End of an Era

The house has been sold so the only work being done is to do some smaller repairs to complete the sale. Regardless, some of this is worth detailing.

The side and rear doors needed weather stripping at the bottom as per the city inspector so each door was pulled from it's hinges and the bottom half inch sawn off to attach an aluminum ell that will hold the rubber gasket at the bottom edge of the door. The units are 36" in length and are sawn off to fit. Make sure to make them shorter than the door to allow for the molding.

The rear door had a threshold that was below the level of the floor so once the strip was installed it rubbed too hard on the floor. The solution was to install a new threshold. Fortunately I had an oak blank on hand and was able to shape it with the table saw. A few counter sinks and some construction adhesive and it was completed.

The rest of the work was some electrical work related to getting proper grounding.

Row Row Row Your Hedge

The boxwoods were installed finally on the front walk like any proper English Tudor would sport. All new soil was put in for the beds to maximize the growth of these slow growing varieties. Since there is a delivery cost for the 4 yards to heavy soil, the order was increased to include 4 yards of leaf post to refresh all the beds for the entire lot. You will want to make the wheelbarrow your friend.

Order soil from CalBlend Soils in Irwindale (800) 425-3631 The savings over bags from Home Depot are huge.

Another One Bites The Dust

The second fruit tree finally gave up the ghost entirely. This one was on the front walk and was going to be int he way for the eventual installation of hedges. The removal was easy for two reasons, it had been shallow watered for years leaving virtually no tap root and it had been mostly dead for some time allowing many of the roots to rot through. A long handled axe does better work at the roots than a saw, unless you have a chain saw as the dirt will dull the blade pretty quick.

Lighting It Up

Installed the Malibu walkway lights and garden spots. The 15 lamp kit was half price at Home Depot. With 10 walk lights it was just enough to do the long front walk if relying on the porch light and garden spots for the last few feet.

Watch out for the stakes on these, the posts and parts of the housing are metal but if you push them in from the lamp at the top you will break the post and the plastic lamp diffuser. These are really very fragile despite what is implied by looks. The spots are more rugged but again the stakes are plastic. Replacements are not readily available but a drip line stake can be used as a replacement.

The spots were used to throw shadows of the elephant ears on the blank walls so the lighting effect is more than just the plant.

Softscape

Planted the hedges along the interior side of the fence. These were obtained from the Garden View wholesale nursery in Irwindale. Prices are average or better but the selection and quality is much larger.

Once the bushes were in the soil could be raked out and leveled by dragging a 2x4 on a rope and then using a rented roller to perfect the surface. The area was seeded with Barenbrug Water Saver Rhizomatous Tall Fescue (RTF) as it has runners that make it self healing and it is more heat tolerant than Scotts.

New Fence

Replaced the wood fence, old redwood and new pine/cedar. About 200 new boards of redwood plus a few posts, concrete and Simpson strong ties to connect the stringers. The existing frame will be used with a replacement of two posts and the addition of a third stringer along the new sections.

The existing section of new fence was put on steel poles sunk into the ends of the block wall. To cut off the steel poles the brick work around the base of the pole had to be chiseled out and the pole cut off with the reciprocating saw. A new brick covered the pole stump.

The new posts ware 4x4 redwood posts set flush with the back of the wall. This allows for the brick topping to show on the exterior while using the wall for one side of the support. The trick is the pour some concrete in the bottom of the hole and let it set before putting the post in. This keeps the dirt from touching the post and letting termites bore into the post.

Another trick was to layout the boards on the patio to let the wood dry. The boards were turned every day to dry them evenly. This keeps bending to a minimum once mounted on the stringers. Even so, the boards shrunk a bit putting ¼ inch gaps between the boards after being mounted flush. An acceptable gap.

Wood stain and waterproofing has been delayed to allow the wood to get a patina first.

Dirt Cheap!

Found the cheap dirt! 8 yards of really rich top soil and 5 yards of leaf post for about $250 delivered.

Soil and leaf post is delivered by Cal Blend. The smell of the leaf post is heavenly! Staged the load in the driveway and remove some fence panels to shovel the dirt over the wall. It’s a great work out and takes three shifts to get it all loaded in, including spreading leaf post under all the plantings. Careful not to mulch too thickly around the base of bushes to avoid rot.