Patio Demo
OMG - it's taken me this long to figure out how to get onto my blog using the new Google format. Feel like such a fool. I wasn't logged in with the right Gmail address. Dah! So, let's go back to March and catch you all up.
MARCH
There's a water line that runs from the front "porch" area across the front of the house around the side and then across the back of the house to the patio. Bruce has patched this line 4 times since we moved in. March he finally dug it up and replaced it with 2 new lines ending at the corner of the house in the back yard. (not all the way to the patio). He had to pull it up from under the front walkway and from under the back door stoop. He replaced all the timers and pipes that hooked into the front lawn sprinklers. In the back, next to the patio slider, he caped off the pipes and took out 10 timers. (The back lawn is now dead). Why you ask did he put in 2 pipes rather than one? The answer is that my DH always thinks ahead. We're going to be adding a laundry room out the back bathroom door. We'll need filtered and softened water. The outside water does not go through the softener or filter. (Except for one spigot that we use to wash the cars).
The other project was getting a bathroom fan in the master bath and a small wall heater. There are enough cool mornings when you don't want to heat the entire house while taking a shower. The little wall heater helps, though it doesn't do as good of a job as we had hoped.
APRIL & MAY
April was helping Nick get his garage/laundry area in shape so that they could start the remodel on the kids' master bathroom. Nick made a beautiful counter top for Alissa's laundry cabinets.
Bruce spend most of May helping Nick with the remodel. The bathroom is beautiful. Alissa has such an eye for decorating and planning things out. You'll have to check with her to see pictures.
While the boys were hard at work demoing over there, Alissa, Molly and I flew back to Ohio. Molly really was a great traveler. My niece Julie (aka Dede) does daycare for her 3 grandchildren. Two babies and a 3 year old. Colleen was a good sport about having to share her things with Molly. After being invaded by a baby brother recently I think her reaction to having a 2 1/2 year old to share things with was pretty darn good.
MARCH
There's a water line that runs from the front "porch" area across the front of the house around the side and then across the back of the house to the patio. Bruce has patched this line 4 times since we moved in. March he finally dug it up and replaced it with 2 new lines ending at the corner of the house in the back yard. (not all the way to the patio). He had to pull it up from under the front walkway and from under the back door stoop. He replaced all the timers and pipes that hooked into the front lawn sprinklers. In the back, next to the patio slider, he caped off the pipes and took out 10 timers. (The back lawn is now dead). Why you ask did he put in 2 pipes rather than one? The answer is that my DH always thinks ahead. We're going to be adding a laundry room out the back bathroom door. We'll need filtered and softened water. The outside water does not go through the softener or filter. (Except for one spigot that we use to wash the cars).The other project was getting a bathroom fan in the master bath and a small wall heater. There are enough cool mornings when you don't want to heat the entire house while taking a shower. The little wall heater helps, though it doesn't do as good of a job as we had hoped.
APRIL & MAY
April was helping Nick get his garage/laundry area in shape so that they could start the remodel on the kids' master bathroom. Nick made a beautiful counter top for Alissa's laundry cabinets.
Bruce spend most of May helping Nick with the remodel. The bathroom is beautiful. Alissa has such an eye for decorating and planning things out. You'll have to check with her to see pictures.
 |
| Colleen & Molly |
 |
| Jill & I in 1979 |
Most of you know my sister passed away in January; 3 days after her 78th birthday. Dede and I are closer in age and just closer period than my sister and I ever were. Waiting till May for the visit made more sense. It was so good to see the Ohio family. Alissa and Molly spend several nights with Shannon and her family (Dede's daughter). The little girls (and big girls) got to visit without us old fogies around.
We were there over Mother's Day weekend and my nephew, George, always has a family BBQ. We got spend time with his family and my other niece's ("Lil" Jill) family. Bradley (Dede's son) and his wife Vandana had us over for a wonderful dinner. Bruce really missed out on the authentic Indian food.
Dinner out with: Kevin, Julie, Colleen, Bill, Shannon, William, Me, Molly and Alissa.
All the kiddies: Colleen, William, Neela and Molly. Can't tell you how hard it was to get the two oldest to sit still for a picture!
Also had a good visit with my cousin Patty while there. Not going to post that picture. Really not good. :)
JUNE
June 4th my niece (brother Jack's daughter) arrive from Norfolk, VA. She's stationed on the USS Eisenhower. We had a great week long visit. Unfortunately, the weather was not very nice during her visit. No beach time. Luckily she had a Navy friend in the area and he was able to take her into LA and around town. Hopefully that made her trip more fun than just hanging out with family. We did have a nice day visiting the Santa Barbara Zoo. Nika, Alissa and Molly had some time to visit too.
I take pictures like my Dad....never can get people centered.
A week after Nika left I traveled to San Ramon where I spent a night with my friend Laura Fraga. We had dinner with Selma and then attended the DVQ meeting. I finally got to show off my two quilts that are part of my new pattern line. (working on the 3rd now). The next day Selma and I packed up and headed up to the 17th annual DVQ Retreat. Always one of my favorite things to do.
The before picture of the patio. You can see all the sprinkler timers on the left side house wall.
.JPG)
While I was gone Bruce started the demo on the patio. He jack -hammered half of it when he realized he should have been wearing his back brace and couldn't continue. Thank you Nick for stepping in and taking over. After I got home we took a 3 day trip to Primm resort in Nevada. The pool and sunshine helped rest up Bruce's back. Though it was another week before he was able to load everything into the dumpster. As you can see by the picture, Molly was here to inspect his work. The guy who picked up the dumpster was quite impressed that a 65 year old did it all himself.
We were there over Mother's Day weekend and my nephew, George, always has a family BBQ. We got spend time with his family and my other niece's ("Lil" Jill) family. Bradley (Dede's son) and his wife Vandana had us over for a wonderful dinner. Bruce really missed out on the authentic Indian food.
 |
| Bradley, Vandana, Neela, Kevin, William |
All the kiddies: Colleen, William, Neela and Molly. Can't tell you how hard it was to get the two oldest to sit still for a picture!
Also had a good visit with my cousin Patty while there. Not going to post that picture. Really not good. :)
JUNE
June 4th my niece (brother Jack's daughter) arrive from Norfolk, VA. She's stationed on the USS Eisenhower. We had a great week long visit. Unfortunately, the weather was not very nice during her visit. No beach time. Luckily she had a Navy friend in the area and he was able to take her into LA and around town. Hopefully that made her trip more fun than just hanging out with family. We did have a nice day visiting the Santa Barbara Zoo. Nika, Alissa and Molly had some time to visit too. |
| SB Zoo |
I take pictures like my Dad....never can get people centered.
 |
| Nika & Uncle Bruce |
 |
| Molly was ready to go with me |
The before picture of the patio. You can see all the sprinkler timers on the left side house wall.
While I was gone Bruce started the demo on the patio. He jack -hammered half of it when he realized he should have been wearing his back brace and couldn't continue. Thank you Nick for stepping in and taking over. After I got home we took a 3 day trip to Primm resort in Nevada. The pool and sunshine helped rest up Bruce's back. Though it was another week before he was able to load everything into the dumpster. As you can see by the picture, Molly was here to inspect his work. The guy who picked up the dumpster was quite impressed that a 65 year old did it all himself.
.JPG)
There was a lot of concrete "crumbs" that had to get raked up. Plus we found shards of broken glass. From the texture of the glass it was pretty old. Bruce has moved a ton of dirt from one area to another. Still working on getting it all leveled out. We're going to use a Charcoal-red combination paver. It should look good with the blue house. Though the house still needs to be painted. And as you can see from the last few pictures, the wall needs pressure washed and painted too. I can't wait to get that done. But there are more than a few cinder blocks where the mortar needs to be fixed.Well I think I've caught you up to July 17th, 2014. Of course during all this time we've had lots of good Molly time. She is growing up so fast. So very glad we haven't missed any of it!
No comments:
Post a Comment