Patio done. Plants delivered

Brick Patio was finished last weekend. Total count - About 10 yards of concrete, 500 feet of rebar, 2000 bricks, 20 95# bags of white mortar. Argghh. I did all the formwork, and hired out the concrete and the brickwork.

Landscapers are now going at it. A truck load of plants arrived Monday. LL and G are buried in the picture somewhere (where's Waldo?). Hope to have a yard for the first time in 2+ years in a few weeks!

JM

LL Painting Living Room

Got the Living Room painted up last Saturday night. Lisa does the precision cut in, and I do the rollering (dumb animal work).

Garrett loves the big fireplace... he just points at it all the time and says "hot hot". Such a well trained boy (so far) -JM

Sacramento house mostly done. New project in Pollock Pines!

Well the house in Sac is basically done! I will post some pics later. Finally had the backsplash tiled last week. Concrete has been poured for back patio, sidewalks (and repaired neighbors driveway which we damaged with equipment). Still need to finish some painting/trim in upstairs laundry, and finish the basement (which has turned into temporary storage.)

But we have started another project. In Dec we bought a house on almost an acre in Pollock Pines CA (elev 3700). Large house with a huge double ended garage...2100+ sf and 3bed/3 bath if you include all the funky basement and converted breezeway rooms.. But it was a bank foreclosure that hadn't been maintained in a while, lots of animal pee and half finished carpentry everywhere. And oh yeah, the former owner was a junk collector who, upon foreclosure, dumped all of his belongings on the rear neighbors empty lot "temporarily" and refused to take them away!

So far we have hauled away most of the junk to dump, which inspired the former owner to come and collect the remaining things of value. We have pulled all the carpets, retiled bathroom floors, new carpet & paint in bedrooms. We are trying to get the bedrooms livable so we go up and spend weekends... and get more work done! Meanwhile baby Garrett is enjoying all of this and really gets a kick out of big fires in the fireplace and the big unfurnitured open spaces inside, and the trees and pine needles outside.