First Week Construction

Posted on 05/16/2025 by Andrew Reynolds

We are one week in to our kitchen upgrade. So far the old kitchen has been moved into the dumpster:

Everything is in there — including the kitchen sink.

On the good news side, the demo crew only took two days to do the demo work. That is three days faster than scheduled. Further good news is that the plumber was able to get in two days ahead of schedule to complete the plumbing rough-in.

On the bad news side, the electrician called and bumped us out a full week so we’re now a week behind schedule. Sadly, the electrician has to complete the electrical rough-in before they can set the cabinets.

On the good news side, my solar contractor called Monday and came out Tuesday to install our solar panels:

Of course, they showed up the same day the demo crew was in the kitchen and it rained the first three hours they were on site. Way too much fun for one day but both crews got their work done on time (I’m afraid to check the budget). Now we wait for the county building department and power company to come and inspect the installation so we can get it connected to the grid.

So far most of our cooking has been in the microwave in Heather’s art studio. Yesterday I did try our air fryer to cook sausage patties. The gadget has possibilities and Heather got an air fryer cookbook from the library. We have set up our outdoor camp kitchen:

Sadly, we haven’t actually cooked out here yet. I was going to cook breakfast out here on Tuesday, but that was the day it rained. Since then it’s either been too cold or windy to cook outside. Maybe Monday.

In other good news, my brother was released from the hospital and is back home. He’s doing well. I’ve managed to catch a minor cold (I blame rainy Tuesday and running around in the rain to keep two crews working) so if you need me, I’ll be looking for that box of Kleenex I bought.

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And It Starts

Posted on 05/12/2025 by Andrew Reynolds

It’s been crazy here. Last week Heather and I flew to Tampa to see this:

And down there, somewhere is our grandson getting his Bachelor’s degree in data science. We also went to dinner and a graduation party.

Then today, just because life is just too boring, the first construction crew came by the house to work on our kitchen and did this:

Okay, it was a demolition crew and they moved most of our kitchen into a dumpster. Some of it is still in the garage and there are a few more things to come out. My contractor sent me a schedule that has the project finished in just six weeks.

I told him he should write novels because that’s a great fiction story.

The temporary kitchen has moved to Heather’s art studio and now it’s time to see if we remember where we put the microwave. Well, if you need me, I’m looking for that stack of plates we used to own.

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Friday Progress — Weird Week

Posted on 04/25/2025 by Andrew Reynolds

The work on the deck is in the demo phase. The existing pavers need to be taken out and the irrigation lines moved before the deck foundations can be installed. Here’s as far as I am at the moment:

And I have found the irrigation lines that need to be moved:

Yeah, it’s not the kind of line that should be buried under pavers and there are signs of the line starting to collapse. I’ll have to pull it all up and find where the main PVC line comes in and replace all of this with the right piping before I can start on the main deck build.

Sadly I haven’t had much time this week because I’ve had travel to San Jose to visit my brother who’s in the hospital. Then my kitchen contractor called and has moved up the date of our kitchen remodel by two weeks so we’re now in full “get everything out of the kitchen” mode, so it might be a week or so before I’m back to this project and all the fun I was having ripping out pavers and pipe.

Well that’s it for this week. If you need me, I’ll be looking for more boxes to pack up the kitchen.

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Tuesday Working — The Deck Begins

Posted on 04/15/2025 by Andrew Reynolds

It’s been awhile since I last posted. I finished by poetry seminar and now have 10 poems in my new collection. Just 30 more to go. Maybe. I’m still thinking about what I’m going to do with these poems.

In the meantime, spring has arrived here in the desert so it’s time for all those projects I’ve been thinking about his winter. This year we’ve decided to replace this old pergola with something new:

The new thing is a solid roof gazebo which I ordered a couple of weeks ago. It’s still in kit form on my other patio:

It’s heavy, about 450 pounds and I had to carry it to the backyard piece by piece. It’s going to be awhile before I get it setup because I need to prepare the area where it’s going to go. We get high winds in the area so I have to get some concrete footers installed to mount this too. Then after ordering we decided it would be nice to place this gazebo on a nice raised deck area. It’s only work, I’ll get it done — someday.

The first step was the fun part:

I returned the old pergola to kit form and had it hauled off.

What you don’t see in this picture is that there is an irrigation pipe for those two trees that I need to find before I can do anything. We’re having problems with water in this side of the yard and I’ve already had to remove pavers to fix a leak so I’ve got a bit of plumbing to do before getting to the deck building stage.

That’s it for this week. I’m hoping to start posting a bit more, but if you need me, I’m out back digging up irrigation pipes.

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