Saturday was a good day. A very good day.
James agreed to accompany me to the house and help me out. We noticed that all the rest of the garbage was gone! Ike, our landscaper was hard at work when we arrived. His crew had all the grass removed from the entire front, back and side yards. The sod was there all ready to lay in the front yard and the back was nearly ready for hydroseeding that will be sprayed on Monday. I'm excited to see the results.
The weather was good, so I put the second coat on the front door. Dark Blue. It makes the front look so much better. I have a nice brushed stainless kickplate that will decorate the bottom of the door. I'll get that on sometime here in the next couple of days and it will really spruce up the front and add the needed curb appeal.
James and I painted the front window washing deck and facia boards and the porch stair railing as well. It really perked it up. We also got all of the smoke detectors in and some trim painted too. A good day's work in all.
I met with Miles, the electrician to see if he had any updates on the electrical problems too. He had good news. The breaker box does not need to be replaced after all. After taking it apart some more he found that it was an uncommon double box setup. We don't need a new incoming breaker, a new panel, or wiring of any sort! So I don't have to shell out another $600 - $1000 for that. I believe in miracles!
So, Saturday was a good day. A very good day.
Monday
Hey, It's Not So Bad
Saturday
Back to the Garbage
After the nearly 2 1/2 tons of garbage removal on Saturday 9/16, we could finally begin to see the yard. We knew it was rough and had about 800 doggy presents scattered all over. (Side note: unbeknownst to us we each found several such prizes throughout the day and were unaware until the stench brought realization of our little package, prompting an immediate trip to the side yard with a stick.)
Rod and I just stared at it and while we felt great about getting rid of most of the garbage (we figured we still had another small load to go), the magnitude of the landscaping issues began to sink in. I mentally began tallying up the hours of labor it would take to get it ship shape. No one in their right mind would pay top dollar for a house with the yard in this kind of condition. Do we pay the $$, have a GREAT yard, lose some profit, or do we scimp on the yard and hope to sell it anyway? We did the math. Landscape it is.
I stomped into the house to find our old stained Kitsap County phone book and began calling local landscapers. Within a day or two we had bids. We got more discouraged: $6000, $5500 (phone only - weird), and then Ike, guy just starting his business, (got his name off of Craigslist) came in at only $3,700! Ike's bid included items that the other $6000 bid didn't. We hired him on the spot. We'll have a fully renovated yard! Oh guess what? Ike will remove the rest of our garbage too!!!! I almost wet my pants at the news.
Ike was going to start on Tuesday or Wednesday, but the heavy rain postponed that and he didn't start until Friday and will probably finish up today, Saturday. James and I are heading out today to do some more exterior painting (second coat on the front door, the front window washer ledge) and install smoke detectors; we'll take a peek at the finished product.
I'll take photos and share! Stay tuned.
I feel Tingly All Over!
One of the smaller bedrooms - before of course (my taste in colors isn't that bad!)
Well down came the ugly fan/light in the living room (didn't even have any lightbulbs in it) and we put up a modern brushed aluminum one to replace it. James came to the house to help and I put him up the ladder to do the honors. Guess what? The wires were weird and there was an extra that he couldn't figure out what to do with. Oh, I know, James isn't an electrician, but he HAS put in hundreds of lights over the last few years. We decide to have someone look at that.
So off the ladder and into the kitchen to figure out what to do with the new stove. The old stove was pretty gross and had been hard wired into the house. We had disconnected it a few days before and it was sitting there waiting for someone to get it connected up. I spent about a 1/2 hour cleaning the void left by the old stove (yes, it took that long!). Turns out there's not enough wires! We decide to have someone look at that too.
My brother Dave had also noticed that we had only a 60 amp breaker for the whole house (usually 200). That means any large power draw could cause the main breaker to flip and the entire house go dark. Not good. We decide to have someone look at that.
I called Miles, an electrician, to look at all the above issues as well as put in the two new room thermostats. Guess what.
1. The light in the living room probably never worked, at least the wires didn't appear to be hooked up correctly or go to anything. He has to re-wire it. That'll be $125.
2. He needs some parts and wires to get the stove done. That and the thermostats is an easy fix and only $55.
3. Big problem with the breaker box. The type of wire used was incorrect. Yes the main breaker is way too limiting. The situation is not safe. Fixing it up would be anywhere from $600 (basic fix) to $2000 to re-wire the whole box.
Sigh....
Wednesday
Garbage In - Garbage Out!
Garbage In -
You've heard about our garbage. We have old TV's, a washer and dryer, soon we'll have an old stove out there too. There are toys, blackberry bushes, old lighting fixtures, two toilets, broken vinyl blinds, about 200 pop cans, 2182 cigarette butts, tree branches, an old BBQ and an even older bike, to name just a few items on our growing pile. It's time to do something about it!
We had signed up for a huge dumpster with Port Orchard's Waste Management company immediately after signing our house deal, hoping we'd have it in place when our deal closed. Well, we kept getting put off; "it'll be there next week" was what we were told - two times. We were almost into week three when I got a call at 7:00 a.m., the dumpster was there but they couldn't park it. The driveway was too steep. Our extra parking wasn't quite wide enough and required a street permit from the city. I quickly decided that we'd forgo the dumpster and figure out another way to get rid of our garbage. Sigh...
All week I got bids coming in for debris removal: $850, $800, and the lowest at $700. It sounded like an awful lot of money just for some garbage. So I arranged for a 24 foot Budget rental truck for Saturday the 16th. $100. My brother David, Rod, my soon-to-be son-in-law Daniel, and I spent the day loading the truck with all of the garbage we could. Believe it or not it didn't even all fit!!
Rod, David and I had the task of dumping it. We waited at the transfer station over an hour just to get in, then the fun began. We kicked, threw, heaved, and lobbed garbage out of the truck for over an hour. It was actually kinda fun. When we weighed out and paid ($212) we had dumped almost 2 1/2 tons of junk! No wonder we were exhausted and very grimy.
Speaking of grime. All three of us felt like we had a layer of dust and dirt that made it into every pore of our body. We washed our hands, faces, and wiped down our clothes; to no avail. We just plain felt dirty. On the way back to the rental place to return the truck we were all blowing our noses (each of us trying to gross the others out by how dirty our kleenexes were with black gobs of debris) and using sanitizer on our exposed epidermal areas.
Garbage out.
