Plumbing and pavers, oh my!

This past week was mainly a week of finishing the tile- yes it's totally gorgeous- and installing all of the plumbing.

When we left off at Casa Johnson, the tile had been completed but not grouted. The grout is done and has really made the blue tile 'pop'. That same day, the plumber also started to install the jets and the lines that run from the pool to the side of the house, where the controls/pump/filter live.

Thursday was a big day. Our plumber finished all of his work, which meant we were ready for an inspection by the city of Maitland to make sure that there aren't any leaks and that the system is fully ready to be buried in preparation of the decking. After all, you wouldn't want to bury your entire plumbing system only to find you have a leak that ruins your pavers, right!?

Dave and I were inspecting the equipment on Thursday, and we noticed 2 leaks at the controls at the pump, as the whole system is already pressured up and running water through the lines. *GASP* We called Mike, the company owner, who actually came out himself to inspect and fix it. A few turns here and there, and he had the leaks gone. Although, we noticed that there's a small pinhole leak near one of the hot tub jets. We were told that shouldn't be a failure on the inspection, and the plumber will fix first thing on Monday.

Oh yeah, the pavers got delivered on Wednesday!!! Uh.... well, let's just say that Mr. Johnson is not happy. Nothing to do with the pavers themselves, but do you see where the company dropped them!?!?! More ruined grass! When Mike was out on Thursday, he and Dave talked about it- and Mike said that the paver company was supposed to drop them on the side of our house, where the grass is already going to need replacing, not on our nice tree lawn. Hopefully we'll get some money for this sod replacement.

Travertine tile coping. Yeah, it's DELUX

What's next? I never heard if we passed our plumbing inspection, but if we did, the trenches will be filled, and the coping along the edge of the pool will be installed on Monday. The back yard will be graded, and paver installation will begin Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm hoping that makes the back yard look less like bombed-out Beirut!

Piped for gas in the fire bowls

Until next next time, friends. xo

In the trenches

Just when we thought the back yard couldn't get ANY MORE ugly and ripped up.... They started to install the plumbing. WOW. There is sand everywhere and more mounds of dirt/sand. Yeah, it's f-u-g-l-y.

Good thing that they're working on the tile of the pool, which gives us something pretty to focus on! The tile guys (remember the shirtless, sun-weathered men from last week? Yeah, it's them) are apparently the plumbers too. The filter, pump and heater are all now on the side of the house, and the basic lines are now trailing from the pool to the main systems.

And, while it's ugly, I'm happy to see progress yet again. We had little work done last week, so I'm hoping they're going to knock a ton out this week. Check out some of the tile work, it's pretty impressive!

Hot tub is fully framed

Where do we go next? I'm guessing they'll finish the tiling (grout, etc), hook all of the plumbing up and then move onto the decking. Stay tuned, my friends! xo

Frame for one of the fire bowls/waterfall spillover

Multi-color LED light in the deep end. I think we forgot to add algaecide again

Guess What Day It Is!!!

TILE TUESDAY!!!!

I had a ton of errands and appointments Tuesday morning, and was in/out of the house. Wasn't I beyond shocked when I got home after the gym around 10:30 to see 2 trucks at the house, and two quite leather-beaten men smoking cigarettes in my pool!

Ok, that sounds bad. But it's true- two shirtless men, smoking cigarettes and cutting tiles were sitting on the swim pad, measuring the impending water levels and discussing the right height of the tiles. Friendly guys (and guys who didn't catch me completely by surprise in my bra....), who seemed happy as clams to be in the baking sun, cutting ceramic tiles.

Introductions made, and what I'm guessing was the 'lead guy' on the job said that normally they like to do all of the plumbing before the tile work goes down, but their plumbers were running late on another job, and they didn't want to put our job behind schedule by waiting for the plumbers to be done before starting tiling at our house.

I gotta tell you all that I'm really happy with this pool company thus far. Hopefully I'm not jinxing us by saying that out loud, but so far they seem to really have their stuff together and are doing a good job.

SO, what's next? Head tile guy said it would most likely be tile-plumbing/electrical-decking (pavers around the pool)- diamond bright (coating on the inside of the pool). Seems like it's going fast now, and we cannot wait! Until next time, xo.

Gunite is DONE

What a busy week around this place!

Tuesday started with an inspection by the city of Maitland of the pressurized hot tub and deep end drainage systems. This had to be done before the gunite could be installed, and to make sure that the early plumbing is not leaking. Well, we #failed. At least the hot tub drain failed.

Luckily, Mike (the owner from Dreamscapes) got on the phone quickly, got someone out here to fix it, and we were re-inspected Wednesday with a pass. The next step would be the gunite- the process of shooting wet concrete onto the rebar formed structure to make the pool.

The gunite crew arrived on Thursday and did their best! These guys are amazing- I've got to hand it to all the men who've worked at our house the past few weeks. They've been doing hard labor in the middle of the day, when it's been 90-100* in the shade. Dave talked to some of the guys, and they said it was at least 20*-30* hotter down in the deep end of the pool, while wearing long sleeves, pants and heavy boots. YOWZA!

Deep end seating/swim out- all smooth!

Making the hot tub 

And if all of this wasn't enough, an excavation company came out on Friday to do the pre-grade on the backyard. This included removing the wood framing and smoothing out the mountains of dirt and sand. It's starting to look like a real back yard again! Funny story here: As I was getting ready for work, I made myself a smoothie- a purple smoothie that splashed onto my white shirt, requiring me to remove said shirt to the washing machine.... As I was walking back to my bedroom to grab a new shirt- only in a sports bra and pants, mind you- I look out the back yard sliding glass door to come eye to eye with one of the workers. Oh snap! Good morning we both waved, and I went in search of the proper cover up. I never expected workers at the house by 7:30!!!

Looks like from here we'll be looking at the tile/pebble-tech/coping and plumbing installations before they move onto the pavers. Stay tuned for what next week brings, I can't wait! xo

Hot tub- HOLLA!

Still have a lot of back yard!

Swim pad

Deep end

Hello from 'down below'

In the shallows

Hang on, let me swim up from the deep end!

Rebar and plumbing... 'Merica

Yesterday was the 4th of July. So while most of us were chilling out at the pool, the beach or on a boat, 4 very unlucky gentlemen were hanging out at MY pool. Installing rebar and the start of the drainage systems. Oh my!

Around 11am, I hear Dave calling for me, telling me that I need to change out of my pajamas because the pool guys were here. WHAT?! It's Saturday. It's the FOURTH of JULY! But low and behold, there they were, jumping out of the truck and unloading steel rebar around the side of the house.

The guys were honestly the nicest, hardest working guys. It was like mid-90's and here they were, in jeans and heavy boots and sweating like the devil. They told Dave that they were working today because they were behind schedule and needed to get this done. Technically, they were supposed to be at our house on Friday, but other jobs bumped us back. AND, they had another pool to frame once they were done at our house.

Dave took pity on the guys and made them a cool batch of lemonade, which they gladly slurped down in a few minutes. But in just 3 short hours, they were done, and our pool has taken even MORE shape! Take a look:

According to the workers, next up is a code enforcement inspection, which should take place on Monday (hopefully!), and then they'll start pumping in the unite. It's very exciting to see things chugging right along now. Until the next post, friends! xo

There's a hole... In my back yard!

For some reason, I'm singing the theme to 'Jaws' in my head when I see this thing come around the corner...

Dig, baby, DIG!

Welp, there's no going back now! Digging has started in earnest. *insert squealing noises here*

Dave started texting me around 11:30 yesterday morning to say that the hole was about to get dug. I literally started jumping up and down at work and told Dave that the responsibility of being chief photographer in my absence. Let me just show you the progression of the next roughly 3 hours in videos and photos:

The Bobcat fills truck #1 with the debris

Of course, around 2:30, I checked the weather radar, which showed a huge line of storms moving into the area, and I alerted Dave to this development. To this Dave responded with a 4-letter text and he showed what was over our house:

Thankfully, the weather gods smiled upon us, and we didn't get a drop at the house. For a moment I was envisioning the heavens opening up and the hole starting to fill in with dirty, muddy water. You know, something akin to that scene in Poltergeist... 

Here's hoping our house isn't located on an ancient Indian burial ground

The last few pictures are the ones I took once I got home. I used the wide angle lens so you can get a sense of my back yard and see the changes that have happened. I really like to look at things from this perspective, especially when we do re-models. The deep end looks to be dug to about 12' deep, even though the finished product will be roughly 6' deep. I can't imagine the amount of concrete that's going to get pumped in here soon. 

 At the shallow end, looking at the deep end

Holy mound of dirt, Batman!

The 'superhighway' of dirt into the back yard 

The contractors said that they're running behind schedule since the weather last week was really crappy and they didn't get as much work done as planned. Dave and I were hoping that perhaps they'd show up today and start the re-bar, but no such luck. 

Here's hoping there's a lot more work done next week. Stay tuned, my friends! xo