I watch a ton of sports. I can't seem to find a way to cut cable and still get all my sports. The issue isn't the TV though it is the internet. They don't over the higher end DSL where I am at. I called and the only thing I can get is 6MB DSL which is garbage. The neighbors I have talked to say it is even garbage.

 

Good thing he uploaded all those pictures before he goes back to 56k dial-up.

 

Got the last of the authorization forms back from all the neighbors that TWC requested. So now we will be getting cable pulled down our street.

No DIAL-UP

 

white all around will tie it in with the rest of the house very well!! Also the lattice will be a functional yet aesthetic addition as well!! DO IT!!!!

 

That was what I was thinking. Don't like the maintenance of keeping it all clean but think it will be the best overall look for the time being.

 

 

Marine paint white gloss and invest in a pressure washer??

Gotta pay to be be it in $ or effort

 

Pressure washer....check

Will be sure to get some marine grade wide paint. Thanks for the tip.

 

no problemo!


BTW I work in the Raleigh area... Gonna have to keep an eye open for a Black Vagon...

 

So I decided that the first areas I wanted to work on were the outdoor areas I hope to spend as much time as possible outside at the new house. I wanted to get the outside porch setup so I can lounge out there and even eventually put a small TV out there if I can figure out a safe place to mount it. So first thing up was seating.

The porch is not that large and my dimension from the corner to the door was 7ft 4in. I wanted to be able to lay on an outside couch and most are like 7.5-9ft for sectionals.

Finally found that was only 7ft long. Ordered some color samples. Was originally going to go with a lime green color but my dogs love to dig and get dirty and the orange sample is almost exactly the color of the orange clay my backyard mostly consists of. Going to have to deal with the clay later so I can get more grass growing.

So I ordered a medium gray wide wicker and orange cushions. They finally were delivered yesterday.

Incredible that the pieces fit like a puzzle in these boxes.




Dogs inspecting it. I will be doing my best though to keep them off of it.


The sectional not yet clipped together and no cushions yet.


One of the reasons I went with this company as well is that they were one of the only ones in this price range that had mesh bottoms to the cushions to allow for them to dry much fast when they get wet.


The cushion covers attach to that large velcro square on the bottom in the picture above.


All finished and ready to relax. Just in time to watch the Season opening F1 race on the back porch.



Next project up will be lighting connected outside around our firepit. The supplies for that should be here this weekend for me to get installed.

 

that looks really nice... i'm considering an outdoor sofa for my enclosed sunroof as well... it's an odd shape so not sure how to make it work...

if you don't mind me asking, where did you buy it from?

 

Bought it from a company called RST Brands. I was worried about it cause they do not physically sell in store anywhere. However all the reviews I read on multiple different sites about their different products all seemed good. The quality out of the box seems excellent. We will see how well it holds up long term. Cushions are also Sunbrella which was another requirement as I figured it gave the best chance of holding up with the dogs as well. When I ordered it 2 weeks ago they were having a 30% off sale. Not sure if it is still going on.

 

i'll check them out... looks like they have a large variety... just need to save some money... outdoor furniture is so expensive...

 

Nice couch man, I like it

 

So my cable saga is finally over. The main lines were pulled a few weeks ago and finally got my service to the house hooked up this past Friday with a temporary cable from the line tap across my yard that they still have to could back and put a permenant cable in the ground.

The main line process was not without issue though. I did not find this issue out till two Sundays ago when I went to test my sprinkler system and two zone did not work at all. They put the cable conduit in the ground right over my sprinkler system along the road. They broke the sprinkler pipes in 6 different locations and managed to cut the connection to the sprinker heads in 4 other locations. So 25ft of pipe and 2 new sprinkler heads later the system works. Luckily for me they were easy to deal with and did this work themselves. It apparently is very common to happen since they can't detect the plastic lines in the ground.

 

The second of several outdoor projects I wanted to get complete before the end of spring and start of summer was to put up some out string lights around my fire pit. I didn't want anything that was super bright but just enough warm light to be able to function around the fire.

I had done some reading and originally just planned to run some hooks from the trees and then mount the lights to that but it seemed that it was better to run some steel cable first and then hang the lights from that. I think in the end it will last much longer this way. I also might have went overkill with the steel wire size and might be able to even hang other stuff from it as well.

I put a stainless steel eye bolt in 5 trees to support connect the steel cable. I didn't want to harm the trees and most of my research online seemed so show that pre-drilling the holes and bolting directly to the tree was better long term than trying to use sometype of wrap system around the tree.



Steel cable install complete


I wanted a dimm warm light so went with so vintage style bulbs. The bulbs are 40watts each and there are 15 of them for a total of 600watts of lighting for the area.


The bulbs are pretty large about the same size as a regular indoor light bulb.


Daytime test. Love the vintage long filaments. TIme will tell if they will hold up to the wind and storms.


Daytime test to make sure no dead bulbs.


The end result. Thankfully it came out with exactly what I was looking for. Some warm ambiance lighting and not something that was bright as day.

 

When is the next fire? I will bring some wood. Those lights look awesome..nice work Jason.

 

Looks awesome, Jason! Let me know when I can come check it out

 

Your fire pit looks awesome! Did you lay in all that wood, or was it there?

 

I am hoping to get a get together setup either this month or next. Most likely will be next month though with the holiday at the end of this month and we just finally got the rest of our furniture moved in.

Thank you. That wood was there thankfully from the previous owners so I have plenty for many fires to come.

 

So bought rear speakers for my surround sound back in January but only finally got around to having them installed today. They are Definitive Technology SR-8080P so that they match the front towers I already have. Hopefully they are not too high up but there is not really much that could be done based on the way the walls are in the room. At most they would have maybe been able to be 6in lower but wanted to make sure the hole for the speaker wire was able to be covered by the speaker itself.



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So we finally got our furniture moved in a little over a month ago after living without it for the first 2.5 months in the house.

Guest Room


Kitchen Dinning Area


Dinning room converted to dog room
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Office (still not fully setup but it is getting there)
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Living Room
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Looks great! Love the high ceilings.

 

congrats on the new house and i agree moving is a bitch

 

Ah, so that's where I'll be staying when I come down to visit

 

House is looking great Jason, loving the speakers too!

 

Sounds good just let me know when.

 

So this weekend my dad came down to help me do the yearly trimming of all the bushes. He has tons of trimmers and thankfully is willing to ccome down for a weekend each year and bring them with so I don't have to spend the money on them all.

This picture is from back in December so it is not a great before picture and I forgot to take one now this weekend. It was much more overgrown than it already is in this picture. I didn't like how the bushes were already above the bottom of the windows even back in December and by now they were really over it so we cut them back a lot so that with next years growth it still won't be over. Doesn't look the greatest right now as we had to take some things past the green to get them back to where they needed to be. Also don't mind the fact I still need to do some more cleanup but ran out of steam in the hot weather. The ones in front of the window on the stone section of the house and the holly trees were the most difficult and time consuming. We took 8in off the ones in front of that windows and a little over 1ft off the top of each holly tree.

Before


After


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About time you trimmed your bush down :ghey:

 

You like trimmed bushes don't you Mr. Penguin

 

So it is fall and time to fertalize and overseed the lawn ahead of the next year. Rented a plug aerator last Thursday and did the entire front lawn and half of the back as I was only going to seed have the back. Put down lime, fertalizer, and overseeded the entire front as well as some top soil and full seeding some areas that had no grass.

This machine was no joke and defintiely worth the rental price for sure. I looked up how much they are new and I could rent it every year for about 20 years before paying it off so I will just keep renting one of them.


The reason for only aerating half the back yard was I figured with all the plugs it would cause the dogs to dig more. I was also only seeding and fertalizing half the back yard as I don't want to the dogs on the fertalizer and them running would tear up the new grass rather easy. So I decided the only way to grow grass with four dogs was to fence off part of it. So I decided on doing exactly half of the area I want to to have grass and will keep it zoned off for about 9 months to allow deep root growth without it being under stress from the dogs running on it. Hopefully it turns out well.



My trusty yard shoes for the past 3 years have seen better days and might be ready to be replaced. They served me well for about 6 years of regular wear before that as well.

 

I just retired my yard shoes as well. The sole complete gave out when I was cutting the grass and I didn't have the heart to duct tape them.

I like the half and half fencing idea. I had to do the same with my yard, I seeded half and fenced it off and let the dogs roam the other half my fenced in area

 

Once I get a yard full of grass I am going to use pine needles to landscape the transition of the yard into the natural wooded area. I figure it is a better choice than tanbark since I have tons of pine trees.

 

So the grass was coming in good in some places but other places it would just not grow. Even with aerating, feratlizer, lime, and seeding grass was only growing in some of the areas in the back yard. So this weekend I started digging up the top 3in of the areas that were not growing and mixing in some pre fertalized top soil with that soil and then seeding that. I have made it about 2/3 of the way across the yard now with doing that as I am doing it all by hand. Hopefully this coming weekend when I get back from the dragon I will get the last 1/3 finished.

Putting the wagon to work.


Fresh top soil and seed put down and everything watered. Lets hope this all pays off this year and next year I can do the other half of the yard.

 

ya need a weathertech trunk mat stat!!!!

 

Is your grass enjoying all of these days of no rain lately? The grass in my yard hates it's life.

 

My grass is staying happy with my sprinkler system. My wallet though is hating my water bill.

 

 

This lawn soil is good stuff, that's what I used for all my grass seed patches this year

 

Nothing a vacuum can't handle. I should get some type of matt eventually but I use the space under the floor to store stuff so often it seems like it would get in the way.

It worked greet most places. I had one place though that was about 6ftx8ft that I dug up the top 3-4in of soil and mixed in two 2.5 bags worth of the top soil and then put seed down. Nothing has grown in that area still at all. It looks like I will be leaving my fencing up till spring and trying again then for my one half of the yard.