After waiting 1 1/2 months for a rescheduled landscape design appointment, I took time off work today to meet with the guy at the house. Something went out of balance just when I was leaving work, and then (not to let on about the state of our security) I sat in my car at the gate of my workplace for more than 5 min. waiting for it to open, while the guard was maybe staring into space in the tinted booth next to me. I frantically searched my cellphone for the nursery number but it was listed as "000-0000". Me. Useless.
So when I arrived home 10 min late, there was a message from the guy with no callback number. I tried 5 different numbers in the phone book before I got hold of him. He had been by, had "drawn the yard out" and said to come pick up the plans at the nursery. And then I said, "I was hoping to try to meet you so we could talk about traffic patterns and plants suitable for swampy areas and the limited light in my front yard." He said, quote, "I don't need to know nothing about traffic patterns."
I vented to Jason a bit later and he observed that my idea of a lanscape designer was not what this guy's idea was. Well, yes. I had a plot survey for him and the new house colors and even wanted to ask about shed placement. Guy wanted to hear none of it and talked over me. I found a new place in the phone book while I was talking to guy on the phone, a specifically "woman-owned" landscaping/irrigation/waterscaping business. I will give them a try instead.
The taste of slimy water
Good news for me, the electric box in the laundry room won't need to be moved, and only the cable holes need readjustment. When I planned this out, I completely forgot about the dryer venting. It will go in the wall and through the attic now, but it's a shame because one of my only projects this summer was to install a pretty, flush vent in the stucco-drywalled sun porch window currently hidden by the dryer. But now I can reinstall a window there.
I'm still waiting for the crawl space to dry out enough so it's not sludgy and slippery to work under there on my knees. We thought about pumps and drain pipes but a low-tech solution occurred to me- why not raise the crawl space/swimming pool vent openings? Right now they are at ground level and make an excellent drain for storm water overflow. The crawl space bottom is 2-3 feet lower than the yard level. That might sound pretty stupid, but it seems to be the result of building up the yard with infill to encourage quicker draining. This explains why our 1928 driveway ribbons are 6" below the topsoil. And as this is Florida and we live on infill creek bed, maybe parts of the yard did indeed sink sometime and need refilling.
I can't say how many times we thought about moving during this week-long storm. But, improvements must be made so we're not flipping them onto a buyer as it happened to us. It would be super if those improvements don't include me trying to suck the end of the garden hose to make a crawl space siphon.
I'm still waiting for the crawl space to dry out enough so it's not sludgy and slippery to work under there on my knees. We thought about pumps and drain pipes but a low-tech solution occurred to me- why not raise the crawl space/swimming pool vent openings? Right now they are at ground level and make an excellent drain for storm water overflow. The crawl space bottom is 2-3 feet lower than the yard level. That might sound pretty stupid, but it seems to be the result of building up the yard with infill to encourage quicker draining. This explains why our 1928 driveway ribbons are 6" below the topsoil. And as this is Florida and we live on infill creek bed, maybe parts of the yard did indeed sink sometime and need refilling.
I can't say how many times we thought about moving during this week-long storm. But, improvements must be made so we're not flipping them onto a buyer as it happened to us. It would be super if those improvements don't include me trying to suck the end of the garden hose to make a crawl space siphon.
Jason will love this
I have the day off (government contract-employee). I've accomplished nothing on the three-day weekend and desparately wanted to. So much so that I couldn't relax, knowing all these things are stalling. So while I can't knock out a wall, I can knock out a box. I took this thing out, in an hour :45.
Now when Jason gets home, I'll be sure to tell him that mice will be coming through the wire hole until I get around to moving the box 4" to the right and 1" higher. The plot is to switch the water heater with the stacked washer/dryer, enabling us to use the back door more easily. Oh, he's home now!
Now when Jason gets home, I'll be sure to tell him that mice will be coming through the wire hole until I get around to moving the box 4" to the right and 1" higher. The plot is to switch the water heater with the stacked washer/dryer, enabling us to use the back door more easily. Oh, he's home now!
Isle Collins, in the strait of Murray No-Hill
While I'm just itching to start the kitchen renovation by knocking out a false wall in the kitchen, I've promised myself not to do it until I have enough money to fix whatever I discover behind it. So that will wait indefinitely while our new (to us) appliances hang in my mom's laundry room. Then I'll build a couple of new cabinets, and am ordering all the doors from Rockler because I don't want to make them.
In the meantime, we got some rain this week. Maybe this is why our house is higher than the ones around us. Everyone else still had some yard left. The water was within a foot of the joists in the crawlspace. When the water got pretty high that night, some people in a dinghy hit the chimney wall on their way to the cars stranded in the picture below.
The microwave circuit breaker kept flipping that night. Reviewing my electric notes today, I saw the cable to that outlet runs under the house instead of through the attic like the rest of the runs. Everything else is fine, though my car has been wedged in a mud rut since Tuesday, as nothing is really dry yet. Most of the yard mulch is still hanging around, too. Mostly, this has taught me that when we build the shed, it needs to be at least 1' off the ground.
In the meantime, we got some rain this week. Maybe this is why our house is higher than the ones around us. Everyone else still had some yard left. The water was within a foot of the joists in the crawlspace. When the water got pretty high that night, some people in a dinghy hit the chimney wall on their way to the cars stranded in the picture below.
The microwave circuit breaker kept flipping that night. Reviewing my electric notes today, I saw the cable to that outlet runs under the house instead of through the attic like the rest of the runs. Everything else is fine, though my car has been wedged in a mud rut since Tuesday, as nothing is really dry yet. Most of the yard mulch is still hanging around, too. Mostly, this has taught me that when we build the shed, it needs to be at least 1' off the ground.
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