I have always thought of "a hole in the wall" as being a little out of the way restaurant, generally a BBQ joint. Nothing fancy, often tucked between two bigger entities. Or a somewhat shabby domicile, as in: he lives in a little hole in the wall.
I looked up the derivation of "hole in the wall" - Generally it is believed to refer to some snug corner, perhaps near the town walls, but the common story was that it referred to "the hole made in the wall" of the debtors' or other prisons, through which the poor prisoners received the money, broken meat, or other donations of the charitably inclined.
So, not a particularly desired description. But, this morning, before 7:00, I was happy to hear that we are getting a hole in the wall. Robert, our landscaper, was here bright and early. Their first order of business: take down a section of the wall next to the front of our house. There will be a gate (often referred to as "an RV gate," but we won't be storing the RV there - not allowed with the HOA rules) going in there to give us access to the yard on that side. "You were happy?" you ask. Yes - looking at that giant stack of pavers across the front of our yard, it would have been a giant pain in the ass for the workers to take those in the narrow access on the other side of the house. This will make their life easier...
Bright and early: you can see the sun just peeking over South Mountain. I went outside to visit with Robert. He assured me the landscaping will be done this week... except the pergola, which is being manufactured and will take a couple weeks. "I will be back to install the pergola as soon as it is done," he told me. I think he was covering his bases, because when I gave him the deposit check I looked him in the eye and said, "No changes, no surprises." We shook hands.
Right now, at 7:45, there are a lot of "construction sounds" coming from the yard. Music to my ears.
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A view from in the yard, looking back at that new opening...
They have built up the area off Steph and Dan's patio and are staging pavers...
The view from their patio (above) and from the yard (below)...
I've been going over some details with Robert (trim shape on the pergola - picked to match trim on the house), conduit for electrical for the hot tub and shed, step shape from the landing out our door. They have laid in the irrigation lines along the perimeter by the wall.
Making progress. The turf is here. More sand and gravel will be showing up today and tomorrow.
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Back to the "old dogs, new tricks" discussion. While I stayed around to check in with Robert from time to time, Joan went to the closest Wally World (about 3 miles away - first time to that store). One of the things she picked up: a powered digital TV antenna. She plugged in the coax and the power, and... we have local TV channels. Lots of them. More than we want or need. We went into Set-Up, deleted all, then clicked in the few channels we want to keep in our favorites list. Save. Pretty sure Steph thinks we are Luddites because we haven't used Hulu before (but we do use Netflix, Prime, and when we can snag a free intro offer: Apple TV). Using the antenna is faster then scrolling through Hulu. The powered antenna is a digital signal, so it looks just as good as any of the streaming services. And, did I mention: faster? One click for the guide, scroll to one of the 6 or 7 channels we saved, click.
This works for us. We'll pick up another one for the bedroom TV, and for about the same cost as one month of basic cable. 👍
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Now that we have the landscaping underway and approval from the HOA for the low-rider shed, I signed the documents for the build from Tuff Shed. I was told "mid to late next week" for the build. They work with sub-contractors who work only for them for the install. Looking at some of the on-line reviews for Tuff Shed, there are a number of "1 star" ratings. I quizzed the salesman about that. Home Depot sells Tuff Sheds and uses their own sub-contractors to get the work done... seems there has been an issue with Home Depot crew not showing up on time, or at all. The salesman from Tuff Shed assures me that won't be the case when dealing with them direct. Hope so.
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The pavers are taking shape on Steph and Dan's patio...
End of the day...
1 comment:
The landscaping is coming together nicely.
We too use powered digital antennas to get broadcast HD video over the air. We have 24 channels locally but only about six or seven actually get watched. I don't need Home Shopping Network in either English or Espanol so we hide those. The bedroom TV is on the good side of the house and gets better reception but has no DVR. The living room TV is at the far end from the hillside transmitter antennas, and reception on some channels can be spotty. Perhaps we also lose a little signal going through the DVR first then to the TV via HDMI cable.
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