Weekend Progress

THEIR WORK:

The tile guy and his assistant have been working here and there over the past three days. Pretty much, every day starts the same, with the dogs howling to announce their arrival. To get them to shut up, I let them out, and Buster & Sophie rush out to greet them as they set up their radio and equipment in the backyard. The dogs sniff, get their requisite petting, and then come back in, bored, unless there is a tape measure present. But all the workers have been warned before their arrival to stow away their tape measures if Sophie is outside.

On Friday, they spent several hours putting a smooth, level cap on the top edge of the pool, starting with the frame that they nailed around the entire inside of the pool shell. Then Rick went around setting and leveling the outside of the frame, while Linda mixed, poured and smoothed the new cap behind him.

It was a pretty warm and sunny day, but they managed to stay until mid-afternoon, right around the same time that I had to pack up and leave for Jensen Beach, on the east coast. (I was driving the entire Lakewood HS sailing team for a regatta all day Saturday.) Keep in mind that the backyard is on the west side of the house, so it gets direct afternoon sun starting around noon this time of year.

This is one of the reasons we are getting a light pebble color - a dark pool would get too hot in the summer.

Anyway, they were able to finish just over half of the pool edge, I'd guess, on Friday. But they'd be back on Saturday, while I was gone, and even worked an hour or two on Sunday morning to get the cap finished and most of the frame removed. The spa is still "rough" though. But the skimmers are in place.

OUR WORK:

Repairs. All weekend it was all about fixing the sprinkler system that (1) had been heavily damaged by the heavy equipment, including one of the neighbor's lines, and (2) was of a poor design, where the valves were located all over the yard and connected by buried wire that had been giving us problems.

So, hubby replaced all the feed lines for the reclaimed water from the street, and ran lines for all the valves to be placed by the house, which is the right way to do it in the first place. By Sunday night, he had four zones up and running (three for the front yard and one side yard) and we can finally stop hand-watering our newer landscaping in the front yard, most of which we just put in last year.