Noticed that there are a lot of pictures on this page, so I put some of them on a second page. It has all the pictures of the house before we moved in. Click on the Page 2 button to see them.
We started a pretty good sized project. The relandscaping of the front and back yards. No real MAJOR changes, but we thought that you might like to keep track of our progress. So, we created a page just for that. Click on the Landscaping button to go there.
We need your input.
As a test, Bob put the fire bricks in front of the grill. Not real sure how much we like it. What do you think? Send us a note a gives us your thoughts. Keep in mind that in the end, there will be a "bar counter" to the right of the grill in this picture.
New toy!
Finally got the new grill put in its new home. The slab dried, so we put it on it, and the grill looks quite at home. Here's a picture of Max checking it out.
Home improvement time!
After ripping a bunch of stuff out, we finally got to put some in. Bob spent Sunday laying concrete to make a slab for the new grill. Turned out OK, with a few lessons learned to be used for next time.
A small thing, but at least now we feel that we can have a fire without burning down the house.
The weekend that Bob's folks were here, Bob, his dad, and Matt went crazy and did a
project. They re-wired the shed. (No more plugging in an extension cord to turn on the
spot light!) Installed another spot light, and installed a ceiling fan. It was a lot of
fun, and Bob really enjoyed doing a project with his Dad and son. You can see a few more
pictures of the work in progress on the Family
Pictures page.
The one spot light that we had, didn't light up the pool side of the back yard. So we
decided that we'd like to have one on that side to light up the yard and pool. Here is a
picture of installed lights.
The installation of the ceiling fan was a project in itself. We decided that we should
mount the fan on a box of sort. Thought it would give it a more finished look, rather that
just hanging between the rafters. The box still needs to be painted, but we think it
turned out very nice.
To get the wires to the fan and new light, we had to install some conduit as we couldn't
run the wires through the attic, since we don't have one. The guy at Home Depot said that
we shouldn't put regular "romex" in the conduit as it would melt in the heat, so
we had to pull six individual wires. That turned out to be more of a challenge than we
thought, but in the end we managed to get them all through. We know you can't see it too
well, but here is the conduit.
The shed. What a piece of work. Before we started, to turn on the light, you had to pull a
chain that hung from the light fixture. To turn on the spot light, you had to plug the
lights into an extension cord that was "hard wired" into the light fixture.
Every time we did that we could hear a buzzt. Not a very desirable situation, so we fixed
it up. Ran new wires to the spot light and to the light in the shed. Ran wires for the
future installation of Malibu lights. Wires from the new spot light and fan. Also put in a
plug inside the shed. The fan and plug aren't switched, but the rest of the stuff is. Here
are a couple pictures of the wire that we ran.
Another major challege. We had the hot wire, old spot light wire, new spot light wire,
wire from the inside shed light, wire from the plug, and the future Malibu light wires. We
had to join all these with the four switches. Turned out to be a lot of fun! Here is a
picture of how things turned out. Also, note the new stud we installed to hold the switch
box.
Bob's dad and Matt spent a lot of time making all those connections. Did it right the
first time, too! But as one might guess, all those wires and connectors wouldn't fit in
that blue junction box. So, the next weekend, Bob went back to Home Depot again and bought
a bigger box. With all the hastle that they had making all the connections, he bought some
bigger wire nuts along with with bigger box. As he was making the connections, he'd get
the wires close and then zip tie them together before he put on the wire nuts. You can see
one of the uncut ties shooting off to the left. He managed to get them all back together,
and here is how it turned out.
Did you notice that the box was actually bigger than the space between the studs? Bob
noticed after he brought the box home. He decided to get it in there anyway, as the next
smaller box would have fit between the studs, but not sure if it would hold all the wires
and conectors. So, he pulled out the new stud and took it to the table saw and made a
bunch of cuts to shave off enough to allow the box to fit in. Then, he had to drill holes
in the box sides (as it is meant to be attached via the back of the box) and then screwed
it in with four screws. Don't think that box is going to go anywhere! Also note how the
wires are labled, sure made the job of putting it all back together so much easier. Here
is how it turned out with the wires pushed inside and the cover on.
Last weekend we went to Home Depot and bought the stuff to put up some shelves in the
office closet. Sunday we put up the braces and cut the shelves. Monday night we figured
out where we wanted them. Here's how it turned out.
And of course, Bob just HAD to have a table saw to cut the shelves straight. Here he is
with his new toy.
We finally got the new lights, that we bought a long time ago, installed. Check out the
old vs. new.
Dining Room
Hallway
We got ourselves a couple new bedroom sets. One for the Master Bedroom and one for Nikki's room. Take a look
The Master Bedroom
Nikki's Room
We had to install a fence to keep the dogs out of the pool while we're gone. Turned out pretty nice, we think.
We've been making progress at getting the garage emptied, so much so that we are able to park the raider inside.
We've been buying stuff and doing little projects to make this "our place" here are a few pictures of some of the things we've done.
Managed to finish the "Brick Project" Sunday. Took a lot more work and time than we thought it would, but it looks much better.
A simple thing, but a nice thing. Our new mailbox.
Saturday, our buddy Ken came by with his pickup truck and helped us move the wall unit. Think that was the last piece of furniture at the old house. The bike is the only other "big thing" there.
The master bedroom, check back next month sometime and you'll get to see it with new bedroom furniture in it.
Here is the start of how thing are going to be setup in the Living room, at least until it become the "pool table room"
Denise is pretty happy with the new washer and dryer. When they installed them, they put the washer on the wrong side, so reversing them is on the to do list. We installed a closet pole in the space where a freezer would go, so that Denise has a place to hang things as she is taking them out of the dryer.
We've gotten both computer desks put up. One computer is up and working with a constant connect to the internet via a cable modem. Hope to get the other one up and going soon so we can move the site to "our house"
Here is how the boat is parked, until we can get the new fence and gate installed.
We bought new towel racks to go with the motif we've selected.
Our new refrigerator. We were a bit worried that a black one would make the room to dark, but with the openness of the room and the big window over the sink, we think it looks really nice.
We moved in on Saturday, August 4th. Took a couple pictures just for the fun of it.
There must be a thousand things that we want to do to the place to make it ours. Every once in a while we are sitting around and notice something that we'd like to change. One thing we noticed this weekend, is that the bricks that are down by the shed are all uneven. So Bob thought he'd spend an hour of two and level them off. Well this project exploded!!!! Gonna be at this one for a while. Chuy likes to dig, so one of the things that we are going to do is bury some of the metal stuff that Bob is using to clean up the gravel under the rocks. Going to start with it going next to the back of the house.
We are going to be getting a fence put in to keep the dogs out of the pool while we are away. Look at the floor plan drawing to see where it is going to go. Problem is, they won't be able to put it in till the end of August. So we put in a temporary fence and gate.
The tree guy finally came by and took out the pine tree that was in the way of us parking the boat along the side of the house. A new gate is on the way. You can also see Nikki's new basketball hoop next to the 4 Runner.
We loaded everything up and dropped if of in the garage. When we get a chance to clean the stuff up, it gets moved into the house.
Some of the stuff went right into the house. Denise is having a blast trying to figure out where everything is going to go.
Our moving vehicle. Worked out very well. Three trips from the storage room, and four trips from the house. Luckily it didn't rain on us.
