From the start, I was dead set on using engineered stone for our counter tops. While not a pretty as natural stone, it is about as bullet proof a material as you can get. But, slowly but surely, our designer talked me out of engineered stone in favor of natural stone. It’s true, it doesRead more about Caring for nice things[…]
Unfortunately, we discovered a rash of new plumbing issues this week. The first, and potentially most serious, is an issue with our sump pump. The sump pump is hooked up to two lines. One goes to the vent (to get air behind water to allow it to flow) and the other, the outlet. It seemsRead more about More plumbing issues, oh my[…]
The tree farm showed up early today and dropped in the largest specimen tree we are installing, a pretty good sized fruitless olive. I saw them pull up on the street. First, they put the tree upright and dropped it into the hole for placement and depth measurement. If you look at the chains above,Read more about More trees[…]
Late last week, we thought we were done with the basement reconstruction after the water leak and resulting flood. But alas, it was not to be. The company that did the repairs, did a pretty poor job at floating the walls and ceiling after the drywall was installed, and there are lots of visible issues. Read more about Basement – two steps forward, one step back[…]
It’s funny that we call this building the pool house, because we won’t have a pool for a while. We’ve made some good progress over the last few weeks, and there has been a lot to do. The painting was finished on the outside about a month ago. Last week, the roof was put onRead more about Pool house progress[…]
We’ve got the first of our landscaping installed, with the hedges and trees around most of the property line installed now. The hedges above are a variety called podocarpus henkelii. It is a somewhat slower growing hedge, but is very dense, and will not grow overly thick. Over time, it will get nice and tallRead more about Hedges & trees[…]
Cars slowing down to get a good look at our house is a pretty frequent occurrence. It seems that 30-50% of pedestrians that pass by our house slow down or stop for a good look. If we are outside, people often stop and tell us how much they like our house, including people in cars.Read more about Curb appeal[…]
In addition to the landscape main irrigation lines being installed and buried last week, we checked on more piece of flat work off our list – the stretch of gutter along our old driveway entrance. All the sandstone curb was moved from the side of the old driveway mouth, (the curved parts), and the newRead more about In the gutter[…]
Now comes the fun part, trying to get the insurance company to properly reimburse us for the damage the plumbing leak caused. A particular point of contention are the personal items. Insurance companies don’t want to pay for something new. In cases like this, they claim to reimburse for cash value of the affected items. Read more about More plumbing leak damage – personal property[…]
It has been a long road to recovering from the catastrophic plumbing leak that occurred two months ago due to our plumbers over-tightening a plastic fitting. For starters, the leak itself turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg when it came to our plumbing issues. We had another plumber come and inspectRead more about Pluming leak update[…]