Tree removal complete

The tree removal crew showed up a 6:30am on Saturday to begin removing the five dead trees on the two left side lots.

They started with the two in the center of the area......

Two in the center

And moved on to the two by the lot line and the one on the street side close to the far corner.

The two flanking the far corner tree
and one on the extreme right just out
of the picture.

Getting ready....

First one down, four to go.

They cut the first two stumps down low to the ground.  The three along the property line were left above ground but cut level.  Since that area is overgrown and not in use, I didn't see any reason to have them cut lower or ground out.  I figured I could always use them for elevated planter pots or statuary of some type.

Saturday ended with three trees down and two carted away.  Sunday saw the remaining two trees brought down and all carted away.  I have to hand it to the guys, they did a remarkable cleanup inspite of the 100degree afternoon heat.  They were done and gone by 4pm.

Timberrrrrr........
Here's a vid of the third tree being dropped.  By then I had managed to not get too excited when it was falling and bumbling the camera around.  Best viewed at full screen.

It's pretty amazing how on impact the top of the tree just explodes in to hundreds of broken limbs and branches.  Makes cleanup easier!

Lay of the land

I've spent a lot of time talking about the lots on the left, the lot on the right, driveways, etc.,  Now that I have the referenced lots locked up, I thought I create a highlevel visual dipiction of the overall layout.

It's fairly accurate.  The shape of the future driveway is subject to change when the work eventually begins and is or will be influenced by various factors; trees, guidewires, etc.

A couple of things not yet dipicted would be the combination shed and additional carport (it keeps growing) that would be placed along side the future leftside driveway. 

There's also the prospect of a boat house or at least a 'cut in' where one could temporarily park a boat or jetski.  If and whenever that might occur, it would be placed in the far right corner near the right side property line.  I use the term 'if" as that particular project is low on my list of priorities.  There would have to be a good amount of prep work to make make it doable (ie; dredging, seawall, power, etc).  All of that will take time.  The best time to do it would be when the lake is really low and the channel dry but that would mean a significant drought which I don't necessary wish to experience again any time soon!

Tree work scheduled

This afternoon I scheduled a tree service company to come in in the morning to cut down the five dead trees on the two lots to the left of the house which meant I needed to do some cleanup around the trees that were to come down.

Junk be-gone!
One of my neighbors up the street had mentioned one of this neighbors collects junk and passes it on to a third party.  He's not a junk collector himself, rather he just trailers it over to his place and makes it available to the next guy to take it away.  He came over with his flatbed trailer and hauled off all of the metal discards I had thought I would take to a metal recycler.  Well, sometimes good plans are just that, good plans.....that don't necessarily get implemented in a timely manner.  I decided it wasn't going to be worth my effort to haul it off myself so I let him do it. 

Gone!  Somehow it always seems to go faster when someone else does the work!

 I moved the 10 sections of culvert pipe to the far left corner so they'd be out of the way.

This and that....

I've spent the last couple of days on my lunch hour and breaks and after work moving stuff to the storage pen under the carport and conducting some other outside cleanup.

I've been sorting through stuff on the floor in two bedrooms trying to get it organized and into storage boxes so it can be moved into the pen.

As far as outside work, I got out my trusty chainsaw and cut up the huge branch that fell about a month ago crushing the old garage door I had been saving for the future shed.

Before

Ordinarily I would not leave something like that laying around due to it's tacky looking nature but decided I'd leave it while my friend Margie was negotiating with the owners on acquiring the lots.  Figured it might make a better visual representation of the problem with the dead trees on the off (and unlikely) chance they would drive by.  As it turns out, they never did.  Now that the lots have been purchased it was time to get back to the cleanup!

After

Way After

A more social than working weekend!

I'm within about 3-4 sheets of drywall of completing they whole drywall phase.  From there it will be to seek out someone who is proficient and caring in bedding and taping the walls.  I've already had several tips from friends but have not pursued those individuals yet.

In the meantime I'm laying the groundwork for that work to take place by emptying the house out of all the non-essential and non-valuable items (aka: junk).  I want the place to be pretty much empty by the time the work begins so that they can do the work unimpeded.

Since I don't yet have a storage shed, I opted instead to build a temporary holding 'pen' under the carport where it's out of the elements.  On Friday evening I picked up 4 sheets of 4'x8' plywood and some framing materials and set about building an 8'x8' square pen. 

It's nothing fancy and is not intended to be 'secure', rather just to keep things out of sight from the street and out of the way when the interior drywall taping and bedding proceeds.  ALL of the material will be reused when the shed is designed and built.

Once everything is moved into it, I can close in the open end which would just leave the top open which can be tarped over if needed to reduce dust. 

The joys of......maturing......
Early Saturday morning, I tweaked an upper back muscle a bit doing nothing more than just standing there holding the water hose watering a section of grass.  It pretty much necessitated taking it easy for the rest of the weekend.  I could still do some things but I had to do it gingerly.

Social activities
By Saturday afternoon, I had recovered enough to attend an afternoon lakeside deck party which lasted until about 9pm.  Very odd affair.....none of the guests knew each other.  Never been to a party of complete strangers before.  Still, it was a nice evening.

Checking out the lake again....
Sunday I opted to not push my luck regarding my back so didn't do anything that required heavy lifting or rotations.  My neighbor across the channel called me over to go out on the lake so naturally I dropped what I was doing for my second sojourn out on the lake.  We spent about 2 hours cruising the shore lines looking at some pretty impressive mega money pits.  Nice but I'll keep my little four lot 1200sf round house on a shallow channel.  It's my paradise.....well....it will be....maybe....in my lifetime! ;-)  It made me decide to get back to Dallas pretty quick and dig my own boat out of the carport and bring it down here.  Not much sense in having a boat if you aren't using it!

More socializing
On Sunday early afternoon I got a call from another friend about visit some their friends down towards Log Cabin, the south eastern sector of the lake so once again I gratefully dropped what I was doing; sweeping up the carport and populating the storage box, to participate in that.  I enjoyed the social outing!  That lake house was a really nice double-wide on open water.  They even had their own vegetable garden going so it was good to see how they were progressing in that endeavor.  It gave me food for thought in planning out my own eventual garden

Given all of the above activities, there wasn't what I would call real overall progress on the house this weekend but then sometimes you just have to have some down time!

Another milestone: I'm a land baron....sorta!

When I first started negotiations on the Round House, it included the two lots to the left of the house.  Unfortunately (or many not) at the time, the deal fell through and the house went into foreclosure eventually ending up on the HUD listings.  Later I was able to pick up the house for a lot less than what I had been negotiating on though it did not include the two lots.

After I started working on the house and demolishing the garage a plan started formulating in my head to convert the now three bay carport into a drive through.  To accomplish that I needed the lots on both sides of the house.  I picked up the right side lot back in December.  I didn't feel the need to move forward with the left side lots because I figured they had no value to anyone other than myself so they wouldn't sell any time in the foreseeable future.  Always a risk but in the end, I was right.

But because I've reached a point in the renovations where I need an outside storage shed to empty house house into pending taping and bedding the drywall, and the anticipated placement of the shed would be on or just on the other side of the property line, it was time to move forward in acquiring the left side lots. 

I enlisted the aid of Margie, my friend and former coworker from the big box hardware store.  One of my neighbors provided me with a contact address for the owners which I provided to Margie.  She made contact and entered into some back and forth negotiations. 

It took a couple of weeks but I'm happy to announce that she was successful in obtaining the lots on my behalf signing the deed transfer documents on Sunday afternoon!!.....And for less that what I had anticipated!!  That's a good thing.

Standing at the far front corner looking towards the house

Standing near the far front corner looking to the rear

Standing near the rear corner looking towards
the house and street

Standing a the rear corner looking towards the house

The lots are grassy and will look excellent with some care and maintenance but they are not perfect.  Last year's drought killed four pretty sizable trees that will need to come down in the next couple of months.  They continually drop pretty major branches which makes the space dangerous any time there is significant wind movements.

Even with that I am pleased (and relieved) to finally own them!!

Landscaping - Back to the Sod

I was back at it Sunday morning finishing up what was started on Saturday.

 For now, the sod will only go as far as reflected in the next pics.

There are two reason for not continuing; 1) I have to dig up the original waterline to the house and lower it down about another foot to get it out of harms way when the eventual new side access driveway is installed (next post), and 2) as inferred in the prior statement, the new driveway will cross between the sod and the house so obviously sod is not needed there.

The white pipe is the temporary above
ground lake water line.

Right now, though you cannot see it clearly in the above pic, the original copper 3/4" water line is exposed to the elements.   When this section was resculpted to facilitate runoff, the excavation guys were extremely careful to not scrape so low as to snag the pipe though they got close enough to clear the dirt right off the top of it.

The rest of the sod
The near half pallet of remaining sod was placed on the right side of the house along the perimeter walkway.

Glad big Bertha was there to keep things cool

Ran out of sod rounding the new sidewalk

More on the future driveways coming soon!

A little sojourn into the finer things in life

After spending the morning laying sod, I quit early to join some friends on an afternoon trip over to Tara Winery, a nice little Texas winery off the highway between Eustance and Athens.

I've been wanting to visit this winery for some time and am reminded of it every time I drive to Athens and see the sign!  I tried a couple of different glasses of wine, enjoyed a cheese platter and finally to partake in a little wine bottling activities.  We all walked out with a complimentary bottle of Texas Blanc du Bois, 2012, now chilling on the wine shelf in the refridge.

It's definitely worth a return visit.

East Texas Arboretum
After the wine tour, several of us stopped by the East Texas Arboretum to check out their Dream Garden.

I attended a Master Gardner's seminar there about the Dream Garden and wanted my friends to see it.  The Dream Garden is fill with a lot of different plantings that make for a nice place to be all year round with different bloomings at different times of the year.  Since working on Round House and talking with my neighbor Mary who has a decent size vegetable garden, it's something I think I'd like to try myself.  The perfect place would be on the two lots to the left of the house assuming I can buy them from the current owners

Recovery
By the time I got back, even though there was still a couple of hours of light left, with a couple of glasses of wine swilling about, there was no way I was going to spend it outside working.  I called it a day and took a nap! 

Landscaping - 3rd load of sod

I decided that after the latest rain shower, I should work this weekend around the culvert on the opposite side (right side) of the soon to be temporary driveway so I was up bright and early this morning making a run down to the Malakoff Trading company for my third load of sod.

There's a lot of sand and silt in the subsoil around here which tends to dissolve very easily and runs off with the water.  Without ground cover, you can see a lot of erosion so today's game plan is to cover a portion of the the right drainage ditch surfaces to eliminate the erosion.

I'm not going all they way down as somewhere past the Boss, the future right side driveway will be installed with either a new culvert or by pulling the recently installed ones under the current center driveway, splitting them apart again and reusing them under each driveway.

Come on!!  Stop taking pictures and get to work!!

Sigh......"Yes Boss(y)"!

Landscaping - Grass nearly ready for mowing!

My newly planted sod on the berm and in the drainage ditch is going gangbusters. 

Lake water really does a lawn good!

There's that big old branch in the background

It will be ready for it's first mowing this weekend!

Landscaping - Sidewalk extension

When the house was originally built it came with a 3' wide sidewalk on the left and right side of the house.  Years later when central air conditioning was installed the outside condenser unit was placed against the house on the sidewalk essentially permanently blocking the pathway.  When I had the new Carrier Heat Pump/AC system installed, it was logically placed in the same place only this time the condenser unit was half again as large completely filling the sidewalk space to the edge.

Pavers in a crisscross patterns

Years ago someone installed rectangular paver blocks along side the sidewalk where the condenser unit sat providing some semblance of a walk way but it required you step down off the original sidewalk to go around the condenser or to cross over to the old shed that is no longer there.  Over time the soil eroded from rain run off causing them to sink even lower.   Last year I put 3/4 of the blocks to an alternate but temporary use on the other side of the house.  This year, the alternate use was concluded leaving me with a surplus of blocks laying about.  I decided to put them to good use.

New sidewalk
As part of the overall landscape vision I have, part of the plan is to run a 3-4' wide swath of St. Augustine sod around the entire perimeter of the house and let it expand naturally on it's own.  That said, I might go for the instant gratification and expand it even further out but to start 3-4' is enough.  However, before picking up another pallet of sod I felt the need to improve on the existing patchwork of blocks still in the ground and the abundance of existing paver blocks was just the ticket!

Saturday, June 2
On Saturday, I started by bringing in the excess dirt that came with and out of the old culvert pipes that had been dug up out front.  I had just cleaned the pipes out leaving me with a pretty decent pile of dirt.  I relocated about 7 wheelbarrows of dirt to form the foundation for the new sidewalk.  After distributing it I laid out nearly all of the paver blocks following the existing curve of the sidewalk.

Sorry for the shadows!

I packed the soil down as best I could but in the end I was not satisfied that the pavers were even or that they would drain water away from the existing sidewalk.  I had a bit of a challenge as half the pavers were 2" thick, while the other half were only 1.5" thick which meant the subsoil had to be two different heights.  It was time to come up with a better method. 

I set about creating a template out of a 2x10" board cut in such a manner to insure the pave surface would be even all the way across the new sidewalk's width while imperceptibly sloping away from the house.  It worked pretty well so I started at one end removing the pavers one section at a time and more evenly tamping down the subsoil.  I had to quit early because of dinner and theater plans.

Sunday, June 3
Starting at 7:00am (I'm sure the neighbors loved me), I set about pulling up pavers, pounding my template from one section to the next.  I finally got to the other end about three hours later. With all of the pavers in place I drew a diagonal line across each end in preparation for each to be cut evenly.

Once the ends were cut smooth, the next step was to fill the gaps between the stones with some type of stabilizing material.  My material of choice was a half bag of Portland cement left over from the shower pan install.  It was just a matter of spreading it out and sweeping well into the cracks and then watering it in.

And here is the end result....

Nice...

Smooth...

Even....

Not bad if I do say so myself!

A mogul must clean up....

Continued from the previous post.

Because the lot owners were local residing at the other end of the lake, I decided I needed to do a little cleanup in the off chance they might somehow be motivated (ha!) to swing by the lots.  It was unlikely given what I know of them, but there was still a possibility so better safe than sorry.

Recycling...
During the demolition, I kept a lot of re-useable lumber and set aside any metals, including the aluminum garage door that could be recycled either by me or some other entity.   When I finished and started the rebuilding and improvement work, I actually used a fair amount of the junk pile.  With the build-out nearing completion, the pile was dwindling down.  Earlier I had culled through the pile and burned what I knew would not be used.

While I had a vague twinge of guilt it wasn't enough to stop me from making use of the lot. There's an old saying:  It's easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.  Like I said, it's only temporary.  I kept it tidy and would have left them the woodpile if they booted me off but I really didn't think they'd ever come by.

Last year......
Before the undergrowth started covering it over.

 When the old culvert was dug up, the cost of the work didn't include carting away the old pipe so the guys piled them next to over by the other junk pile.

Before the culverts were added to the mix

I cleaned them out of all the dirt and roots that clogged the pipes and rolled them around behind the wood pile wall out of sight from the street. 

Since they were in three foot sections, I figured I'd make good use of them in some creative way....perhaps planters in a big round circle around the future vegetable garden and adorn them with hanging vines or something of the like.

Stop hassling me!
Margie had been hassling me not taking all that "crap" to the dump earlier.  I told her I would eventually take what I could to a recycler first rather than a landfill.  The primary item I wanted to keep was the old garage door.  I figured I would have it installed in the new storage shed when it was built.

She finally offered to come over and help thinking somehow that would get the job done faster.  It was a mildly warm and humid day.  We walked over to the pile.  Margie had only seen the pile once and hadn't really paid attention to it so we just stared at it, looked and each other and said almost simultaneously said Let's go do something else! and walked away.  I didn't hear anything from her about it after that!

Should have moved it sooner!
Mother nature has a way of giving things a boost.  Last week around midnight another huge branch on one of the dead trees finally gave way and came crashing down.  I didn't hear the break or any jarring crashes, rather I heard the rustle of aluminum and thought of a prowler but as it turned out it was the branches hitting some sheet metal in the junk pile.

I figured if the lot owners came by it would make for a good visual since technically it's their responsibility and liability....so I left it. 

Later, when I started cleaning out and moving the culvert pipes I took a closer look and discovered to my chagrin that the biggest and heaviest end of the limb crashed right down on top of the garage door panels mashing them beyond repair.  Better it fell on them than on me (or anyone else)!

No reason to save anything from the pile now so it all goes to the recycler or dump.

Margie's gonna great real smug when I tell her about that!