Category: Home Improvement

In my old house, replacing my furnace filter was a breeze. I simply removed the old one and put a new one in its place. If I was out of filters, I would open up the furnace, take a look at the numbers on the side of the filter, go to my local Home Depot, drive back home, look at the numbers again, write them down this time, go BACK to my local Home Depot, find that the only size of filter that they didn't have on their shelves was the size that I needed, eventually find the filter at Wal-Mart, Lowes, or the other Home Depot in the area, and then replace the filter. I would even buy several at a time to make it less likely that I would have to travel to and fro, looking for the right sized filter.

Not so easy in my new home. I went to change my air filter, preparatory for the upcoming heating season and in the place of one of those familiar cardboard-framed furnace air filters, I found a strange-looking blue filter with no frame and with a couple of metal rods to hold it in place. I couldn't find the dimensions written ANYWHERE.

Apparently, this is something known as a "washable" furnace filter. It comes as standard equipment with my Bryant furnace. Every so often, I'm supposed to hose it down and put it back in the furnace. I noticed that it would probably filter the air a lot better if a section of it wasn't covered in paint. It was also extremely dusty. We're not talking dust mice, or even dust rats. We're talking full-grown dust wolves or dust bears here. Apparently, the people that lived here before us didn't know about washable furnace filters either. I should have checked THAT out before now. Hopefully, the furnace's life wasn't shortened TOO much by trying to suck air through several dozen pounds of dust for the summer months.

I don't like washable filters though. They appear to let too much dust and stuff through. Since my son has asthma (or something very closely-related to asthma), we need something that won't let as much dust through.

After much searching, I found the owner's manual to my furnace. Fortunately, there was a table that showed what size filter I should use. Of course, it wasn't as easy as just looking at the table. No, I had to know such things as the width of the furnace and whether the filter was located on the bottom of the furnace or to the side of the furnace.

I took a trip down to the basement (loaded for bear, just in case) to measure the width of the furnace. I could then decipher the table in the furnace user's guide and I came to the conclusion that I needed a filter that was 24 inches by 25 inches by 4 and 5 sixteenths inches.

I wrote the measurements down and headed off to Home Depot, which is fortunately right by my new place of employment. There were no filters anywhere CLOSE to those dimensions. I hadn't actually ever seen a 4-inch-thick furnace filter before.

After some Internet searches, I found the filters I needed. Although not very expensive, they wanted a LOT of money for shipping. I searched some more and found the filters I needed from a place that only wanted to charge a few fingers instead of an arm and a leg for shipping. I think I'll send 'em the ones the bear already chewed on.

The landscaping is ALMOST DONE!

While I was in Phoenix, my landscaper's tractor got repaired and they were able to do the re-grading. The good news is that because the foundation had been dug next door, we didn't have to bring in any dirt. We just used some of the dirt that was piled up in what will beome their backyard. I don't know if it was 100% legal, but that's my landscaper's problem, not mine. They were also able to do all of the curbing, so when I came home, I came home to land that was graded and had curbing. They had also done MOST of the sprinkler system.

While I was at camp last week (mayble I'll blog that later), they did... well... almost nothing.

But on Monday of this week, the day before I woke up with a kidney stone, they finished up most of the sprinkling system and the sod was delivered.

I originally had planned on laying the sod myself. I thought it would be a good experience for my boys to help out and would give them some "ownership" of our yard. But with business trips and scout camp and other things, we decided to have the sod laid for us. It cost a little more, but it turned out to be an EXTREMELY good decision. I wouldn't have been able to lay the sod. I had a freaking kidney stone!

The sod came later than expected because the sod truck was stopped on the freeway for being overweight. Then they made them replace four tires before they would let them continue. Normally, I'd be happy about this because I'm all for highway safety, but this was MY SOD! The landscapers stayed until almost midnight, laying the sod under floodlights. The next morning, they finished up the electrical work for the sprinkler system. (I assume. I was semi-conscious on narcotic cocktails meant to make passing a kidney stone somewhat less miserable.)

While they were waiting for the sod to arrive, they laid the flagstone path and surround for the firepit and installed the firepit itself. Woohoo! They also planted several baby blue spruce, red Canadian chokecherry, and flowering pear trees. We still have plans for some maple trees, but they didn't have the Trident and Norway maples we wanted at the nursery, and the columnar maples we're going to shade the house with in the afternoon didn't have any leaves, so we didn't really want them.

At this point, we are waiting for a little more flagstone to be laid and for the garden boxes to be built and for the rest of the trees to be planted. And then we're officially landscaped. Of course, there's always the fine tuning. We hated where one of the baby blue spruce trees was planted, so we moved it before it took root. Hopefully, it won't die from the shock of re-planting. I've been putting the emitters along the drip irrigation systems. And when (if?) our budget ever recovers from all of this landscaping, we'll want a bunch of shrubs and a rock/gravel path along the top of the rock wall and flowers and... It never ends, does it?

I'll take pictures when the sod takes root and looks a little more even and post them. But the transformation has been AMAZING. I love the result! It's MUCH more beautiful than I would have imagined it could be. It's a great design and it has worked out well.

They've started working again!

Yesterday, they trenched all over in my dirt and put yards and yards of PVC pipe and black "funny pipe" in the trenches.

Hopefully, I'll have a lawn again soon. Mmmmm.... Cool, green grass!

I promise not to complain about having to mow the lawn... at least, not THIS year!

They've also started working in the vacant lot next door. No longer will it be vacant. They finished digging the foundation yesterday. I had to ask the nice man with the huge excavator to please remove the dirt that had spilled over onto my lot because my landscaper needed to trench for our sprinkler system. It was a good thing I asked him yesterday, because this morning, they loaded up the excavator and hauled it off somewhere.

It's also going to be nice to have a house next door, not an empty field. It will also be nice to know how much of our view we're possibly going to lose.

We've met our new neighbors. They've dropped by a couple of times to watch the progress of the home they're building. They seem like nice people. They told us that it's going to be a rambler, so we might not lose ALL of the view from our bedroom windows. *crossing fingers*

The intense activity seems to have passed.

The retaining wall is complete and is almost exactly what I had pictured it would be. The wood framing is done on the steps. I'll try to take a couple of pictures tonight.

My landscaper is a very hands-on type of guy. I see him here and there, working along with his crews in the various yards. He always has muddy, filthy hands and usually a dry, cracked lip. But it's obvious that he loves getting dirty and doing the work himself. That's the kind of guy you WANT to be your landscaper!

When I left home this morning, there was a tractor (for grading) parked in front of my house as well as a truck with a trailer full of sprinkler system stuff. So just to make sure everything was going well, I stopped by at lunchtime today.

Whoa.

The rock wall is aaaaaalmost finished. I talked with the rock wall guy about raising it a little bit in a couple of places and he said that when he gets back from lunch, he'll measure the square footage (the bid was for 875 square feet) and see if he is still within the limit and he'll raise it like I want it. Otherwise, he'll call the landscaper and have him tell me how much more it will cost to add that little bit of height. Cool beans!

There's a large man with lots of power tools putting in the steps that will give us better access to the top of the rock wall. He already had about six or seven steps done. The steps are wood framed and will be filled with gravel, and then some decorative rock (gravel to match the wall, flagstones, or maybe pavers) on top. Very cool!

And when I drove off to get back to work, there was a man standing in a hole up to his armpits in the front yard. He's installing the stop & waste (the main connection to the culinary water system) for the sprinkler system. My landscaper called me earlier from the sprinkler supply place because he remembered part of my address, but forgot the rest and didn't have my paperwork in his truck. He wanted to make sure the parts for my sprinkler system got delivered to the right place.

This is all happening INCREDIBLY fast! I'd probably better make sure to leave the next couple of Saturdays open, becuase they'll be delivering sod soon!

More about sod in a future post. :)

The rock wall is going in FAST. They worked a few hours on Friday. Most of that time was spent moving the rocks from the vacant lot next door to our back yard. On Friday evening, it looked like this:

See the water problem we're having? That area of the yard puddles every time it rains. That will fortunately change, because the landscaper is going to re-grade the place so that the water drains better.

Here's how the wall looks this morning. I think it's looking very good!

They're going to finish up the retaining wall today. Next should be the final grading of the property and then the sprinkler system will go in. Then curbing, then sod, and finally trees and bushes.

It looks like the next phase in the landscaping is about to begin. Yesterday, a dump truck (or two?) dropped these off in the vacant lot next to my house:

Is it okay to get all excited about a bunch of rocks?

Maybe I'm just excited that they're not just in my head!

***EDIT***

They dropped off two more dump truck loads this morning. My neighbor on the other side of the vacant lot they dumped them in came out and wrote down the license plate number of the dump truck. I can't imagine that he thinks they're just dumping the rocks there to leave there! But then again, I don't know him yet, so maybe he DOES think that.

I finally have pictures of the finished steps to show! All-in-all, I think they turned out very nice. They DO tend to de-accentuate the rock wall in the front yard, but we'll have PLENTY of rock (eight freaking thousand dollars' worth) in the back yard, and these steps were to be, above all, FUNCTIONAL. I want to live in this house until I die. Just bury me in the back yard. So going up and down that driveway with creaky old knees will be next to impossible, thus the steps.

Anyway, it was a very exciting thing for my sons when the cement truck showed up. It's not EVERY day that such a truck drives right up into your front yard... and I MEAN right up into the front yard... and dumps a load of concrete.

Ok, so it was a very exciting thing for me too. I may be getting older, but the little boy is alive and well inside, and I loved watching the concrete being poured. It was funny to watch the driver of the truck too. He sat there in the cab of the truck, driving with his tongue. You know how some people talk with their hands? Well, this guy's hands were busy pushing and pulling levers to make the concrete chute go right where he needed it and to make the right amount of concrete slide out in the right places. All the time, his tongue was darting in and out and back and forth, mimicking the movements of the chute and the truck that he was driving. It was quite comical, actually.

After the concrete was poured, two of the concrete workers stayed for several more hours, finishing the surface. The whole concrete process cost $2800, and I'm sure that the majority was labor. But in the end, it looks good, but more importantly, it's funcitonal!

The color will lighten up more as the concrete continues to cure over the next few months. Yes, literally, over the next few months. Concrete is funny that way.

And.... Picture time!

(To the impatient Mr. B. in D.C.: There. You SATISFIED?)

The concrete guys put in a full day getting our sidewalk all ready to pour. It took three guys eight hours. That's quite a bit of work. And it wasn't EASY work either, not by any stretch of the imagination. I dug a couple of little trenches, and my back was plenty sore from that.

So now the forms are all ready and are looking good!

Oh, and it appears (from the flags and paint all over the place) that Blue Stakes has come and marked up the property. I can safely dig anywhere in my back yard, because there are no markings or flags anywhere behind my house at all.

Here's what it looks like tonight:

They're coming bright and early in the morning to pour the concrete. I'll probably post a picture or two of that as well.

Our landscaping project has started! The first thing we're doing is putting a walkway with steps right next to our driveway. In order to make things easier for our landscaper, I needed to extend the "sleeve" (basically, a 2 1/2" PVC pipe) that runs under our driveway. The landscaper can use it to run pipe and/or wires for the sprinkling system under the driveway, but if the sleeve doesn't extend past the walkway we're having poured, the existing sleeve is of absolutely no help at all.

Last night, I dug a trench for the extension of the pipe and went to Home Despot (hehehe) to buy the stuff I would need. When I got home, it was a little dark to continue working, so I thought I would get up this morning, glue the extension together, and then go to work.

I got up and the concrete contractors were there! They had started excavation and everything. I was able to cut the pipe to the right length and get it glued together, but the concrete guys had run into another problem when they were excavating. You know those green irrigation valve boxes that you see in yards? Well, one of them had been BURIED right in the middle of where the bottom of the walkway will be. There's a pretty big valve in that box. What to do? What to do?

I ended up going to Home Despot (hehehe) again and buying a new valve box, because the concrete guys had kinda knocked holes in the top of the old one. Who'da thunk that there would be a valve box buried several inches below the surface? They thought it was a rock until they knocked a hole in it. Anyway, I then took the rest of the pipe and dug a trench for a sleeve to this new box that will be brought up to be level with the concrete. I THINK the valve inside is for the pressurized irrigation system that the city is working on. They'll just surround the new box with concrete and we'll still have the access we need. In the future, if we hate it, we'll jackhammer out the concrete, get the city to extend the pipes to somewhere in the yard, and have a green box in the green grass instead of the middle of a concrete walkway, but again, that's only if we absolutely hate having the green box in the middle of the concrete. Tomorrow morning, cement trucks will show up. I'll have to make sure to get my boys up so they can watch!

Next step: Retaining walls. They'll start building those sometime next week. Hooray!

***EDIT***

Here are some "before" pictures so you will be able to see the progress: