The Building of Greuel Manor: The Excitement Begins Again

Well, it's been quite a while since I've written an update but since the excitement is starting up again, I thought it would be a good time to do that. As far as house updates, the last few months have been slow but consistent. I've nearly worked through my entire punch list of fixes. All that is left to do is to fix a ceiling fan that wobbles, repair a chip in the granite, and replace some broken/defective tile and carpet. After that, the painters will come in and fix all of the drywall imperfections and do all of the final painting touch-ups. After 1 year and 3 days since I started digging the hole, I feel like the end is in sight.

The garage/pool bathroom floor has now been stained and is complete. I've also got the tv up in the theater room which is amazing (80"), I ordered a couch which is now in, and have some things hanging on the wall. The tv on the black wall looks really cool and the sound system is AWESOME. I do find myself spending quite a bit of time in there now.

I got my downspouts buried (all 9 of them. thanks mom and dad) which took 2 weekends. I did rent a trencher and ended up running about 150 feet of flexible tile and probably 50 feet of pipe. Hard work but saved a lot of money. I only cut my internet line once, but with all of the other work that's been going on, they've now had to run the line 4 times.... and I'm sure they will be back next week to do it again.

Now the exciting stuff... I've been working with a landscaper to come up with a plan and he has certainly outdone himself. This fall, I am going to do the front, sides, and most of the back berm. I am leaving part of the berm open so that a pool can be moved in hopefully next spring. After that, everything in the back of the house can be completed. That gives me all winter to make changes to the pool area to add more seating, incorporate a fire pit, and maybe even a big artificial palm tree. The weeds did definitely take over the yard for a while and I did finally start getting fine threats from the city, but things are starting to look better. The weeds have been scraped away and the yard graded. All of the plant areas are marked off and all of the buried lines marked. There are flags all over the yard. So far 8 trees have been planted and they are a lot bigger than I thought they would be. They're probably over 8' tall already and it's definitely nice to see something when I look out the window. The irrigation company's trailer is in front of the house now so I'm guessing that will be starting tomorrow. It's fun to get excited again about coming home to see what has been done. I'm really excited to see the change when the sod goes down.