House Update: August
What have we been working on for the past month on the various properties?
In San Antonio, hubby finished the next phase of the driveway bricking project. It was looking good when I left, but he wasn’t done yet, so I don’t have pictures to share at this time. I got some small trees removed and a little trimming on a couple of other ones. We made some progress on some plumbing repairs. The yard is still looking pretty good, given watering restrictions and lack of rain. We’ve worked hard to stay within the law and still keep the grass alive. That translated into several mornings getting up at three to turn on the soaker hoses and dragging a lot of hoses to ensure we got coverage as widely as possible.
I just pulled some pictures off the camera from January 2012, and I am amazed at the progress hubby has made on the driveway this year. I’ll try to have a current picture for next month, but if you can use your imagination, this one will help:
Picture, if you will, bricks on the right side to the break in the asphalt near the top of the screen. On the left side, they go approximately to the front of those two logs and bucket in the center of the photo. All the dirt and rocks I talk about? It’s coming from the driveway. As hubby lays the bricks, he’s lowering the height of the driveway by about nine inches.
In Central TX, we’re making progress on the West wall of the house. This next picture was completed last time I wrote, but I didn’t have the picture to share (same situation as the driveway above, only in reverse):
That new wood at the top of the window was reproduced by hubby to look identical to the original versions on the other windows of the house. There was some engineering involved, and, as usual, hubby did a superb job. He has a few more pieces to make for the window immediately to the right of this one, but this window needed a complete fabrication because it was completely rotted out.
Hubby brought nearly 100 five-gallon containers of dirt and rock from San Antonio. The dirt went on the outer side yard in our continued bid to raise the yard and improve drainage. We’ve been watering that dirt in.
At the store, I discovered a water leak. Initially, it looked like it might be on the city side, so I reported it to the city. Hubby and I went back to check on it on Saturday. No. It’s on our side of the meter. We turned the water off at the meter and will be preparing to do some water line repairs in the near future.
At the shop, we measured for new downspouts. These are 5″ galvanized downspouts, and they need to be replaced.