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Doing the Tenant Shuffle

Just when you thought things would have calmed down here with our awesome, completed garden, another curve ball came our way and has had us scrambling like chickens without heads for the past few weeks.  Our 3^rd floor tenant got offered a job overseas and asked to be let out of his lease early which we were more than happy to do as long as we could find a tenant to pick up right where he left off.  The tenant selection process got a bit hairy and there was much yelling and hair pulling regarding the realtors and some extremely unacceptable folks they kept pushing on us. But we finally found someone who seems solid and leases were signed not too long ago.  The only thing that was left was to assess the wear and tear done to the apartment over the last year and a half and spruce the place up a bit for the new tenant. 

As you might remember back in Spring of 2007 when the main renovation was winding to a close and our first contractor Tim was wrapping up the rental apartments, I broke my foot (due to some negligence by his crew in not properly covering a large hole in the basement—but why quibble?) so going up and down the stairs to inspect rental apartment progress was not something I was capable of doing as often as I would have liked.  Thus, a lot of the rental apartment fixtures got that same half-ass treatment we’ve discussed before.  The only difference is I hadn’t lived with them for the past year and half so they weren’t so fresh in my mind.  But we’ve got to see them all in the past few days…the non-green board lined windows covered in mold, the shoddy stainless steel sheets around the bathtub with rusty screws and leaks, the awful patching and flooring finishing job, the non-existent priming job that we paid for, poorly hinged doors, etc.  All pretty standard stuff that we’ve seen in our place as well except for one new and fantastic thing:  it turns out that Tim’s guys who installed the toilet up there made it line up flush with the sub floor but didn’t account for the tiling so the toilet did not form a good seal.  They simply caulked the crap out of it to try to compensate for the height difference.  So evidently it’s been slowly leaking for the past 18 months and caused all sorts of fun damage.  We had a plumber come out who suggested stacking two wax rings on top of one another which he did and which lasted exactly 24 hours before the leaks began.  It’s so nice to know that the poor work ethic is so universal.  So Eric did some research and purchased a cast iron flange which should help us form a tight seal—we plan on installing that tomorrow. 

We’ve already patched and painted what we could, along with scraping away tons of old caulk from around the shower.  The shower is going to be a real problem—we are sure there is a lot of water damage behind those stainless steel sheets—that was Tim’s suggestion and while it seemed like a good idea at the time it has caused us nothing but trouble.  But that’s his specialty, things that look good long enough for the checks to clear and for him to leave you high and dry.  We are planning on ripping them all down and redoing that whole shower area with tile the next time we have a change of tenant.  But we’ll do the best we can with it now.  We’re re-caulking all the seams, replacing the rusted out screws with new stainless one and scraping and paint the non-stainless shelving units that he installed there that have also completed rusted out.  It’s going to be down the wire to have everything ready for Saturday when our new tenant moves in, but hey, that is the way we roll—in chicken without head mode.

One cool thing—the tenants left us this elephant planter that we plan on using in the garden as an outdoor ashtray.  Cause while neither of us smoke we know a lot of people that do and during out redo-housewarming party last weekend people had no place to put their butts.  This should do nicely.  But Jules holds it in the highest of contempt. 

Garden at Night

All the stone is now sealed and looks amazing. When Eric saw it this morning he initially was worried that it had rained overnight (you are not supposed to apply the sealer if rain is in the forecast for the next 24-48 hours) However it had not rained, it just looked like it had, so I would say that is proof positive that the wet look has been achieved! The garden is now officially done! The sunroom still needs work but there is time for that in the future. For now, here's the garden at night, illuminated by the perimeter of solar lights

Sealing Slate Stone

Say that 10 times fast, if ya can! So here are the results from sealing the upper patio area by hand yesterday. I have to say it turned out very well. The stone doesn't look wet per say, but it does bring out the colors and really makes the stone pop with the plants. We likey:

Today we worked on sealing the lower patio section plus all the ledgewalls, which is a much larger area. We still have to do hands and knees cleaning to get the stone as pristine as possible, but we were able to use our new paint sprayer to apply the sealer to all of that stone which did make the task go much faster.

Eric used the new paint sprayer to apply the sealer (which is actually blocked in this photo—doh!) but you get the idea. We used Behr's wet look masonry and natural stone sealer which was a fraction of the cost of more expensive stone sealers and specifically rated for outdoor use.

You can see the sealer soaking the ledgewalls with it's iridescent glow:

Poor Monkey wanted so badly to join us outside all weekend he spent almost every moment waiting for us by the door out to the sunroom. Poor little guy, he feels so left out.

I did buy harnesses and leashes for both him and Jules so once everything is sealed and clean out there we can take them out (supervised of course) We can't let them out right now because we still have this big uncovered hole that we need to get a covering for. Our landscaper Gino said he would make one for us since his crew accidently threw out the cement board we cut to go there. Regardless we need to get something to cover this hole ASAP lest children and/or animals plummet down this hole. No good!

Once we got back inside Monkey got lots of tough love, don't you worry!

Cheating With Slate

Yes, I have to admit it. We've been cheating with our slate stone in our backyard. We cheated on TV and we've cheated on every picture I've shown you on this site. We have sprayed the stone with water to achieve that coveted "wet look" because the dry look was not nearly as interesting. But the plan all along was to seal the tile with a wet look sealer, we just needed two nice weekend days in a row to be able to accomplish that. And with the weather in hovering around 70 degrees and sunny all weekend, this was the time to do it.

First off, we got the rest of our solar lights installed around the upper seating area, shown here with the actual look of the non-sealed stone

Then we got all of our acacia chairs put together and installed for the upper patio. All they need now are seat cushions

That was all done through the help of Eric's patented "Bucket o' Allen Wrenches" Yes; Eric has a HUGE collection of allen wrenches in every shape and size to meet every possible need an allen wrench could provide. It's even labeled just in case you didn't know what they were. I make fun of Eric for this collection all the time, which is the main reason I am putting the picture up on this site—he made some seriously offended faces when he saw me take a photo of his bucket. Anyone who sees this says "man, I've never seen so many allen wrenches in my life!" There are a lot of them.

Then we primed and pained all the fresh air, air handling unit and Dryer/Stove vents out to the backyard. The HVAC guys who installed them had left all the stickers on them so we needed a bunch of Goof Off to get all those stickers off and to get these things clean enough to paint. Finished products:

For the big hole where these two vents come up we used to have a piece of cement board that covered the hole so no one could accidently fall down. Unfortunately that was taken away during the landscaping work and never recovered. Gino our landscaper had said he would make a wood covering for this section for us so we'll send him the dimensions shortly to make that happen. As it stands now it's not extremely kid or pet friendly. But it does look a lot less ugly. We painted with Rustoleum's Rusty Metal Primer and finished with their Hammered Copper.

Then came the fun part: we got on our hands and knees and scrubbed every single stone in the upper patio section clean. Once they dried we applied a wet look natural stone sealer made by Behr with a paintbrush on every stone. We laid the sealer on very thick and allowed it to dry overnight. When it was wet it had an iridescent quality to it that just looks odd. We lost the light at that point we just needed so let it sit overnight at that point. SO later on today we will finish up painting around the vents and do the same hands and knees cleaning and sealing on the lower patio area.

In the house: kitty progress! They are far from friends, Monkey is way too high strung for Jules' tastes, but them sleeping this close to one another is a big step in the right direction

Daylight Yard Pictures – Now With Tables and some Chairs

The crew was back again today to do more shots of the backyard but luckily I didn't need to supervise them. They were out in a couple of hours and I got the pleasant surprise of a table and chair delivery. I had ordered one square table for the upper seating area and four arm chairs plus one two person table with two folding chairs for the lower area. The big table is made of Acacia and the smaller one is Eucalyptus. I ordered them late on Saturday so I was pretty shocked that they arrived so quickly. Unfortunately the Acacia chairs will not arrive until tomorrow but the rest of the order was put together and out back in time for these daylight pictures. I'm sure you all are getting sick and tired of seeing the same pictures over and over again but I just can't help it. I can hardly believe this is my yard; I keep expecting to wake up and realize it was all a dream and I am stuck with my old, ugly concrete yard. But it's real! Not only that, but I'm getting better at identifying plants. Check me out!

Here we have the Eucalyptus folding table and chairs and in the planter potted mums. Creeping over the ledge are Bar Harbor Junipers and the large tree behind them in is a Weeping Norway Spruce.

More of the Bar Harbor Junipers and the Weeping Norway Spruce. The green perennials near the path are Creeping Euonymus. The purple plants behind them are Coral Bells, which will bloom with white flowers in the spring. The green perennial behind them is a mystery plant. I couldn't figure that one out and Gino couldn't remember what it was called but he said it will also bloom with white flowers in the spring. .

The big tree that looks like an umbrella is a Weeping Birch and it's my favorite plant in the whole garden. The little evergreen in the foreground below is a Globe Blue Spruce.

In the back left corner are some maiden grasses on the far left, a Weeping Alaskan Cedar in the center and a Golden Hinoki Cypress in the foreground. The purple flowered perennial is Meadow Sage.

The waterfall in the right corner is surrounded by more maiden grasses and another Meadow Sage.

Looking back towards the house from the waterfall corner is a Weeping White Pine, flanked by more Meadow Sage.

Camouflaging the AC units are 10 Sky Pencil Hollies. Near the path and ledgewalls are more of the Bar Harbor Junipers, Creeping Euonymus and Coral Bells.

Blocking the AC line are planters filled with assorted pansies and another large planter with mums.

Here the whole yard with the square Acacia table in the upper seating section. I'll get pictures of the arm chairs when they come tomorrow.

But this is what the table and chairs should look like, without those cushions though

Landscaping: The Finished Product

Eric was nice enough to take the day off from work and handle most of the landscaping supervising while I attended to other things. The yard is now officially done and all the shots have been captured. They'll need to come back for one more day for the final interviews. But now the yard is officially done. By the time I was allowed to get in there and take pictures we were losing the daylight so some of these shots are a bit dark, but you can get the idea. Without further ado:

What a Difference Some Plants Make

Between the crazy day at work, the ongoing family issues and supervising the final day of yard work at the house today, I'm absolutely knackered. I'm getting ready to pass out any second in order to be ready for another crazy day of issues tomorrow, but before I did that I wanted to put up the photos from the end of today.

The plantings are pretty much done except the final touches which will be done on the day they shoot the reveal (which has yet to be decided, but maybe someday over the weekend) In the meantime we are going to get some additional plants and put them in the large pots for around the lower patio section. But here is how it looks so far:

Here are some of the plants that will go in our new large planters in the next couple of day. We need more of the yellow flowers for the long skinny planter we plan to use to hide the AC power lines at the bottom of the fence.

The big issue today was with the waterfall that Gino got donated to us from Superior Faux Products. I guess maybe the company sent the wrong pump and the wrong hoses with this unit by accident because Gino and Ralph spent at least 3 hours trying to get this thing to work with no avail. They finally took it with them and said they would get new hoses and a new pump and get it working in their shop. Then they can bring it back and set it up real quick right before the reveal. From what I saw of it, it did look pretty awesome. It will go in the back right corner and have some rocks and grass planted around it.

Planting!

I never thought I'd live to see the day. Plants! In our backyard! It's amazing. Here are some shots of them arranging the plants and prepping for the mulch…

Backyard Weekend Work

Most of the work this weekend consisted cleaning the yard and the sunroom in preparation for the next few days of TV show related fun. When the crew left on Friday everything was covered in a layer of grime, both inside and outside of the house. We wanted to do some painting on the stucco areas around the sunroom and windows but unfortunately it was a bit too moist outside to do all the work we wanted to do. Instead we did tons of cleaning and worked on the conundrum of achieving the wet look on our stone while it is dry. When the stone is wet it looks amazing but when dry it looks hazy and dirty.

Case in point, wet vs. dry:

This is what everything looks like wet

The first task was to scrub all the stone dust off the rock so even when it dries lighter it doesn't have that dirty haze on it. We did 5 passes on all the stone with a stiff bristle brush and the power washer

After 5 passes the stone actually did look nicer dry

We did one pass with a stone sealer we got at Home Depot on Friday that was hysterically enough called "Impregnator" but while it prevented that white haze that can form on stone, it didn't give the stone that wet look at all, which was kind of the point. We returned it and purchased some Behr stone sealer which specially says it will achieve the wet look. However the next few days are supposed to be rainy and the product specifically says not to use it if rain is expected in the next 24 hours. So I guess we will have to wait. Oh well. So it won't be sealed for the reveal filming but we can just mist the stone to get that wet-look for the camera. We'll do it the next dry weekend we have. Ah the magic of television!

Now the big question is whether or not the crew will be back tomorrow to do the planting. The weather is looking grim and moist for Monday which might not be ideal planting time. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Outdoor Steps Redux

This might seem small, but the stairs up to the upper patio have always bothered me so seeing them redone was a huge, exciting thing for me. Here is the previous look:

Here's what steps looked like last we saw them

And here's what they looked like at the end of the day on Friday—awesome!