Give Them No Slack

Went by the house today to see if the telephone company had moved the line off our land. Called Erik to see what was going on and apparently he had to be a little snotty with them (Go Erik!) because they said it would take seven days to do it. So Erik just said, "I need it moved today. If you don't move it, we'll just dig anyway and cut the line." So they moved it! Temporarily at least, but it's somethin : ) Way to go. No survey from the neighbors yet, so we'll just have to keep calling him. Hope we get to dig soon. I really need to move on from this wall. We will never build a wall again. EVER! : )

And the Wall Came A-tumbling Down

Turns out the 2 ft translated into 8 lost feet once we found the real property line. The surveyors got it wrong again and should not be paid. I worked with the foundation guy en espanol to try to shift the house on the pad to make it work, but we couldn't so....alas....the wall is a comin' down...at least part of it.

Erik and I have to go talk to the neighbors who apparently confronted the foundation guy when they started looking for the rebar in "their" yard. Looking forward to that!

Strike Two?

Strike 2: Well, no forms today, they'll start tomorrow.

Strike 2?: Also ran into the Rockwall city inspector substitute who came to inspect our already inspected and passed t-pole saying that it failed twice. So he passed it...again. Beaurocracy.

We got the dumpster today...yay.

I met the surveyors at the lot and they moved our property line 2 feet into...our neighbor's yard. We have a feeling it somehow got moved after the initial survey. Unfortunately, that means our retaining wall is two feet closer to our house than planned, but now we will just have to work around that. Hmmm.

I'll stick around tomorrow to make sure they put the house where I want it. Then I'll meet the plumbing lady in Arlington and hopefully get a great deal on faucets. One step at a time....

Mucho Mejor

They fixed and finished the retaining wall today post yet another rain delay. The t-pole inspector also came out, so we're looking at starting the foundation next week. We're still sorting through the whole new price deal and dad's making me a little paranoid about it since this is what he does, so I really hope we don't have ourselves in a bind here. We will see shortly.

A Jorb Well Done

So, for a small sum, JD and his hard-working crew will fix the grout. In fact, they've already gone and chipped out the grout on the part completed yesterday, and the wall they built with the ugly grout today, they left a gap at the front where the pretty white grout can go tomorrow. We had a bit of a rain delay, but they got a lot done before they ran out of pebbles - they're also cutting it close on the stone.

This evening, Erik and I went out to give pounding the 8ft long grounding rod into the ground another try. It was a pretty awful task and our hands and backs hurt, so we grabbed some Chick-fil-A and we are headed to the hot tub. Where we need to pound yet another 8ft grounding rod into the ground. Please, we are professionals. Do not try this at home. Your hands and backs will hurt.

So, next step is to call the inspector to check out the job we did pounding the 8ft grounding rod into the ground (please, Lord, let it pass!) and check out the retaining wall so that we can get the foundation guy out. Which is another issue. Now that the beam is out of the plan for the retaining wall, Erik asked our foundation guy to rebid and he didn't come down enough in price. Unfortunately, we already have a very loose contract with him, so we may have to back out and go with the local guy. Collective awww....too bad. We'll see.

Gang Aft Agley...

Just went by the house to see the retaining wall that I didn't know for sure was going up today and...it's ugly. They used a really dark grout instead of the white grout they said they would use. It literally looks like they were going along (the workers I mean, with no supervision) and then bossman came by and went...WAIT! What are you doing? We have to stop and order the right color of grout NOW! because when I went by at 3:30 there was no one there and 1/2 a wall not finished. I'm sure all will be righted...I'm SURE of it. But this is just another reason why my summer is nonexistent and I will have to be out there every morning whether I know they will be working or not. I just need to keep caught up on housework and only work on that stuff in the evening instead of quilting. Now that I have a key to the Kentopp's house, I won't feel stuck out there with no place to go not wanting to drive back and forth between Rockwall and mom and dad's. Just need a bit of a routine.

Also met with a framer who has recommendations for every other phase of building (yay!) and he was a really nice guy. Hope his quote turns out to be a good one. It's way better to work with local people anyway.

So here are the latest pics. OH! So we're going to try to leave the pad flat and accommodate the foundation to fit it. Andy said that in 10 years he's never made a sloping pad and thought it was silly and expensive and over-engineered (sorry to any engineers out there) just like our retaining wall was over-engineered and would have cost a fortune to build. So lesson learned.

The Best Laid Plans...

So, the lot may look flat and finished, but it's not supposed to be. Andy's gotta come back out and make it not flat (I know, it sounds funny) so that the foundation can slope on the bottom and be flat on top. His cuz, J.D. (RHS class of '98...craziness) dumped a big load of Austin stone out there yesterday anticipating the start of the retaining wall.

In the midst of digging, we discovered 3 or so of our neighbor's sprinkler heads on our property, so to fulfill my duties, I went knocking on the door to meet Joel Hoover (Cheree's husband) who seemed a little grumpy but easily agreed to call the sprinkler people to move them (come to find out, he's a cop who works the late shift, so I probably woke him up at 3:00 pm). Later he and I vistited with Andy and he ended up getting those people out by 5:00 that afternoon and they were moved in an hour. Good work! Erik went back later and talked with Joel again, and he was in a much better mood : ) I hope the bulldozers don't keep him awake during the day....

Another minor blunder is that someone (no one seems to know who....) spray painted address numbers on the curb in front of our lot and the greenbelt next to us. Unfortunately, the number in front of our lot (5903 YC) reads 5905 and number on the curb in front of the greenbelt is 5903. So the porta potty was delivered to the greenbelt. Sigh. Thankfully we get to leave it there... So it was no surprise to us when we requested utilities marked before we digged (dug??) that they marked...you guessed it, the greenbelt. So Erik just sucked it up and requested that they mark 5905 and the job was done to our satisfaction.

I spent the day on Tuesday at Home Depot pricing just about everything. Appliances, faucets, tubs, and cabinets. It was a more stressful experience than I thought it would be, but the shopping continues as we look for a more reasonable price for cabinets and seek to fulfill the dream of finishing out this house eBay style.

Evidence of my shopping experience....