Week ending 2/24/12

On Saturday, we cleared the right hand wall of the garage and went to Lowe's and got plywood to put up on the wall. We're using 3/4 sanded birch plywood instead of drywall because it's easier to put up and works better than drywall for a garage. It's sturdy and you can nail into it anywhere. It's also bright and looks good.

On Monday, I tried to remove the two shelves left over from the prior owner. It should have been a quick job - just pop the screws out with the drill bit and done. But you know it wasn't that simple. I swear, every time I touch something from the prior owners of this house I hate them even more. When quality is important, they did a half-ass job. When it's fine to do the minimum, they build to withstand an attack of the Huns. In this case, some of the screws were already stripped and some of the brackets were nailed in. Fortunately, this is about the last thing left from the prior owners.

On Thursday, we went to the bathroom showroom recommended by the contractor to get a few bathtub options. It went reasonably well, and the salesperson had a good idea of what we wanted to do and had seen it done before.

Week ending 2/17/12

On Sunday, the cement contractors showed up at 7:55 a.m. with no warning. C and I were in the kitchen, just getting our day started and he says "there's people working out side!" I was shocked because they did not tell me they were coming, they are NOT supposed to work on Sunday by city law, we have dogs that could have been in the area where they were working, we may not have been home and the gate could have been locked. What the heck were they thinking?

I showed them with some running water how the water does not runoff away from the house the way I specified. They were supposed to slope the sidewalk away from the house, and instead he made it flat. He acknowledged that I asked for that and that he knew I wanted that, and then told me that the reason he didn't do it is that it would look funny. What?! I was there every minute while they were working and at any point he could have asked me and I would have reiterated what I wanted. This area is for trash and needs, most importantly, to function right. I would have been fine with a sloping sidewalk. Who does that? Just ignore what the customer asks you to do and do your own thing. Ugh.

So they got to work fixing their screw up with a grinder which makes a lot of noise and dust. They didn't finish until 3:00. I had to cancel my entire day to watch them, and I was very worried someone would complain (nobody did).

At the last inspection, I pointed out that they left stucco from patching the house where it joins the sidewalk all over the ground. They looked surprised when I asked them to clean it up so it didn't harden on the brand new cement. Ya gotta wonder.....

This week's pictures:

Here is a great shot of Danny in mid-yawn taken by C:

Here is Danny's indoor tanning bed:

The new sidewalk, with a terrazzo finish due to grinding:

A funny sight, but common where we live. 4 Prius' parked in a row:

Week ending 2/10/12

On Wednesday, we went to the Grand Opening for a new Lowe's in our area. It's 11 miles away, but that's much better than the 25 I was travelling to Lowe's just to avoid our awful local Home Depot. We picked up light fixtures for the office and den. They are basic track lighting, which I realize is not the height of fashion but they will work well and not be too obtrusive. C has been home on vacation and really noticed how bad the lighting in our house is. Back when we were trying to close our permit in 2007, I needed light fixtures because the city will not allow you to have a bare bulb, so I went to Ikea and bought a bunch of $4 fixtures just to get us past inspection. They've been really bad and don't provide much light. I've always known we'd have to change them, but now it's getting closer.

On Friday, we talked to the contractor about the bathtub. The bad news is that it's going to be a bad job. Ugh. Nothing is ever simple in this house.

I decided to upload some pictures for fun. Here ya go:

This was a trash can we saw on our dog walk on February 10th. I guess some people really don't want to give up their Christmas tree because the person is just throwing it out today. I thought it was a pretty funny way to get rid of the tree. Later in the day I noticed that the city did not pick it up.

This is our headless dog sleeping. Just kidding, he has a head! He sleeps like this sometimes with his head in the closet.

Week ending 2/3/12

On Saturday, the contractors came back to pour the cement. It wasn't too bad of a day.

Here are some shots of the pouring:

Rebar on top of a bed of sand, and the molds are already in place.

Set up to bring in the wet cement in a wheelbarrow.

The first section is poured.

The mixer in the backyard.




And done for the day, ready to set.



On Sunday, the contractors came back presumably to finish the cement. I was a surprised, since usually cement needs a few days or weeks to dry. But hey, I figured, I hired good people and they know what they are doing. HA HA HA HA. I swear I'm like Charlie Brown with the football. All the times I've been burned, why do I trust any contractor?

Things were okay until the guy WALKED on the wet cement. He was putting boards down but then he walked on it and left footprints. Ugh. They promised me the footprints could be fixed, and it did look better when they left but we'll see. They ended up deciding not to finish since the cement was still too wet. Duh, I could have told them that.