The Ongoing Framer Saga

Tom & Mandy started finishing off the front of the house, installing the J channel, the F channel & the soffit on Monday & Tuesday. On Wed morning just before I was leaving the house (they really didn't need me except to take pictures), the framer who had left after a 1/2 day almost 2 weeks ago,called & said he had another helper & would call back about 3:30 to let Tom know when they'd be here. Good thing none of us held our breath! Haven't heard back-now really-why did he bother to call to begin with???

The Yard

Well the side yard is sectioned off , planting areas have been defined, the walkway is laid out, the landscape paper is down & the soaker hoses are ready to be buried. Some stone is laid to hold the paper down. Oh-excuse me-did I say some stone?? That was the original plan. We'd lay the landscape paper, weigh it down with some stone, lay out the soaker hoses, then I would plant the plants, protect them with leftover cool whip containers & we would lay the rest of the stone.
I foolishly left the house & returned to find the planting beds full of landscape stone. Mandy & Tom are diligently working to spread this stone (which is quite heavy) while Stan dumps buckets full from the loader. I am in awe & grab a rake to help. As I do, my brain is processing the fact that I now have to move all this stone, cut thru the landscape paper, dig a hole & plant the plants. I have 75 plants to plant. This rake in my hands is now taking on the persona of a dangerous weapon.It's not a good thing to mess with a woman whose hormones cannot decide if they want to be pre menopausal or menopausal!
I had spent weeks choosing flowers & plants, measuring, laying it all out on graph paper, our gardens were gonna be awesome! Now I'm digging thru 5-6inches of stone & I'm not a happy lady. In fact I'm downright miserable. Tom, knowing when to be diplomatic offers his & Mandy's help to scrape away stone so I at least don't have to do that. Great! Mandy gets to the first area & there's only an inch of stone & in her helpful way says "What's the big deal, there's nothing here" She is still alive to raise her children, the rake wasn't handy. Apparently the bed was raised there & a minimal amount of stone was needed. So the plants are in & protected by a multitude of yogurt containers so the stones don't crush their fragile little bodies.

The front gardens are laid out, paper went down, soaker hoses on & the stone is in! Therefore the yard ornaments are no longer in the front door view! Don't get excited-they're not gone-just moved. The yard has been raked, we may even seed before snow fall!
We're getting there!

The other side yard has had a fence installed due to the dog, there's a rough layout of the planting areas, walkway & small patio.This is the view from our bedroom sliding glass door.
How cool that with the angle of the slats in the fence we still get a view of the river!
I'm thinking ...Martha reading garden?!? Nice breeze, shade, for all those hot flashes.....Hmmmmnmn

First Upstairs Guest Bath Bather

The upstairs guest bath is on it's way to being complete. Tom & Mandy filled the Jacuzzi tub to test it out just about the same time Eva & I went up to "Supervise". While the tub was filling, Eva got so excited splashing at the water coming out of the jets and laughing we had to just strip her down and let her at it! This is definitely a water baby!

Maybe some outside progress???

This was the end of July, when I thought we were getting close to starting the outside again. My brother Dan came over & put up the tar paper & metal lathe so we could start stoning the front of the house. Silly Girl!

Did he or didn't he????

Well here we are, contractor # 3 never came back. Met with contractor #4 , willing to do the job, can fit us in in a couple of weeks-OK-yada-yada-yada. Pardon me if I don't get too excited. Oops-can't make it-son's baseball game.
He's going to do this after his regular job, Oops, hit a deer with his car, can't make it until car is fixed. All fixed -Tom confirms with him on Sunday-he'll be here Tues eve. August 21st about 5. It's now Wednesday eve, no call-no show. And we're moving on........
Tom now has a message into contractor #5. Could #5 be our lucky number??? Well #5 is supposed to meet Tom @ 5 pm Friday, finally showed up at 6:30. He'll be here Wed morning. OK-here we go again....showed up Wed 8/29 worked for the day, said couldn't work Thurs had to go to the State Fair and would come back Fri. He omitted to say Friday of the following week! Showed up Sept 7th at about 10am, worked for about an hour & a half, left for lunch & hasn't been back since-no call, no show! Looks like Mandy & I are going to be Tom's little helpers!