Saturday, September 27, 2008

"One of these things is not like the others..."

The landscapers showed up again on Friday and pressure washed the deck. They also spread the top soil around...
Looks a lot better, even though DH still has a lot of work to do to make it look like a lawn...
DH took Friday off work to work on the lawn some more. He raked, harrowed, mushroom-mulched, and seeded the back yard. We're getting rain right now, but it's rather heavy. I hope the seed doesn't get washed away...
Remember that Sesame Street song - "one of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong. Can you tell which one is not like the others, before I finish my song?" Can you tell what doesn't belong in the pool photo below?
Here's a really big hint...
Poor little guy - I'm not sure how long he was in there. DH spotted him this morning from the upstairs window. When I tried to get him out with my hand, he moved away and sat on the pool seat...
I had to get him out with the net. He must have been really pooped - he hopped a couple times and then just sat there for a long time.
Later on he hopped away, so I guess he's fine...
I went to Pier 1 the other night and found these dishes on clearance for a really good price and bought enough for 12 people. I hate serving people out of styrofoam or paper bowls and thought these would work well when needed. The only bowls I have 12 of are my good china dishes and they are the really shallow bowls, which are good for salad but, in my opinion, not always so good for soup or chili. The plates coordinated well and were pretty, so I got those also.
The painter showed up this morning to touch up some spots on the stairs, and in our master bathroom, and some exterior spots. He only ended up doing a bit on the stairs. He said he needed to buy more paint for the bathroom and re-paint the whole room. It looked like they had tried to touch up some spots with paint that wasn't thoroughly mixed, and the touch-ups dried a different color from the rest of the room. I don't know why he didn't do the exterior touch-ups. So, he'll be back...

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

And the landscapers returneth!

Wow! What a surprise! I thought for sure the landscapers wouldn't be back to finish the patio area for a week or two - it's only been 2 days! They sealed the gaps between the two seat walls and the deck...
And the gaps around the two columns...
The rest of the travertine arrived and they cut the remaining pieces to fill in the triangle...
They didn't seal the gap between the seat wall and the travertine. My guess is that they need to let the pavers that they just installed dry before they fill in this gap...
They filled in the other planter with soil (thought I took a photo of it, but I don't see it anywhere - hmmmmm), but they didn't spread the top soil yet. The Bobcat and some of their other equipment is still here, so I suspect that they will be back tomorrow to finish up.

Monday, September 22, 2008

The landscapers leaveth...

We have a deck railing! The landscapers showed up a bit before 7:30 this morning and went to work putting the aluminum slats in the deck railing.
Here is a closer view - I really like how it turned out...
They spent some time cleaning up the area and made a bonfire of a lot of the junk that had been lying around. They didn't spread the topsoil yet.
And they still need to finish the pavers. I guess they ordered 10% more pavers than they needed for the area and still ran out. They talked their suppliers into selling them less than a full palette, so when that comes in they'll be back to finish the patio and spread the topsoil.
They still need to fill this planter with soil also... The landscapers loaded up their utility trailer (which has been parked beside our garage since the second week in August) and left about 12:30 today.

DH took the day off work and spent the day on the tractor getting the lawn ready to seed. He seeded part of the lawn area, spread the smelly mushroom mulch on it, and watered it. He'll do another section next weekend.
I started working on the cover for DD's window seat cushion, but didn't get very far. It was nice to be able to hang out in the sewing studio while keeping an eye on the laundry though.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Tractors are so useful!

We've had some gorgeous weather in the Pittsburgh area lately. Today couldn't have been nicer - highs in the 70's and sunny with a slight breeze now and then. Look at that sky!

When the landscapers finished on Friday, the deck floor was done and the railing had been started...

DH was hard at work today, taking down trees (near the pool/patio - ones that were mostly dead, or just plain ugly) and clearing trees that fell in last week's storm. He tried to knock this tree over with the tractor...
It bent, but it wouldn't go over...
Plan B involved the use of a chain saw...
And some brute strength...
I think he ended up taking down 4-5 trees. Here goes one that he pushed over with the tractor after getting the job started with the chain saw...
TIMBER!
And another one...
The tractor also came in handy for moving the downed trees - this one was a bit off-balance in the front end loader and caused the tractor to tip up off the back left tire.
So the rest of the trees were attached to the front end loader with straps and dragged away...

And now we're waiting for the Steelers to make a comeback!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Deck details...

The deck is not yet finished, but it's getting there! All the diagonal boards are down and the ends trimmed so that the border boards could be added...
We really like it. The landscape guys have really done a great job with it...
In response to a comment on yesterday afternoons post, I can see how the person could think that there isn't anything for the ends of the boards to connect to. I hope the photos from today will make it more obvious how this deck is constructed. Some of the photos that I posted in past blog entries didn't show the support beams around the edge of the deck. These supports are what the ends of the diagonal boards are connected to...
It took a while for them to get the border boards under the seat wall, but it looks nice now that it's in there!
The step looks great too!
Here's the deck from another angle. The border isn't yet in place on the side that meets the house, the railing needs to be finished ,and the deck needs to be sealed. The landscapers planned to be done tomorrow, but I'm not so sure that will happen.
Here are a couple of close-ups of the screws in the ends of the boards...
and in the middle of the boards. I don't think this deck is going anywhere! :-D
I restocked the refrigerator today. I'm glad I didn't do it last night, as I had planned to, as the refrigerator door was accidentally left ajar last night and I would have had to throw away all the new food. Replacing the food once following the power outage is definitely enough!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

We (almost) have a deck!

Yes, we have had our power restored!!!! It was off for 67 hours, almost to the minute.

On Tuesday, the landscapers showed up with a generator so that they could start work on the deck. They finished this much on Tuesday and also put a coat of sealer on the exposed aggregate around the pool.
Today we had a delivery of mushroom mulch (my apologies about the smell to anyone who comes to visit us) which DH will use when he seeds the lawn.
Today they got most of the deck done. If you are wondering why the boards don't go all the way to the edge, I wondered that too. DH told me that they are planning to put a border around the outer edge of the deck so it will all work out in the end.
This is the last little bit that they need to finish up - I assume they will do that tomorrow. They haven't said anything about when they are going to finish the travertine pavers - we still have a corner that isn't finished because they ran out of pavers.
Hopefully, my updates will get back to a more normal schedule now that we have power again. I'm going to cook dinner tonight, even though I haven't made a run to the grocery store to restock the refrigerator, so I must run...

Remnants of hurricane Ike got us!

Well, we've been in the dark here in Western PA since Sunday night, around 9:20pm. No electricity, no hot water (we have an electronic starter on our gas water heater!), no phone or internet (we have Vonage phone), etc. I can't open my oven door (I was in the middle of a cleaning cycle), the dishwasher has undrained water in the bottom, as it was running at the time, and yesterday I had to throw all the perishable foods out.

The awning that belongs to our landscaper didn't fare well in the storm...
Our pool was a mess from the storm - those are pieces of styrofoam that were packed around the pavers on the palette...
We lost a couple of trees and some large branches. This tree trunk just twisted right off...
Here is the rest of that tree...
And we lost this medium-sized tree...
But my favorite tree was safe, so that was good!
The landscapers spent Monday cleaning up the debris around the patio area and I scooped out most of the debris from the pool...
Our neighbor lost his barn in the storm. Part of it fell on Friday during some high winds and downpours, but the rest of it fell during the storm on Sunday night.
I don't know when the power will be back on - according to the electric company's web site, it should be back on sometime this afternoon. I'm at King's Restaurant eating breakfast and using their free internet access. My battery only has half-power though, so I don't have too long to post.

I tried to go to the local library yesterday and get a library card. I couldn't, because they were running a program on their computer that they couldn't interrupt. I was told to call them on Friday and see if the program was done running! They let me get on one of their computers for 30 minutes (only if I gave them my license to hold - the computer was all of 2 feet away from the checkout desk). I asked them if I could sit at one of their tables, plug in my computer to charge, and do some work offline - no, you can't do that here! Unbelievable! Fortunately, I remembered that I have a power converter in my car and was able to plug my computer into that to charge.

I'm about out of battery - not sure when I'll get back on to post again, but hopefully soon!