Septic Day!
Septic day! The failed tank, never pumped in over ten years, finally gets pumped out and demolished.
Author: stega
New Walkthroughs Are Up!
New video walkthroughs of the house, this time with some explanations and, more importantly, some furniture.
Photo Stream* Highlights
Photo highlights: all our books shelved, the boys’ new space, the repurposed shed and a refreshed kitchen.
Scanning Complete
The original architect drawings are scanned, including the elevations, a rendering and a great room spiral staircase that never got built.
10 Reasons to Never Buy from Lumber Liquidators
Ten ways Lumber Liquidators messed up our flooring order.
Before and After Roof Comparison
Before and after shots of the great room and entry roofs. All the tar and paper were patches.
A week in review
A week of small things: the golf cart sold, the shed turned garden center, new kitchen rugs, the books shelved and a fig tree recruited for a Department of Agriculture fly study.
And we swam and swam all over the dam
New pool solar, a new forest green cover from Pool Covers, Inc. and some wonky pool chemistry. Now I can swim every day.
We have pretty electrons now
Voltz Electric upgrades our 175-amp service to 200 amps and replaces the fifty-year-old panel.
More Flooring Tales
Bringing the original teak parquet floors back to life myself instead of having them professionally cleaned and polished.
So we moved and so did the boys
We now live full-time at Purgatory, and the boys have moved into their new space, where Thy has become a Very Brave Bird.
New Floors…almost
Replacing the filthy carpets in two rooms with bamboo flooring, starting with an unhelpful flooring store and ending at Lumber Liquidators.
Bye bye, old thing
The old playground goes away via Craigslist, and Bob, who has taken care of this land for about fifty years, mows the pastures.
Roofs and Solar
The three new foam roofs are done, and 15 new spiral solar panels on the studio roof should let us swim year-round.
Bye bye, ugly deck
The ugly deck the previous owners built over the septic tank is gone, thanks to three hard-working day workers, and the new septic permit is in.
Our house had an ouchy
The new flat roofs go on, and the great room reveals dry rot so extensive the wood was still wet in July. All repaired, and still under budget.
Well that didn’t go very well…
Epic fail: the contractor flipped their crane truck while trying to move the old well tank. Fortunately nobody was hurt.
The long week has begun
My first night at Purgatory, after hauling a truckload of boxes down in Barbie, ahead of the well tank replacement.
A week in review?
The view from the well, 200 feet above the house, why a rusting 10,000-gallon metal well tank is a problem and the Whale’s broken camshaft at LeMons.
Ack! The well had no water, but we do have earwigs
The well had no water, the pump wouldn’t restart and the culprit turned out to be a bug corpse shorting a wire.
Progress Update
New videos of the main gate, the old barn and the horrid dog kennel, plus a week of rain and delays. I have a pry bar, and I know how to use it.
Driveway of cracks
Pictures of the cracked, crumbly driveway before it gets repaired and resealed.
Architects and Some Panoramic Videos
The original architect drawings turn up: the house was designed in 1965-66 by Worsley, Rankin and Williamson of Menlo Park. Plus some panoramic videos.
Debris and Horse Poop
Exploring the derelict horse barn: old bathtubs, random lumber, a chipper and plenty of leftover debris from the property’s horse farm days.
Plum Problem
Our San Francisco plum tree doesn’t want us to move: a bumper crop of plums, pitted and frozen for jam later.
Bad Pipes
Replacing the gross old drain pipes under the kitchen and laundry, once the plumbers found someone small enough to fit under the house.
Website News
Trying out a plugin to auto-post things from here to Facebook.
Small Things and Big Blinds
My giant ceramic Hello Kitty moves in, a broken Great Room blind moves out and the previous owners leave staples and nails across the tops of the windows.
Work Continues
Meeting the Wall Guy, plumbers who rescheduled 15 minutes before the appointment and a well tank replacement that will need a crane.
Vehicles and such
Our modified Mini Clubman sold, leaving us with “just” five cars, plus a little red tractor and a golf cart that need some love.
What a week…
Less than two weeks in: we have network connectivity, a plumbing quote for the drains and freshly cleaned carpets, with mixed results.
Walkthroughs are up!
Our first, somewhat shaky video walkthroughs of the house.