Landscape project day one

About five hours ago I was thinking the $30k quotes for our landscaping were not so bad. I may have even contemplated calling one of them as the start of the project was a bit overwhelming. I'm off the next few days to get a head start and the first big delivery was this morning. Two dump trucks dropped off 16 cubic yards of crushed gravel base material. Most of the day was spent moving it to the parking pad, spreading it around, and running over it with the plate compactor. This job would be impossible to do without the Bobcat and at one point I thought was impossible to make progress with just one person. However, with the Bobcat it apparently is a one man job! Most of the base is where it needs to be or staged in a convenient location for use later. Tomorrow some of the 14 pallets of pavers are coming as well as the setting sand. Currently I'm taking my siesta, but will probably go drive the Bobcat later and move some of the mountains of dirt I've been growing in the backyard.

Bobcat and Bunnies

We spent the weekend playing in the dirt, getting the turnaround pad and driveway ready for a delivery of gravel this week and pallets of pavers shortly thereafter.  Our framing contractor continues to move at a glacial pace (as you can see, the framing is exactly where it was a few days ago still) so we've stopped waiting for him and are proceeding with the DIY portion of the garage/driveway now.  In order to prep for laying the pavers, we had to dig several inches down for the parking pad and driveway strips - which doesn't sound like much until you multiply several inches by the approximately 90 feet of our driveway.  In short, we were very grateful to own the bobcat this weekend!  It took two days but we're in good shape for the next step, gravel, now.  Then it's sand, tamping and leveling, and eventually pavers and grass.  There's still a ton of work, and a lot of weekends, ahead but this was a good start.

And on a more cuddly note, we discovered a clutch (nest?  brood?  I'm not sure what the technical term is) of teeny, tiny bunnies living in the overgrown grass of the yard.  I was carrying tools across the yard as we were getting ready to start work on Saturday and saw something furry wiggle right as I was about to step on it, leapt to the side, and then came back to investigate.  And there they were, several baby bunnies wiggling around in a little hollow.  Since they were right in the path of the bobcat, we built them a protective cover out of scrap wood so they wouldn't get squished (of course, we removed it when we were done each day so mama bunny could get back to them).  I'm afraid we may have some deaf bunnies after the bobcat trundled right by them for several hours this weekend but at least they are still safe.  It's just a good thing one of them moved at the right time for me to notice them because bobcats and bunnies do not mix!

Backsplash almost done

The backsplash turned out better than expected. The tile isn't something one would pick to exactly match white marble, but the end result is great. It adds an interesting texture and shape to the kitchen. We just have to grout it and it's all done. Our contractor also framed a little more of the garage. They're not the fastest crew on the block, but hopefully they'll get it done. All of our materials for the outdoor hardscaping will be here next week so lots more work ahead... And lots of Bobcat driving!

Garage framing started

Just a couple of quick pictures from the weeekend - the framing guys started on Saturday and built some of the soon-to-be walls but didn't get as far as putting them up yet.  They should be back at work all week and hopefully will make some progress.  More to follow....

Half a Backsplash

Is my tile work any good? Nah.... Its f'ing great!

Another small project getting checked off the list. As you can see we finally picked out a tile for the backsplash. The color is several different shades of off white/cream with a little tan color on the edge and it matches nicely with the cabinets and marble. It's a little slower to install because there are lots of tiny cuts to make, but it's only 25 sqft or so. The tile shop only had about half of what we needed so we will finish it up later in the week and get it all grouted. Then we can finish the crown molding and get this kitchen 100% done.

Weekend and a day

We got a late start to the weekend after spending Saturday on non-construction related tasks but since Brian had the day off from work today, we were able to check another task off the list.  We had spent a fair amount of time thinking about what to do with the underside of the porch.  The default choices were latticework fence (inexpensive but not my favorite look) or stone facade (nice looking but expensive) and we finally settled on a middle option - using PVC beadboard and 1 x 4 to create a wainscot look.  The whole project cost about $500 in materials and took roughly a day and a half of labor and we're really happy with the way it came out.  We first built frames out of pressure-treated 2 x 4s, then glued and tacked the beadboard on, and finally finished it with the 1 x 4 trim.  Right now, there's a lot of white on the front of the house but it should look really nice when we get some landscaping.

From the Ground Up

I am shamelessly posting while at work (Hi Lew!) because I'm very excited about the pictures that Brian just emailed...we have a garage foundation!  The big truck in the first picture showed up at 8am this morning, the foundation guys and the cool little Georgia buggy showed up shortly thereafter, and they proceeded to trundle a great deal of concrete from the front of the house to the back throughout the day.  As long as the rain continues to hold off, they should be back tomorrow to build the stem wall and then it's officially onto the framing stage!

Just as an aside, the neighbor's fence does not usually look like it currently does (broken, leaning) - it's a casualty of the recent storm when a gigantic tree fell over and hit it.  So on a normal day, and hopefully soon in the future, it will look like a regular (straight, non-broken) fence again.  And then we will have to figure out how to squeeze between the 3 ft. gap between the fence and the garage to install the siding.  Adventures await!