done or almost done.

The metal guy was here and installed 3 out of 4 gate posts. The 4th one couldn't be done because the phone box has to be moved.

Here you can see the posts for the driveway gate. The posts are 6' tall and made of 4'x4' iron. The metal guy assured me that the gates would outlast us, the next generation and probably the one after that.



Here is a shot of the right post. I like the way they embedded the right post so that it sits within the fence. That way we lose the smallest amount of space from our already narrow driveway.



Here is the post on the other side of the house.




Here is a shot of the yard with the Benda-Board beds.



Here is the side of the house ready for the bamboo hedge.

Yard day 4

Today the crew was here doing more work on the yard. They filled in the sprinkler trenches. They will be here tomorrow working as well. Things seem to be going well, and best of all, no drama!

Yard day 3

Today the crew trenched for sprinklers. I picked up locks for the gates and went to the door store where I looked into getting new frames for the 4 interior doors. Our prior incompetent contractor told me to get the incorrect jamb depth (4 3/4, and they should have been 5 1/4). Even though he admitted to his mistake he refused to fix it. I ordered new jambs, and I have a handyman that will rehang the interior doors with the new jambs. We also had the trees trimmed.

Today the metal guy was here and put 4 of these metal plates for the gate posts. The posts are 4x4 iron and get welded to these plates which are in cement. The plates themselves are like tables. You are seeing the table top floating on freshly poured cement. The table legs are buried underneath in the wet cement.


The landscaper moved this lemon tree behind the garage.



It was here by the back door, where we hope to have a seating area. It is so much better without the tree. It probably won't live, but at least we tried to save it.


The crew started demolishing concrete and creating a bed for a new bamboo hedge to go here on the side of the house. We have a 2-story apartment building next door, so the privacy will be nice.



Here is the view from the back door. Note the nicely trimmed trees on the left (what an improvement!). They also did the ivy overhanging the back wall. I can't wait to get in there and get rid of all of it. I never even knew there was a fence on top of our retaining wall. You can see the sprinkler trenches all over the yard.




Here is the view from the back looking toward the house. You can see the sprinkler trenches and freshly trimmed trees.



Here is the area near the back door where the lemon tree was moved from. It's so much more open now.



And what a treat - we had this adorable 8-week old Rottweiler puppy here today. The landscaper just got him and didn't want him home alone all day.

Yard day 2

Today started out with an issue about the 8 a.m. start time. Our city has a rule that when you do work on a permit, you cannot start before 8 a.m. on weekdays. I'm not sure if this applies to non-permitted work, but I assume it does. Due to the excessive heat, the landscaper had his crew here early and they started at 7:40. They were using picks and shovels, not powertools. My back neighbor came out and told them they had to start at wait until 8. I was surprised since there was almost no noise, but she is probably right so we complied. Later on, another neighbor got upset because the crew was smoking and her house is right next to the fence. I guess she had asked him to stop, and he wasn't happy and they had some words. I asked him to smoke out front, and he did it but didn't think it was necessary. I feel like it is really important to be a good neighbor, especially since we all live so close.

Today's main job was to finish picking the soil to loosen it up. They've been working the soil and watering it a lot since it was neglected so long. It is coming up really nicely though. Once the picking was done and the soil was loose enough to work, they began grading it. Originally they were going to use a rototiller and backhoe for this, but once they got here they changed the plan and did it by hand. They also started cleaning and digging for the side walkway where a bamboo privacy hedge will be planted. The general contractor's metal guy was here and cut holes in the concrete for the driveway gate and side walkway gate.

Here are some more objects uncovered during the work:

An rusty old can




A fork



Some marbles



Here is a shot looking out from the back door:





What an improvement!

Here is shot looking toward the house from the back of the yard:




Here's the back of the garage:



Here is the cleaned-up side walkway. There is a two-story apartment building right next door, and their grade is about 5 feet higher than ours so we are installing a privacy hedge here.




Here is a shot of the driveway after the gate post holes have been cut.




While digging one of the holes (on the right in the above picture), the metal contractor found an old pipe. We didn't know what it was for. It was in a really weird spot (under the driveway on the outside border of our property). The contractor thought it was nothing and considered cutting it to see what would happen. I vetoed this idea. The houses around here were built in the 1950's, and we really have no idea what it could have been. Hopefully it's not a water pipe for my neighbors running under our driveway. I do know that we have utility pipes underneath the property as do all the lots around here. We decided to leave it intact, and fortunately the way the post is installed won't disturb it, although the pipe will now be sitting in solid cement under a gate post, so I sincerely hope it never needs any attention.

Why not just move the gate location? Well, this spot is good for several reasons. It allows us to close off the most backyard possible and still park two cars. It also puts only the living room windows in the front yard (i.e. in front of the gate) and all the other windows (bedrooms) are behind the gate. Also, when we had to switch out our windows for the second time, we ended up with windows on the driveway side of the house that don't match. The gate will divide the wall between the mismatched windows.

Here is the gate post hole with the mystery pipe in it.





Here is the left driveway gate post hole with my foot in it for scale (yes, I did it on purpose!) I was amazed that tree roots had gotten this far. This spot is at least 15 feet from the nearest tree, and roots had to grow under the driveway.






Here are the post holes for the gate on the side walkway.


While digging the side walkway gate post holes, we found another unidentified pipe. This one is probably an old sprinkler pipe from the trashed sprinkler system of the prior owners.

Yard, day 1

Today was a VERY exciting day. One of the biggest reasons we wanted this house was the yard and today we had a crew here making it useable! The progress was huge already and the day went smoothly. Most of the work today was surface cleanup - raking, removing debris, cutting roots, etc. The general contractor was here as well with his metal guy and we did some more planning on the gates, stairs and walkway. I wasn't sure why this was necessary since we had the same conversations multiple times before, but as long as the job gets done I can talk all they want.

We had our ficus trees trimmed last summer, and I was going to wait until next summer (2 years) before having them trimmed again. The landscaper strongly urged me to do it, and even offered to bring his guy in and have me pay him directly so the landscaper took no profit. He just really felt it would be good for the yard, we would like it more and that the grass would be healthier. We got a price from the tree guy, and it was less than I paid last time (which was almost the lowest of several estimates) so I went ahead and scheduled it for Thursday. I also met with the handyman we've been using to get prices on fixing our interior doors which were messed up by our prior incompetent contractor. He told me to order jambs that were not wide enough to span the walls, and then admitted he made a mistake and refused to fix it because I put my credit card down to pay. For over a year, we've been living with doors that don't work properly, can't be finished and have no locks or handles. It will be good to get this done. I got some good information from the handyman and will go back to the door store this week to see what can be done.

Here is a shot looking out from the back door.



Here is a shot looking toward the back door from the back of the yard.



And here is behind the garage.


Look ma, no ditch!



This is a creepy doll the crew found buried in the yard.