Monday, November 28, 2011

Fountain almost complete

Finally it didn't rain this last weekeknd and I was able to mortar the bricks for the seating area. The last three weekends we have had rain and were suppose to get more on Thanksgiving but it passed us by. Alhough I won't complain about rain, I just whish it was during the workweek.

I did make a mistake, it was really warm and somewhat dry and I was in the sun. I should have wet the bricks and the suface. I think the mortar dried out too fast and I am not sure they are set real well. The hard part was to get the joint mortar to stay where they overhang. I had to use a board and hold it until it set. I could to about 5 joints at a time.

I guess if they come loose I can always fix it.   Just don't dance on them.





Friday, November 25, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving.



Sunday, November 20, 2011

Courtyard Lighting

Since our grass is St. Augustine it really needed to be de-thached. Luis took care of that and also seeded it, without charging me, with another type of grass to give it substance and keep it green in the winter.





Once the G-man got all the plants situated the next order of business was to put in the lighting. When we got our "expensive" quote, the lighting was quoted around $3,500. I know!!!! We could not believe it either.

So we turned to our friend, Mr. eBay. We were able to get the lights (6 up lights, 7 large mushroom path lights, 4 small mushroom path lights, and a 600w transformer) for around $450. Then I needed 500ft of wire, so that ran me another $280 for 10-2 AWG (Home Depot). All in all not too bad and a far cry under $3,500.

**Truth disclaimer**- I had some issues with installing the lighting. For some reason I was getting serious voltage drop and could not figure out why. So I had to call our electrician Ray. Turns out at the end of the first run I had both the wires tied together, apparently that is frowned upon in the electrical world.

Once that was brought to my attention the rest was pretty easy. I daisy chained each light in each run and then filled the wire nut connectors with silicone to seal them up.





We are very pleased so far. Next we need to build the gates and finish the fountain.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Rainbow


Rain, Rain...

Friday and today were rain events very much needed. In 2003 and 2007 we had major fires here and since we are still in fire season it was nice to have the rain. Hopefully this will get us through another year.
We were lucky and the sun broke through near sunset and were treated to a rainbow.

From the back porch

From the courtyard