Preparing for the work to start

Our plumber/general contractor, Paul, came over this morning and we went over the work plan. We discussed our concerns about the removal of the trees, the work on the roof, and the garage floor.

I thought it might be nice, at some point in the future (when we have money again) to run an electric line and water line out to the turtle patch, so that we could have a little circulator pump and perhaps a slightly larger watering hole for the turtles. Another concern that I'd like to deal with at some point in the future is the electrical service entrance. It's currently on the garage, about seven and a half feet above the ground. With the presence of the basketball backboard in the immediate vicinity, that's just too close for comfort.

I brought up these concerns, and, after first suggesting that it wouldn't be that much more to rough the plumbing out to the turtle patch (I reminded him of our budget) then suggested that it would be better for the plumbing to go through the garage wall near the floor, rather than go through the floor itself. He suggested a similar approach for the electrical - a trench through the yard so that the service would be below ground, and then coming into the garage through the wall. With some sort of planting in front of that spot, it wouldn't be noticable at all. Fine.

I had raised these concerns, I should clarify, because I thought that the likely way to run them would be through the garage floor, and that we should at least address the rough in while we have the garage floor out.

Paul took a sample of the slate from the roof with him to be sure that the color is right. He's going to get the permit for the garage floor at city hall today, and will be dropping off some of the materials tomorrow. The lift will be delivered Monday, I think.

Monday, unless it's raining hard, Paul will begin work on the trees. This, unfortunately, will involve driving the lift through all the beds that I just Rototilled. Oops. Failure of planning on my part. If the wood looks good, we'll cut it up for firewood. If not, it'll be hauled away.

He'll be here with his crew full time for the next two weeks, tearing out and replacing the garage floor, cutting down the trees, and fixing all the issues with the roof and gutters. It'll be nice to finally move forward on all these projects.

While they've got the truck here to haul away junk, we'll be able to throw in some of the stuff that we've been wanting to get rid of but haven't been able to. This will include all the junk concrete that I've pulled out of the yard. It'll also include, once I finish digging it out, all the dirt that was used to fill in the pond. Perhaps some other junk will go in the dumpster, like the mirror from the dresser that I'm using to hold my tools in the basement and the ugly mirror that will never rejoin the mirror in our bedroom. This only matters because I can't put this stuff out in the trash in Shaker Heights.