It can't go on much longer....

Here are some photos of the pink tide, taken this morning.

I naively thought that today might be the last day of demolition out front, but I have just realized (peering through the window) that, although the demo guys have broken up all the brick, they now have a layer of concrete to get through. How wrong I was. The jack hammering started up at 8am. All our neighbors appeared to come out of the house and get in their cars at 8:05am. I am sure they are as sick of it as I am. I took Hubby's car to get petrol this morning and spent a moment with the garage squeegee wiping pinkness off the windows.

Out back we have a different crew of guys with jack hammers. These are with the pool renovation team. Their jack hammers are smaller but just as annoying. They are standing in the pool peeling the plaster off. The plaster bits fall into the bottom of the pool, where another guy shovels them up into the scoopy thing of a waiting Bob Cat. (Did I mention the Return of the Bob Cat yesterday?)

Both the demo guys at the front and the ones at the back are running generators, to add to the overall loveliness of the experience.

The pool renovation really is going along speedily, though (not like last time, when it took 7 months to get a not-very-good result). The pool is now eight inches deeper than it was, thanks to the building up of the walls with gunnite to allow for the leveling of the lot; the vault for the pool cover has been created; and most of the plaster is off.

Here's some photos of the pool guys in action:

Utterly Pink

One more day of jack hammering, I think, and the front will be entirely gone. One effect of taking out a good deal of red brick is that everything around is now covered in a thin film of pink dust. It really is very pink. There is a tidal wave of pink dust nestling against the front door. Pink dust is rimming the window frames. The trees that remain in the front yard are crowned with pinkly dusted twigs and leaves. Hubby's car has a light coating of pinkness.

I can only wonder what the neighbors' yards, houses, cars, etc etc must look like. Sorry folks.

The very jolly mustachioed guy who is in charge of the jack hammering promised that he would clear a path through the rubble to the garage side door tomorrow. As it is, we either have to go through the garage door (which we can't close from the outside as the opener/closer doesn't work) or we have to tip-toe through the rubble. And become very pink in the process.

There was an earthquake today in the local area, something like a 4.1. Did I feel it in the house? Did I heck. In fact, I think we may have been the epicenter.

Still no mail, even though I put a nice little mail box on the tree protection fencing yesterday. Hubby thinks the mail man - who is less than conscientious about actually delivering the mail he should - has simply crossed us off his list of acceptable customers.

Before and After

Here are some before and after pictures of the house today.
(1) Family room with exterior door; and without exterior door. (There is a window going in there.)
(2) Pool steps before gunnite and after gunnite. The sharp eyed among you will realize that we will now have four steps instead of three.
(3) The front yard with a brick path; and without (or, at least, with the path broken up into mountains of rubble).

Shingle-drills, shingle-drills, shingle all the way...

We now have a roof on the bedroom/bathroom addition - complete, nailed down and light brown in its cedar shingley goodness. The roof over the office/laundry is nearly done.

The drilling continued unabated till 4:30pm. The demo guys are now taking out the front path, which is made of bricks laid on concrete. It's very noisy and dusty. No mail came today: I suspect the mail man took one look at what was happening in our front yard and declined to come further.

This evening I received an email from Mike the Pool Guy, warning me that tomorrow around lunchtime they'll be "doing the gunnite" for the pool. I have no idea what that is, but Mike says it will be noisy and dusty. Well, I wonder if I'll notice the difference.

Weather continues bright and sunny.

BBBRRRRRR

It is so utterly draining to sit here all day listening to the vile noise of the jack hammer. It is currently at work ripping out the front yard. I am not sure how I will get from the front door to the road. Pity the poor neighbors who have to listen to this and will get no benefit from it.

Sudden Miasma

And clouds of dust - I think it's dust, though I thought it was smoke at first - are obscuring the back yard. The drilling has restarted. I think they may be removing the path on the side yard that I had installed at great expense two years ago. Time to go out for the grocery shopping.

Catch Up Report

Hello, dear readers (that means you, Anthony). I know you will be worried that my lack of writing will be a reflection of lack of progress, but how wrong you are. Even over the holiday period the guys have been working away, and things are going very well (at least to this amateur's eyes).

Landscaping:
The back yard is now a wasteland. All the concrete has now gone, except for a small piece around the pool which they have clearly decided to leave and concrete over, as part of the raising of the grading of the backyard. This was an exceptionally noisy and intrusive part of the whole remodel experience, with three BobCats in the yard at one point, one with a jack hammer attachment, the other two with different kinds of scoops; plus numerous guys with hand-held jack hammers and shovels. The planters are gone, the wall under the trees has gone, the lawn has gone. We have a big pile of mess in the area that used to be designated lawn, including all the loungers and chairs that Hubby wouldn't let me dispose of, and the old pool cover.

The pool has had its coping and water line tile removed, there are several holes punched in the bottom, and the light has been taken out. The bottom of the pool is full of shards of stuff. One of the pool's wall steps has been broken.

(Hold on, a man has just appeared in the hallway.)

(Just the electrician looking for the sub-panel.)

The wood framing for the concrete pouring around the pool has been erected, and rebars have been inserted around the top of the pool, presumably to hold the new coping. That is supposed to be arriving in the third week of January.



The little lemon tree that the kids bought for Hubby's 40th birthday is still standing bravely in the midst of all this. I tied some "Caution" tape around a couple of bamboo stakes to protect it, and miraculously this seems to have worked. Elsewhere, the drainage plans have been marked out on the ground in orange paint, so we can now see where the barbeque is going to be and also the planting beds near to the house.

House:
Jim says that we have a delay in the windows arriving, and that will slow down the completion of the walls. In the meantime, his guys are working away on the roof. The bedroom/bathroom addition now has roofing felt, and a pile of cedar shingles is waiting to go on. On the office/laundry addition, the shingles are already going on; the roof over the dining room is finished, and the office roof looks like it may be finished today. While we were away at the snow, the new gutters went on. The guys have also started to rough in the plumbing and electrics. Lots of thick yellow wires are strung across the wall framing, and a lovely black pipe indicates where the washing machine will go.

Current discussion is focusing on the kitchen. We have been scheduled to have the kitchen demolition next week, but our architect is now wondering if it can be put off a week, as we'll be away for a few days in February. Personally I suspect that they will over run anyway, so they may as well over run while we're away.