Lisa in Groveland, FL 96 entries to date 124 forum posts to date
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Posted to LittleLakeCorner by Lisa in Groveland, FL
on 2/23/2008 8:41:59 AM
Yep we had our C/O inspection on 21st Feb and we passed. :) So, so pleased and relieved, but there is still lots to do. I had to call Metro Garage Door as they had taken two bolts out of the garage door framing and not replaced them, the inspector noticed this and asked me to call the garage door company to get this rectified, when I said of course I would. I called them at 9am and they duly came out yesterday. Sadly however just before they left I noticed the hammer drill had pushed the stucco off the exterior of the wall! Nooooo. Mike was mortified, so were we as we have a punch out list aka to do list and every time we knock another item off three more get added and we needed this like a hole in the head. So I called the stucco company we used as they had covered up the electrical outlets outside and the electrician had to go digging for them and we needed to do something about that as well. Could not get hold of the boss but got hold of the Drew and he offered to come out Monday (free) with a bucket of stucco and quickly patch it up. Wow, someone is smiling on us, so we just have to paint the patches when cured (dried). The carpet went down on Wednesday and Thursday and it truly finished the house, wow!
We have now planted 114 trees in total and have just 4 to go or 8 if I can locate 3x Royal Poinciana’s and 1x Hass Avocado tree. Thank goodness we had the Mini excavator (Which I have thoroughly enjoyed driving) because we picked up the 19 Queen Palms this week which had come up from Miami, $60 each. They were meant to be 7-8 ft tall, 3-4" caliper however it turns out they had run out of those so they upgraded us and we picked up the (unbeknown to us) first 6 which looked great but were very heavy and we had to use a chain and the excavator (digger) to just lift them off the trailer!!! Rupe then went to fetch the second load of 7 palms, and called me (Luckily we had placed the palms by the holes and not buried them!) Lisa these trees are bigger." "OK" "No Lisa these trees are a lot bigger!" Well there in nothing we could do but move the first trees to the house as we wanted similar size tree either side of the drive. Well the trees were not just big, they were huge. 14-16 ft tall and over 12" caliper and we could barely lift them without the digger tipping over!!!! So a few heart stopping moments! On the 3rd load the trees got bigger still but not by so much. The largest tree (now we have hired a huge trailer) had its root ball at the front of the trailer and its fronses (spelling) almost another trailer length off the other end of the trailer!!! Rupe had tied a plank of wood at the end so it was tilted up. Thank goodness the Cherry Lake is only 6 miles from us. I will include pics tomorrow as it is raining cats and dogs and I have to start packing and clearing our rental house and we pack up tomorrow and the POD will be moved on Monday. We still have hardware to put on doors and the painters for the trim were meant to come back by now to paint the missing bi-fold door (long story) but of course want to do that on Monday!!!! Window adjusters come Monday too, so the mania continues. I must mention Mum and Dad flew into the country Monday and although tired and lots of other things going on, worked flat out with us on Thursday and Friday getting those massive palms in. I'm not sure we would have got it done without them. Rupe also has taken time off work to work alongside me and has worked amazingly hard. This has had two major benefits, we have got a lot achieved, and the company has been fab and made it so much less lonely. So a BIG thank you to everyone who has helped along the way, it has meant more than you know.
Having done heavy work for 4 weeks straight now must add it is not easy. Motrin (iprobrufen) has been a godsend and every evening and in the morning I can barely move, too much lactic acid build up but what can you do??? It has been a long tiring 9.5 months of build with over a year of planning beforehand. We are SO, SO looking forward to living in our house and getting back a "normal" manic life. Words cannot describe how much some time off is really needed by us all.
Below pics of trailer plus trees, our fireplace, Lotties late in the evening 4th Birthday. Take Care.
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| Rupe and Abbie with 3 Crepe Myrtles, 3 Flane Red Maples and 3 Miss Chloe Magnolias. |
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| Our 4 yr old on her birthday, time passes very quickly. |
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| New pink umbrella and Abbie's arm. |
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| Our fire (cement yet to be done)and carpet in! |
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| Lottie & hat in the evening. |
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| Lottie and cake. |
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| Abbie and Lottie the diva in matching dressing gowns. |
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| Plus Lottie wanted her own tool kit to help Mummy, bless! |
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Posted to LittleLakeCorner by Lisa in Groveland, FL
on 2/17/2008 7:02:59 PM
Another busy week. We have planted between Thursday and today (Sunday) 81 trees. There is still so much to be done. Numbers on house, mail box in, chalking, more trees hardware on doors, cement fireplace, paint missed bits, touch up bits where subs have bashed into walls. The list just gets longer.
Why so many trees, well we have to put five Oaks ( 30 gal 10ft high 2-2.5" caliper width) in as we submitted a replanting plan so we could get rid of the Lantana by the wetland and thats what St. Johns Water Managment required in order to get approval. Three Oaks as required by our HOA (min 12ft high 2.5-3" caliper which is a 45 gal) Then we got 72 Natchez Crepe Myrtles! Why because we are using the Company and are buying them wholesale from Cherry Lake Tree Farm, we hired a trailer and a mini excavator (Sunbelt $500 for the week or $1000 for the month) and it works out so much cheaper and prettier than putting up hundreds of feet of vinyl 3 rail fencing. ($37 a pop for 6-7ft) We have placed them every 25ft and due to easement acces they are 7.5 ft inside our boundary. They are a bit sparse now being our winter but I will take a picture when they leaf and bloom and then in the autumn their leaves turn a beautiful shade of red. Rupe liked the multiple trunks best (four to five trucks per tree) and they have proven so much easier particularly on the 900ft run to get in a straight line. We have put in four Miss Chloe Magnolias but like them so much we will probably get another five and they provide a barrier for viewing straight into the garage, plus they are evergreen, we have three Flame Red Maples coming and 4 Japanese Blueberries.
I must add Kris yet again stopped by for the whole afternoon and was a great helped us out big time, we never would have gt so far so fast without him, plus he made it so much more fun. Kris if you ever read this major thank you's
Our carpet, well the one we picked ended up not being reserved :( so we had alot of running around to do last week as delivering March was not going to fly. Suffice to say Rupe and I selected another carpet and it will be installed Wed/Thu & Fri. Then Rupe has to work so we are now moving fingers crossed Mon 25th, but we have yet to ok this with the property managers so major sweet talking tomorrow. We are going for our C/O (Certificate of Occupancy) on Thursday 21st (also Lottie's 4th Birthday, bless her) so all those who have been following this please keep your fingers crossed for us. Hope you like the pics, more to follow, we have to tidy up inside so I will take some pics this week but one is included of the granite completed and the kitchen tile. Boy there is so much to do.
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| Yours truly digging holes, for the Crepe Myrtles. |
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| Magnolias on the back of the trailer |
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| Lots of Trees, Holes, the Girls and Me. |
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| End of a long Saturday. Kris was a major help for us, and Susan also joined us at the end of the day |
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| Street Urchin and Product placement. |
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| Our kitchen tile, pic with the flash! |
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| Our kitchen tile pic without the flash. It gives you the idea though |
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Posted to LittleLakeCorner by Lisa in Groveland, FL
on 2/11/2008
Some pics of the side of the house where the window trim is finished, yes I know it looks white but it is an off white, very slightly off, called (get this and no we did not make up the name) "Divine Pleasure". Plus we do not usually let our daughter eat this mucky, but as she was so hungry and therefore being a real pain, we picked up a Mojo chicken from Publix and shoveled it as fast as we could, on about the fifth mouthful she smiled (yes she is usually a happy soul unless she's hungry) so we could wash her hands and then after the meal scrub her in the bath. Shall I include a before and after food pic, she may kill me when she's older but here goes.
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| East side trim painted. |
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| Over garage painted |
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| Before Food |
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| Still before food. |
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| Food not reached source yet. |
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| Hey Food has reached source and it only took five mouthfuls! :)
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Posted to LittleLakeCorner by Lisa in Groveland, FL
on 2/10/2008 12:33:28 PM
Okay first of all we chickened. We have so much to do and were dreading more painting I managed to get painters in to finish the interior trim. Meanwhile we have not been idle. The weekend before last and the week before that, I was loading gravel into the wheelbarrow. Rupe had dug a drain on the east side of the house as the earth was too high and lined it put in a drain with several grates to take the water away, I filled and covered it with gravel as he was preparing to g to AL. Did several barrow loads, Rupe was ready to go he did two and then after 50 barrow loads (yes my arms were dead) and 9pm that evening filled with gravel. Then over the weekend I dug an area out of 2 ft from the edge of the house put in pavers and filled the remainder one foot for 80ft in length with gravel, however on Sunday I had a massive amount of help. Our neighbours who also OB'ed drove past and I thought jokingly said "you need help?", I replied "Always, but its your weekend off work!" Smiled and though no more of it. 40 mins later Kris appears on ride-on mower with a trailer with his two kids. That was great as it kept our 2 more than happy and occupied and Kris loaded up his trailer and then helped deposit the gravel where required. A lot of work has got to be the understatement of the century, in fact Kris caught up with me laying pavers and it was impossible to stay ahead. The good company was more than appreciated and I do miss Rupe at the weekends and we got a shed load done. Kris' wife came by with drinks as the kids and painter had gone through the load we had very quickly as it was very hot. A Big Big thank you Kris above and beyond the call of duty and it’s so great that we have such great neighbours and friends. The HOA are still being pains in the rear, they do not like our colour and although was have it signed off on we got approval they are still bitching and insinuating we did not, strangely by the very person who signed the documentation. Luckily I kept copies of everything as they seem to have lost the original set and the copies we provided from what I understand. Although some members clearly remember giving approval it was not documented in the minutes of Feb 2007 so that must mean we are lying. Sadly the ethos of the few is the opposite of generating a good company spirit, and domineering the community with there thoughts, opinions and loading them on us. I had heard ages ago one did not like the way garages were as he can see them coming through the gates!!! However although he had possession of the plans the Oct prior to us breaking ground it did not click until the walls went up, but he still aired getting us to change them, incredible!! Luckily for us more sober opinions dominated that one that time, which is just as well as we would have had no option but to sue. Unbelievable!!! So as you can imagine certain members of the HOA are not exactly encouraging good will to all men.
Enough about them though. This week we had 86 pallets of sod delivered. 65 pallets of Zoysia and 19 bumped up to 21 of Bahia for the swale to satisfy the anally retentive on the HOA (opps said I would not mention them again). Sadly the Bahia was great but very full so we definitely got less than 400 sqft per pallet with the swale, so I ordered some more as our neighbour wanted some so we are sharing an artic (truck/lorry), so another 5 are due for us 10 for our neighbour Karl and possibly 2 for our other neighbour David who was to have 4 on Friday but I nicked 2 (with his blessing I hasten to add) We used Dwight Meeker at Florida Nu-Turf who was getting them from 2 hours away but them they ended coming from Lake Jem. Really good quality stuff so pleased and we got decent rates to as I was ordering so much, $48 per pallet for Bahia and $86 per pallet for Zoysia this including the trucking and a forklift on the back to the truck to position them, as we were paying to have this included we did not hire a forklift mush to the chagrin of our installers. Ours let us down at the last minute by (just as well admitting 3 of their workers did not have Workers Comp of exemption certificates ($16 per pallet to install), so I skipped to my second option and he reneged on his offer of $17 per pallet Kenny was his name with another Landscaping company, so I slated him to Service Magic, so I called our neighbour who kindly gave me his contact who turned out to be Enrique who supervised our pour for the slab and driveway. I knew him already so happy punter here, plus I admire the companies who divert there energies into many areas in order to survive in these times, plus he had al the paperwork. Now I did not expect a great price as David got $12 per pallet but when they offered $15 per pallet that is what I was going for in the first place. Just as a side note one of the callers to bid on the install was Advantage landscapers or something, a chirpy chap who rung and offered $150 to install per pallet, when Rupe politely said thank you for calling but "NO" he got his knickers in a twist and he starting being very rude, saying this call was costing him. I was off my call at that time and Rupe handed him to me. I explained to him in as small words as possible that his price was so way off there really was no point negotiating, he went off on one at that point saying it cost him $30 to call us with Service Magic. I kindly told him that he needed to be more competitive then and that was not my problem, it was so ridiculous I was getting the giggles because this little man just did not shut up and wanted to rant, so I politely told him I did not have the time and needed to hang up but as hanging up on people is rude that I was telling I was going to hang up. A strange and bizarre situation. ServiceMagic called me later that day and asked if I had been contacted, I had but enlightened them what had gone on. Strangely on checking neither company came up looking the other day, so maybe they took note. That said although I have used Service Magic for bids on occasion I think I have only used 2 companies through them, so don't use them as your only source, there are plenty more competitive people out there especially at the moment.
Finally some old pics below of the granite install, I have not taken pics inside for a while and tiling is finished, appliances in, trim painting nearly done, but I did take some of the new sod, I think we need a roller and trailer tomorrow and I must get up there as another load of washing has just finished. Move date will be 20th Feb, as that’s when our POD is collected, so more sod on Monday and trees Mon, Tues and Wed. I must go carpet shopping too and have booked an appointment with empire. I am wary as I have read many complaints online, but not in our area and a builder who is OBing for himself at Beauclair Ranch Club uses them and gave them a good reference. SO we shall see. Hope you like the sod and yes it does need to be rolled.
Just in case you think we are taking it all in our stride and this sounds simple, not so, the last bit is definitely the hardest and there is not a muscle in my body that does not ache, Motrin has been a God send. We have been up at 0530hrs every morning this week and not left the site until 2000hrs, the kids in bed late at 2100hrs and us around Midnight if I have not fallen asleep mid meal on the sofa. Rupe left me on the sofa the other day thinking he would wake me in 15 mins, but he fell asleep on our bed and awoke to wake me at 3am, yes it’s that bad. With kids washing piles up, as does long needed housework, there are definitely not enough hours in the day.
Photos
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| Sod either side of our drive |
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| Zoysia sod on the west side of the house. |
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| Sod at the back where one day there may be a pool. Notice Cabbage palm has had a haircut as have the thre oaks at the bottom of the land, love our chainsaw :) |
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| Sod on the rear of the house |
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| Can you see all that gravel on the left, probably not, the lines are kind of wavy, we'll call it adding character:) |
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| Sod, pavers around the garage apron |
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| Back up to the pillars |
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| East side of the entry part of the drive Zoysia and Bahia. |
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| West side of the entry part of the drive. |
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| Bahia in the swale and Lotties head |
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| Long view of the bahia in the swale. |
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| This is how grubby the kids get pre (and probably post) sod for those in the UK, SOd over here is not rude it means "grass", thought I'd better mentioned that and yes we still use the word as a play on words. |
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| Abbie getting her "Terrific Kid of the Week" award 2 weeks ago. |
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| Old pics of the granite having gone in. Master Bathroom |
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| Installing the granite bar over our Ikea porcelain sink |
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| Another angle of the granite going in a month ago now. |
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Posted to LittleLakeCorner by Lisa in Groveland, FL
on 1/31/2008 9:29:03 PM
Well apologies about the gap but its due to sheer hard work and a lot has progressed finally : )
I'll start with the most recent good news, as we passed our FINAL inspections today. We had the Gas and Electric Pre- Power the week before last, but as the plumber was too busy we had to wait on them and so today we passed our Electric, Low Voltage, Plumbing and HVAC inspection. Now the only inspection to go is our C/O (Certificate of Occupancy). Now the downside, we also found out we could not call our C/O yesterday, as online there is not a box for Pre-power so you effectively call the Electric FINAL twice, so each time I rung Lake County and spoke with them and they told me Environmental Health Dept had put a hold on Permit so we could not get our C/O. Errr Why??
So I rang the Environmental Health Dept, because we passed our Septic inspection back in August. Apparently it was due to our well guys not filing a "Completion report" with that dept. They should have done it within 30 days of drilling the well. The only way of knowing this is if you go to the Permit front page, which we had not as we know it backwards and only request inspections and check we've passed online. Now here is the rub we used A & B Well Drilling, they were fine except you never knew when they would be turning up and of course we are meant to be walking cheque books and have to be there with a cheque whenever they are there and even then you get suspicious looks. We one part of the well, shortly after installation, was leaking as they said they guaranteed their work we called them out. It was where the plastic met the metal pipe, which was no surprise as they had made that branch long and they fixed by shortening it a little and we used stakes to prop it up as we were considering then to put the well tanks in the garage. However shortly after the same happened again, so we called them out again. This time they tried to charge me and a plastic tube was broken. Well they insisted this had been driven into and tried to charge me $175 or $275 bucks!! Luckily for me I had used my last cheque on a previous person and hadn't worried as I was not due to pay anyone anything for the remainder of the day, until hey presto they show up again me meant to know they were coming by osmosis or something. Rodney Fagan was really pissed with me, which confused me at first as to why as it should have been the other way around he also started insisted the glass tube had been damaged by someone driving into it which as I pointed out was impossible as it was surrounded by the well, 2 filtration tanks, the main tank and the plastic salt container how could anything bigger than a snake damage it but somehow leaving those items untouched??? After they left shock wore off and called his wife Laura and told her flat that any charge should have been cleared with me first and she had confirmed wit me they guaranteed there work or so why a charge for work that had only just been done, plus I had paid them on the spot every time but this was a little much. She was great and apologised and did call me back saying Rodney should not have acted that way or tried to charge us, sadly there after was the last we spoke as she said we were to only deal with Rodney who did not take our calls, which we did not mind as I did feel he had a nasty smell under his nose when I dealt with him, obviously didn’t like dealing with a women, (pretty much got to the point of spotting them a mile off now). Dec rolls on and we cannot contact them to come and move the tanks as verbally agreed. All their telephone numbers have disconnected so after 2 weeks we went to Keith Ratchford who Cara and Jason used to move the wells to find out we'll urn out our filtration system if we use it for house water and irrigation so we put in a chlorine system for the irrigation only so we do not have the iron or sulphur smell from the well water.
Now we need to contact A and B Well drilling urgently, I googled them, and called so many people. Finally a long shot I found another Fagan near where their address was on Google, who also runs a well company and as luck would have it he turns out to be their Uncle Greg, so he gave me a number, who gave me another number who gave me Rodney’s cell phone. I left a message and another message and Rupe started calling him too. Meanwhile Environmental Health who I'd explained my dilemma too, happened to have in the office someone who had recently used them, and they gave me the number they had which turns out to the number Uncle Greg had given me, so I called them again and got a lady called Dana, I think was Andy's wife who was in a better mood and explained our dilemma. Finally this morning we get a result. They were meant to call me, as Rupe had been speaking with them, so I could be at the land. However in typical fashion show up call me to get in the gates, me having left the site 40 mins ago. They were very pleasant on the phone to Rupe and were even going to take the report to Tavares which impressed me. Then they call to get details such as the permit number, suddenly they are not going to Tavares and would leave it under the garage door, what!!! They knew it was urgent but I could do the trip to Tavares, Gees thanks. It takes 3 hours I had appointements all afternoon and I had to collect Abbie from school as Rupe was away working. I remembered Environmental Health saying they usually faxed it so I said can you fax it then, (guess what I'm not holding my breathe so I raced up to the site had one of my meetings, raced home to fax it, turned up late to collect Abbie from school, then raced to Lowes and the stone company. I guess what annoyed me is they caused this situation and expected me at the busiest time to drop everything. Would we use them again, err NO!! We know exactly who we would use next time and they are not the cheapest but them are genuinely pleasant only little more and lets face it a few dollars is worth it to be treated with respect, professionalism, and know you can call them back and they'll be fine about it.
Okay I've vented my spleen, what else the tilers finished mid Jan and they had to demo the exterior wall from John Morelli's (1st tiler) attempt. Now its finished I can so see why, John Morelli and Loy had got themselves into a right old mess, they had no idea what to do next and if they'd carried on the top grout line would have been missing where it meets by greater than 2 inches. It would have looked terrible. I will post pics later as it needs to be cleaned since the granite guy cut fine black dust has got everywhere. Plus only so much time.
We finished the fire which we got from Mantels4less.com Canada. It looks great, weighs 600lbs, having lifted it (in pieces I hasten to add) I can pretty much verify the weight. Bloody hell is it heavy! Its called thin cast stone, well then how heavy is average cast stone? It cost $1400 and another $400 for shipping which was so much cheaper than buying thin or any cast stone in the US as they start $2000 and once you've paid shipping and other incidental costs you are lucky to see change out of $2800. Again pics to follow. Lifting the mantel on of the first time was a struggle, I marked it up and bolted a 2 by 4, 4ft to the studs, then some construction adhesive and up it went later, got it up to waist height looked at Rupe who was also struggling so I knew it was not me wimping out, it was the bit of getting it from waist height to shoulder height, the body sort of said you did this once and you want to do it again, forget it. I still dont know how I did it but all I kept thinking was dont drop it, its too much money. Goodness it hurt, but we did it.
Something which has caused aching limbs too, is I got to play with my chainsaw this week. Woman with chainsaw beware!!! Well I had great fun doing the cabbage palm, Rupe thought it looked great but I had not finished, he started pleading with me to leave some leaves :) However he could not have been too worried as he took the kids home and left me to it and the upright leaves will lower but it looks great now and the undergrowth has gone so less worries about snakes. The next day although it is a light, easy start, holding it high had done the arm muscles in. But fun takes precedent as we have had precious little of that lately and we set about our Oaks trees, this time Rupe and I together, Abbie helped clear branches and thought it was really cool how quickly it chomped through all the branches, we got rid of all the branches up to about 8ft so we have 2 nice canopies and one (the first one) we went a little mad on and it is sort of scalped, but it was growing sideways and we left the main bit growing up.
Now I can bearly pick up things my arms hurt so much, and it was amusing having Ram watch us shaking his head as if we were a) kids, b) about to lose our heads with this toy which neither of us had ever used before, especially as the mound of tree now cut is massive and we were holding it over our heads getting final little branches, were we being stupid, dont worry Mum an Dad, “no”, but did we have fun “Oh yes” and it only took less than 2 hours :). Still we have the wetland area to go now, but this weekend maybe as my arms are truly pathetic.
Whose Ram, well Rupe was on the way to Sunbelts to hire a JCB, as if you read back in the summer Colin had screwed up our final grade. (God it sounds like we have had rotten luck, we have had two main rotters the 1st tiler and Colin irrigation and final grade, we have had the odd subs we would not use again due to attitude such as the well people and the truckers charging by the hour for bunking off at the side of the road, the wall people were plain daft over what it took tapcons to solve) but we have actually been so lucky and had so many superstars and I will list those when we are through at the end.) He went via Home Depot and bumped into someone who asked us for a reference for our framer. He knew Ram who has a Bobcat and comes by our place to feed his cows everyday and who was reasonable, Rupe called him and met with him, as I was running around like a stupid thing and he took one look at the job we had been done and said “Well your previous guy had no-idea what he was doing did he!” He's charging us $450 dollars to sort out, well the hire of the JCB was less than a Bobcat at $900 a week (inc delivery) so pay less and get someone else to do the work more or pay more and add another job to our ever growing list, now that was a hard one NOT!!! Plus we may have someone to help with the Wetland, (I'll find out tomorrow) and maybe our trees :) Oh yes we have all our appliances finally, however we are waiting a replacement gas cooktop (hob) as on installation ours turned out to be bent. All Glass and David Miller have been great to deal with. Sears gave us such a runaround until I lost it with Marion At Fl mall, who was great and seems to be the only person prepared and wanting to help us.
What else, well loads actually but I have a contract to type so I must go, we have sod and trees arriving next week, Cherry Lake Tree Farm (it helps having your own business at times) and we are having quite a few Natchez Crepe Myrtles as they have the red leaves before they fall and are lovely, all in white at only $37 a tree. We also have some Red Maples, Magnolias (Miss Chloe), Japanese Blueberries, Queen Palms, trying to get a orange, grapefruit and lemon tree. A Hass avocado tree as we don’t like the florida avocados and California is colder than Florida, so we are going to see how it grows and finally a few Royal Poinciana’s, which they are still trying to track down. Been fobbed off loads that it will not survive as no one else has one, however it is the same species and the Golden Rain trees which thrive in Clermont. SO we are going to try and until someone does who knows, plus it flowers red and has been consistently voted one of the five most beautiful trees, you never know we may start a trend. Sod we are going to use Zoysia, I have tracked it down to $86 a 400sq ft pallet delivered inc. a forklift on the truck, we have 5 trucks coming delivering 65 pallets plus 19 pallets of Bahia which untreated is $16 a pallet and $32 for bahia with no weeds. This if for our swale which the HOA insist we do. We have to lay it within 48hrs or it will die so I have found a company for $17 per pallet, however my neighbour did it for $12 per pallet but he is in the trade, our biggest bid was a company through ServiceMagic wanting $150 per pallet and did not believe us when we politely declined, yes he did realise we were getting the sod.!!! Actually he was really rude, but there is one born everyday!!
Finally how are we feeling? Very tired, weary, just want to move, however still loads to do. We hope if we can clear the hold on the C/O to move in either the week beginning 11th -15th Feb or 18th - 22nd Feb. But we'll see (if so) it will have taken us 9.5 months, not the fastest, if I had not had any hold-ups it would have been 25 weeks, but maybe next time, what am I saying "Next time"???!!! The trouble with Ob-ing is this you are doomed to learning too much, what do I mean well every house you visit you see the good points you also see where greedy builders have cut corners to save a buck or two. It does not matter if they are tract homes or custom home builders, they all seem to cut corners, so it will be difficult to buy a home because I am sure you are doomed to looking at where corners have been cut and a lack of consideration to things like lowing electric bills and eco-friendly living, they dont cost the earth, poly foam is the insulation of the future, as is keeping the HVAC tons down. The trouble is a builder will cost things out for the same as we have done then reduce the quality of material to increase their profit, not to pass it on. We are over budget but only by about 2-3% not bad really. We were told we could never build for $91 a sf ft, so we are over but not the 20% we were told we'd be. That said the fat lady has yet to sing and I will include that exact cost per sq ft when I have had time to collate the many receipts. Photos to come I promise, as soon as I can. Shame we seem to have lost the Oct entry with my sisters wedding on?
Mum: Happy 60th Birthday for tomorrow
Happy New Year Everyone.
Lisa.
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Posted to LittleLakeCorner by Lisa in Groveland, FL
on 12/25/2007 8:11:20 PM
Firstly A Very Merry Christmas to All. We have had a great Christmas day, too many presents (many last min as life has been too busy) but they were good all the same, so much turkey and wine but it was great for us to just be with the kids. Having read the last blog it sounds like I am complaining. Well about the tilers true, but actually having read another OB's house burnt to the ground something to do with their Poly foam, they used closed cell, I'm really glad we used open-cell now, but I guessing they may fine another cause (actually we had a little closed cell over the lanai!!) It kind of puts things into perspective.
We are seeing |