Classic Tonka

They don't make Tonkas like this anymore. Cole will be pretty excited.

Backyard work - Week 4

Work has slowed down quite a bit this past week. The BBQ island finished up. The grill consists of a 32" Summerset TRL grill and double side burner. The island has two low voltage lights that can be switched off. The drawers below the grill also includes a pull out trash can. The only thing left is to paint the stucco to match the house color.


The scabos split faced tile was added to the water feature as well as the fire pit.


The scabos looks a little dark here because it was wet.


On the side yard, we switched the lights to path lights. In hindsight, it probably would have been fine to leave them the same as our little hat area lights.


Here's our fake grass. They still need to come back and lower the back corner just a little bit.

Backyard work - Week 3

The majority of week 3 was doing the landscaping (plants, irrigation, lights, etc).


Here are the plants after being delivered.


Here are all the succulents.


We had 2 more control valves added so we could control the garden planter independently from the trees and plants. The one pipe going to the right is actually the water supply for the BBQ island sink.


Here's how the irrigation lines feed into the two different planter beds.


This is the french drain for the sink.


Here are all the plants in the front prior to planting. We had them place them and then we fined tuned the placement before getting planted. Even with that, we had to have them move a few after being planted in the ground.


Makes planting in hard rock much easier.


Here's the after picture for the front. Notice the river rock bed which is actually functional since the gutter downspout feeds into it.


Here are the copper scuppers for the pool water feature.


The BBQ island being framed out of metal.


Cement board then covers the metal frame.


The side path is being finished in cement pavers.


Here's our new water line tile.


Here's a picture of the back with all the plants planted.


Here's the front side. We had them add a little river rock bed to cover the drain from the gutters.

Legos anyone?

Lauren and Cole's school has a fundraiser every year where the classrooms put together a gift basket and then sell raffle tickets to win them. We usually never win but this year we hit the jackpot. The "Lego" basket is coveted by many of the elementary kids and much to our surprise we won. Cole put in just 3 tickets.

Surround sound

With sabbatical coming to an end, we've been busy trying to finish all the projects we had planned during our time off. Installing in ceiling speakers however, was not one of them. We had an energy audit done and as a resulted added installation to our attic along with some other improvements. Since I didn't want to be climbing in the attic after the extra insulation was put in, this project moved quickly to the top of the list. Here's one of the speakers before getting installed.


Here's the speaker after getting wrapped in quilt batting. This is to prevent any insulation from coming in contact with the speaker.


Bought some speaker cable from monoprice. Definitely the cheapest price for wire.


Here are the four runs before fishing them through the wall and up in to the attic.


I only had to make one cut in the wall so that I could drill through a 2" x 4" fire blocking.


Here are the two new surround speakers in the family room.


Here are the new outdoor speakers over our patio. Total time spent was probably ~7-8 hours which included fishing the speakers wires through the wall and up through the attic.

Backyard work - Week 2

Since the kids love going to the beach so much, we decided to put in a huge sandbox. Okay not really. The sand is a base for the travertine pavers. Luckily the kids didn't see all the sand.


Here's the far side of the patio where the fire pit and the barbecue island are going to go. You can see the gas riser and the electrical and plumbing facilities.


Here are the pavers before they sanded and compressed them down further.


Here's the pool coping edge. We kept the old pool deck so they have to cover it still. The advantage is that you avoid all the labor to demo the concrete decking but you raise your deck by 2" and you have this extra 4" tile on the side.


Here's the increased patio area.


We put in stepping stones to the back where we are hopefully going to build a garden planter.


The kids enjoyed playing on the mounds of rock.


More stepping stones along the side.


Here's the 4" tile facing that hides the old concrete deck. Water line tile will go below that.


Here's the path along the side of the house.


Here's the start of the fire pit. You can see the gas riser. We actually had them move it another foot the following day.




Here's the fire pit with the travertine cap. Still need to put the stone on the side.


The pool column was finally removed and here's part of the water feature. They still need to add another layer of block on top. They are actually expecting to finish in another week.

Let it rain

It doesn't rain much in Arizona but when it does, it rains hard. Unfortunately our roof design would create a nice waterfall right over our front patio entrance so I thought it was time to fix that little feature. Since we were having lots of pavers put in, I might as well add gutters to those areas as well so the rain doesn't damage those areas. Here you can see a drain pipe being put in on the side of the house. Also note that this is our nice "soil". They had to use a jack hammer to dig the trench.


Here you can see one of the downspouts going right into the drain underground.


Here's a 60ft seamless run with two downspouts that feed into the drain pipe.


Here's the machine that makes the seamless gutters. You feed the raw aluminum rolls on the other end and out come the gutters.


Here they are carrying the 60 ft gutter.


Here's the side of the yard after the drainage pipe and gutters installed.


Here's one of the sides near the front door that creates a nice waterfall.


This downspout will feed into a river rock bed and hopefully flow out into the street. That's the plan at least.


Here's the other side of the front patio that was creating a double waterfall.


We had one other downspout that had a drain that snaked onto the driveway which looked a little ugly. The pipe in the front of the picture is where the drain exits. Hopefully all the water exits from there and goes down the driveway.


The previous downspout wrapping around the column looked a little ugly so I had them connect this pipe to the main drainage pipe. I wished I had thought of that before they had covered and buried the drainage pipe. It looks much cleaner though.

As you can tell from the shear number of pictures, I'm pretty excited to see if this will work. I'll spare you guys the rain photos during the first heavy rain though.