Life Through My Eyes: 10/01/2018

New Lights Hung and Awaiting Painters

We have been very busy since my last blog entry. After a bit of stress and a few stern words to the owner, the drywall crew finally completed the job they were hired to do. Yesterday they worked hard and did everything asked and expected of them and completed the all of the drywall patching, caulking, mudding and repairing in preparation for the upcoming painting project that will begin soon.
The owner and crew worked very hard to make up for some issues that transpired after their first day on the job. But with that aspect of the work done I can honestly say that the interior of the house is as ready for the new paint to be applied as it is going to be.
We have had to move what was left in the house into the middle of each room in order to give the painters access to the walls and ceiling.
Yesterday we also got all of the electrical work done and completed. New lights everywhere along with new ceiling fans plus adding a ceiling fan into Veronica's sewing room.
I still have to move the furniture in our bedroom into the middle of the room and clean all baseboards and door frames in the room for the painters. I will tackle that job tomorrow. Depending on what day the painters start, I might be able to get a little more caulking done in our current bedroom and in the sun room. Everywhere else in the house has been done.
Our painting crew was supposed to have started 2 days ago but because the walls had not been fully prepped yet I had to call them and postpone the start of painting by a couple of days.
Here are a few photos of our new lights and the current condition and location of our belongings in each room. It is getting harder and harder to live in the place in the condition everything is in and really hard to find anything that you might need.

I really like the lighting fixture shown below. It has LED Flame effect bulbs that flicker and look like they are gas lights

Our breakfast nook light

Formal dining room light. We will probably change out the bulbs. They have that yellowish look to them and we like the daylight look better plus they are much brighter

Below is our kitchen light. The interior is white in color which helps reflect the light but we are probably going to use a roller brush and paint it a similar color to match the outside color. We are also thinking about adding something to the outside

New ceiling fan and gimbal light fixture. the ceiling fan is remote control. Also below are the rooms with everything put in the middle of the room for the painters

Tree On Roof Issue And An Update On The Home Renovation Project

We were finally able to get someone out here to remove the 2 large branches that were laying on our roof that were caused by the high winds that we had when the tropical storm (downgraded Hurricane Michael) passed West-Northwest of us a couple of weeks back. The tree people ended up cutting the remainder of the once beautiful Bradford Pear tree down and hauled it away. They will be returning to grind the stump down in the near future.
We then had a roofing specialist come in to check on potential damage to the roof caused by the tree.
Upon further inspection of the overall roof, we were notified that the roof and gutters had suffered wind and hail damage.
Based on this information I contacted our insurance company and filed a claim. An adjuster will be coming by on 11/7 to check out the damage himself.
We will see how that turns out. If it were not for the tree falling ion the roof we would probably have never known about the recent wind and hail damage to our roof and gutters.
We have been very busy removing our belongings and packing stuff up in order to get as much out of the house as possible before the painters arrive on Monday. Our POD unit is full and the garage is about 3/4 full. I also had to put stuff into our attic.
Yesterday our electrician came in and started on the long list of items that we requested to be done inside the house.Today he will return and put up all of the new lighting fixtures. I will post photos when he has completed the projects.
Currently we have a drywall/plaster crew inside doing quite a bit of work on our walls...repairing cracks, smoothing out portions of the wall and mudding various areas. All of this is in preparation for the painters to start painting the interior, which they are projecting as being a 2 week project.
One last note....the new pantry door came in and was installed and the gas gas range has been hooked up so now we can cook again.
More updates to follow.

Bathroom Remodels Are Finished And Our New Kitchen Is Just About Complete

The last several days have been a whirlwind of activitiy around here. Our bathrooms are now done except for some vanity knobs and pulls that we are waiting to be shipped via Home Depot..my new home away from home.
Our kitchen is now finished except for hooking the range up to the gas line and getting our lights installed.
The new pantry door showed up and has been instsalled. The first door was cut to the wrong size where they make them.
Yesterday the tile guy was here and installed our backsplash.
The day before yesterday we had a 16' POD unit dropped off in our driveway so that we could put some of our belongings in it thus allowing more and easier access to the painters, carpet people and flooring installers.
We hired a mover with his crew to bring everything from a couple of rooms upstairs. Veronica and I had previously been busy boxing up a lot of our belongings and had boxes piled everywhere. The moving crew was here yesterday and did a great job doing the hard muscle work of bringing everything downstairs and packing it all in the POD.
We had been busy for days boxing stuff and I had moved quite a bit into the garage.
So now neither car can be parked in the garage because it is full and we have to park in the driveway near to the street because of the POD being in the driveway.
A several days back we were dealing with what we thought would be a very minor event by the name of Michael. A once catagory 4 hurricane that was really nothing much around our immediate vacinity except for what must have been some pretty decent winds. I say must have been because we slept through whatever occurred during the night as Tropical Storm Michael passed by us to our West and Northwest.
I woke up early the next morning and went outside to put our garbage bin to the curb for our usual Friday pickup. As I was in the driveway pushing the bin to the curb I happened to look to my left.
Much to my dismay 2 large branches from our approximately 40' Bradford Pear tree had broke off near the main trunk of the tree and were laying on the front section of our roof.
With everything else that we have had and were in the process of going on, this was the very last thing that I needed to see.
I ended up calling a "tree surgeon" to come by and remove the tree so that I could see what damage had occurred. I immediately saw that none of the news windows had broke but without the tree being taken off of the roof, there was no way to check for other damage.
It took the tree guy several days before he got to us because there were many others with similar and worse storm damage issues.
The tree guy and his crew took the tree off of the roof and ended up having to cut down the remainder of the tree. He will will return to grind the stump down. So now we are out a beautiful tree and I have landscaping bricks piles in several locations and I still need to get someone out here to check on the roof for any other damage. I can see that a section of the gutter was bent a little bit and that a few shingles aren't laying flat but beyond that I will have to wait for a closer inspection.
During the time that the tree people were doing there thing, I had the tile guy putting up our new back splash, the moving crew going in and out packing up the POD unit along with the bathroom guy putting the finishing touches to our new bathrooms.
It was one of those days to say the least.
Next up will be our electrician to put up new fans in all of the rooms, new lighting and various other electrical related jobs. Then on the 29th of this month we have the painters coming to paint every inch of the interior and we have to make sure that our belongings are in the middle of each room and that we have wiped down baseboards, door frames etc.
The painting crew is projected to be here for 2 weeks.
A few weeks after they are done the carpet gets installed then then the flooring crew comes in to do their thing.
Somewhere in the mix we are also having a different tile crew come in and remove the current tile that is in our foyer...it is an ugly green and replace it with a grayish colored tile.
We are hoping that everything will be done by the 1st of the year...including everything back inside the house and put away where it belongs.
Here are various photos of our kitchen, bathrooms, the boxing/moving experience and the fallen tree.

First the kitchen

Now the bathrooms..Master bathroom

Half bathroom

Upstairs bathroom

lighting fixtures used in half bathroom and upstairs bathroom

Boxes packed up and stacked everywhere

Not done quite yet

Stuff in the garage

The POD

Some rooms are slowly becoming empty

And finally some progress has been made

Even the closets are empty except for 2

And now the final chapter...the fallen tree. This tree has seen some fairly nasty storms during its lifetime but it wasn't so lucky this time. The wind came from a different direction and must have caught it just right.

The tree has been completely removed

Further updates on the house remodel will be forthcoming in the near future

Day 6 Of Our Rhine River Cruise And Germany Bus Tour

Today we went sailed to and visited Strasbourg, France, where we visited the beautiful La Petite France district sand other sites of the city. Here are some photos of what we saw today:

Strasbourg Cathedral