Today was concrete day! Yay! The guys have been out there all day in the dreary weather getting the slab down.
It took two trucks full of concrete.
Check out those boots.
Donnie let the girls put their handprints in the front corner of the garage.
I took this pic before he got the “R” scratched in. Don’t worry, it’s there.
That’s the name that comes to mind when I think of our future garage. It’s going to be big! It’s going to be a little taller than our house and wider than the existing garage. It needs to be big enough to hold Donnie’s bobcat, trailer, his office space, and normal everyday household stuff.
So here’s the cleared out space. Donnie started by marking the corners.
That’s our neighbor’s house and driveway in the background. The back of our garage will be up against the property line.
This is the spot where a huge oak tree was taken down. It was right outside the kitchen window. The interesting thing is that even though it looked healthy from the outside it was completely hollow on the inside. Glad it’s down! We had to take down 3 large oak trees in order to make room for the garage, pool, and patio.
Here’s Emmitt checking out the progress.
Here’s more progress. They are working on the footings. The plan is to have the termite spray tomorrow, inspection on Thursday, and pour the concrete on Friday.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
I was waiting patiently for the calendar to flip over to October. Now that it has, all the Fall décor is making it’s way out.
I got most of this stuff at Hobby Lobby for 40% off.
I thought those burlap frames looked very Pottery Barn-esqe, but at a fraction off the price. I just printed out the word BOO! to put inside the frame.
My dollar store skeletons made it to another year.
Now here’s a before and after. We have a long way to go on the entrance, but we’ve already shown big improvement. :)
This was the front door when we bought the house. That’s not really the door, that’s a screen door in front of the door. The real door only had one glass square at the top.
This is the front door now. Donnie cut out all the squares and replaced them with glass. He also sanded and stained the door and replaced the hardware.
I got the wreath at HomeGoods and the door knocker online.
I love this door knocker. I think it’s so cool. Hence the close-up.
So that’s where we are right now. Donnie drew up the garage and it’s at the engineer right now being turned into plans. I’m so excited about having a detached garage and driveway I can’t stand it.
We got a few small inside things taken care of this week.
Donnie kicked things off by installing the light over the sink. We bought the light about 8 months ago and it’s just been sitting in a cabinet.
It came from Shades of Light. I needed to get something in the chrome family to match the other lighting and hardware but it also needed to be semi-flush so it didn’t block the view.
Here’s a wider view of it. You’ll also notice that I changed the stool cushions. They are a yellow chevron pattern and came from World Market.
This next shot shows that I FINALLY painted the window sill. The paint can has been sitting on top of the window sill for months and I just wasn’t getting around to it. When Donnie got the light up I knew I had to just do it. So I knocked it off the list this morning.
This is the new outlet that needed to be hooked up for the light. The holes that are left correspond to the switches for the under cabinet lighting and garbage disposal.
Lastly, by the front door I‘ve spruced up the entry a bit. That’s the bench where the girls drop their stuff when they walk in. I got that cute bicycle pillow at World Market last weekend. It’s very summery. As you can see, the house has a yellow and orange scheme going on at the moment.
The guys are just about done with the bulkhead. They’ve worked on it all day, but are now inside due to the rain.
Remember on the last post how I commented about things washing up on our shoreline? Well today we got the biggest thing to date.
There was a bad storm yesterday and now we have a boat! It’s not like it’s going anywhere, so the owner has plenty of time to come and retrieve it. If it’s never claimed, Donnie commented that it would be a good dock building boat. We’ll see.
So Donnie got all the posts in about 2 weeks ago and also got the top and bottom boards in that run horizontally. I’m not sure what they are called.
Tim has been helping him get the wall portion up.
They started at the south end. You can see how far we are set back from that neighbor.
So that’s where they are right now. They are making good progress and the weather has been beautiful today. It’s wasn’t as scorching hot as the prior two days.
We going to try and pry him away from the bulkhead tomorrow so we can spend some time at the beach. We’ll see. He’s in a zone. :)
Happy Father’s Day!
I’ve never heard of a silt fence either. It’s a temporary sediment control device used on construction sites to protect water quality in nearby areas. In this case, it will keep all of the construction mess out of the river.
The white string is representing where the posts and bulkhead will be.
When the tide is low we have a little shore line. Sometimes you can see washed up garbage or shoes, but this morning it looks nice and pretty. Maybe Donnie cleaned it up.
Here are the posts ready to be installed.
And here’s the first post in. Hallelujah!
This morning the wood was delivered. A nice man in a large truck showed up and dropped it in the front yard. I believe it’s the wood that’s going to make up the wall.
So that’s where we are right now. I’m sure some good progress will be made this weekend.
Donnie’s focus over the last 2 weeks has been the exterior and the bulkhead. Our house is on a bluff and has no seawall. I don’t know if they are called seawalls in S. Florida and bulkheads up here, but moving forward I’ll call it a bulkhead since that’s what Donnie calls it.
The DEP came out a month ago and told us that if we wanted to avoid taxes and fees we need to start our bulkhead right about where that tree is in the picture below. It’s about 5 feet back from our neighbors on the north side.
This next picture gives some perspective on how far down the water is from the house. We will gain a lot of yard by getting the bulkhead in, filling it in, and getting some grass down.
Here’s our neighbor’s bulkhead to the south. Ours will be set back the same amount as on the other side I believe.
This is another perspective from the water line. You can probably tell that the yard is way above my head. The north neighbors have a tiered yard with stair steps going down to the river and the other neighbors have a gradual slope. I think Donnie is leaning towards tiers. We’ll see. He changes his mind a lot.
Lastly, this is Tim trying to clean up the house a little bit. Ultimately the house is going to have a Key West look with siding and a metal roof, but for now we are just painting the concrete block to freshen it up a bit. After the bulkhead is in, Donnie is going to build the detached garage in the front. It’s going to be funny having a fancy, tropical garage sitting in front of the un-fancy, block house. Oh well, it will only be temporary.
So that’s all for now. This pics are 2 weeks old, so Donnie actually has the shore line all cleared and level and ready for the posts. I’ll have to get out and get more pics today.
