Happy Anniversary

We've been in our house for a year, this month. Although I have not been regularly posting in this blog, I thought about doing a catch-up post, primarily for us. We've been so busy that it's hard to remember everything we've done. What follows is a rememberance of items and activities since my last post in February. These items are in sort of chronological order...sort of. 

 New Lawn- I mentioned this in my previous post. We’ve got a lawn in...sort of. Parts of the lawn came in nicely, green and lush. Other parts...not so much. We started the lawn from seed and, in hindsight, should have done a better job of raking the grass seed in. I'm pretty sure the birds ate most of the seed. We kept after it, though, reseeding several times and fertilizing. With the onset of cooler weather, our grass has started spreading rapidly. I've got faith that we will eventually end up with a nice-looking lawn. 

Here’s the front of the house, showing our not-so-great lawn and rose garden.

 Fence - We finished the fence along the west side of our property, probably some time in late March or early April. We struggled with a means of keeping the fencing taut while we fastened it to the posts. Every YouTube video we saw shouwed a guy with either a tractor or a forklift holding the fencing tight. We figured out how to do it with a cable come-along and a clamp that I rigged up. It was fairly labor-intensive but the final results were worth it. 

Garden - We hauled in some topsoil and then fenced off a 24' square garden plot for Cathy. We had already run an irrigation line to the site, so Cathy took the ball and ran with it. She planted a bed of dahlias, knowing full well that they might not do well in this hot, dry climate. After a slow start, they gave us a spectacular display of flowers starting in late summer. Additionally, she grew tomatoes (they did great), peppers (not-so-great), zuchini (great), potatoes (pretty good for afirst effort) cantaloup and melons (great) and sunflowers. All in all, it was a great first year for the garden. She is still harvesting tomatoes and zuchini in mid-November! 

New Year...New House...LOTS of Work!

 I've decided that I'm going to keep posting in the blog, even though we are no longer full-time RVing, or even still have our Big Country home - more on that, below. I like writing, and these blog posts serve as a journal of our life in retirement, and, hopefully, you still enjoy reading.

We have been SO busy! Here's a look at what we've done since the first of January:

1. Sold Our Home: Our old home, that is. I talked about this in my last blog post. 

2. Bought a New Car: It's been on our radar to buy another vehicle. Our beloved truck, The Beast, does a wonderful job on heavy-duty pickup stuff: hauling a trailer or loads of gravel, for example. For simply running around town, it's not optimum. Also, we live 8-10 miles from town, and, sooner or later, both of us are going to have something going on that takes us to town at the same time. We ended up buying a 2021 Honda Pilot with only 18,000 miles from CarGuru. We couldn't be more pleased with the car, the price, or the whole buying process. 

3. Bought a New Trailer: Yep! Cathy spotted this bad boy on Craigslist. We sold our Big Country on a Tuesday and the following Sunday drove over to Corcoran, which is in the Central Valley about 80 miles from here, and looked this guy over. It's a 2020 Keystone Cougar 27SGS. It's 3/4 the length and 2/3 the weight of our Big Country. Despite the smaller size, it is still very well-equipped. Despite it being fairly new, there are a number of minor repairs that it needs; additionally, it isn't nearly clean enough for Cathy! We've got it parked on the side of our garage while we get it ready for travel; we've got a trip planned for early March!

Our new trailer. The hatch cover is laying on the ground - work in progress.

4. Installed Gutters: We really needed gutters on the front of the house. The way the roofline is configured, rainwater just pours onto the ground right in front of the house. One problem: about all you can buy today is the white vinyl stuff from a big box store. This wouldn't look well on our house, where the trim is a very dark gray, almost black. We ended up buying the white vinyl stuff from Lowes and spray-painting it black. One can buy spray paint formulated to bond well with plastic, so that's what we used. Painting it was fairly straightforward, although it took six cans of paint to finish the job. Installation was fairly easy, too, although there's a lot of up-and-down on the ladder. Of course, since we finished instillation, we've had almost no rain!

This is not a great photo, but does show how the black-painted gutters blend in with the trim.

5. A Rose Garden for Cathy: We ID'ed a location in front of the house for roses. Sherry was up for a weekend and she and Cathy planted 11 bare root roses. We can't wait to see them in bloom.

Here's the master gardeners. The area to the right will be grass, eventually. 

6. Sprinklers and Irrigation: We are planning on putting grass into the area right in front of our house. So, we installed a sprinkler system first. While we were doing that, I also installed a separate irrigation line that will be used for future plantings further out in the front of the property; we tied into this line for a drip irrigation system for the roses. Not being complete idiots, we rented a trencher to dig all this stuff. What a gas! This beast dug all of the trenches we needed, plus two, 75' long trenches in the back yard for future use, in about 90 minutes! I wish we had more stuff to trench. With the trenching done, putting in PVC pipe and sprinklers was fairly straightforward. 

6. New Fence: We are splitting both costs and labor with our neighbors to install a new fence along our west boundary. We are running the fence from the back fence line up to the back of our neighbors house; that's almost exactly 300' of fencing. We split the cost of a power auger to drill the 40 or so holes we need for the fence posts. Right now, we've got 20 posts set in concrete, so we're roughly halfway on that part of the job. After the posts are all set, we'll run 5' tall wire fencing. Here's what it looks like so far:

What's Next? Right now, we are focused on two projects: 1) getting our trailer ready to travel; 2) getting a front lawn planted. For the latter, we are finishing up some borders, then we'll bring in some topsoil and get some seed down. 

Beyond that, we'll start working out back; Cathy wants to get a garden in, plus she's got some dahlia bulbs to plant soon. I want to try my hand at growing hops, and those need to get started in the next month or so. We've started looking at what we want to do for a deck, out back, too. Stay tuned!

End of an Era

 Earlier today, we sold our home - our old home, that is. Camping World both buys and sells RVs. So, this morning, bright and early, we drove our beloved RV the 100 miles or so to the nearest Camping World, in Fresno. 

Prior to that, we had completed an online questionnaire that covered the basics of the trailer, as well as the amenities, damages, additions, etc. to the unit. With that info, Camping World gave us a quote for an outright purchase, subject to onsite inspection. 

We pulled in there and expected the guy to go over things with a fine-tooth comb. After all, the RV was almost four years old, with it being occupied almost all of that time. We knew it was in good shape, but it certainly was not in brand-new condition. It had all of the usual dings, scrapes and dents that everyday living seems to generate. 

So, we were expecting the guy to open and close all the cabinet doors, check the operation of both TVs and fireplaces, the refrigerator, microwave, AC, heater, etc. We expected a detailed exterior inspection, including climbing on the roof to look for damage, examining the tires for wear, opening all of the outside storage compartments. WRONG. He did almost none of that. He checked that all six slides operated properly and sort of just took a good look around; I don't think he spent five minutes inspecting the whole thing. 

We were in and out of there in an hour! They're mailing us a check. Anyone else, and they wouldn't be getting the title to the vehicle that easily. However, this is Camping World, which is part of Good Sam, of which we are members and have been for years. We have complete confidence the check will arrive as promised in a few days. 

We have zero regrets or sadness about this happening. We were ready to close that chapter in our life as we start a new one. We are already starting to look for a smaller fifth-wheel trailer, something in the 28-30' length range. Such a length will be significantly lighter and easier to tow, and gives us many more options for camping in campgrounds, instead of just RV parks.

We loved our Big Country home. Despite a lot of early mechanical problems, we found it well-designed, comfortable, and spacious. I don't think either of us would have done anything differently if we were doing it all over again.

What's Next for Rick and Cathy?

 This blog started as a way for us to capture and share our travels around the country. For the last year-and-a-half or so, we - and this blog - have been much more focused on the tribulations and triumphs of having our new house built.

So, as I shared in the last post, that's done. We're comfortably in the house. In fact, we joyously shared Christmas with the entire family. We had nine adults, three grandchildren and three dogs here for three glorious days and nights, with the added bonus of having three of the kids (Scott, Heather and Sherry) spend an extra night because of bad weather along I-5. 

Here's the whole tribe, after a wine tasting at a local winery. 

Now, they are gone home; our house is both clean and quiet. Our attentions are now turned toward to the question posed in the title of this post: what's next?

As you might suspect, the inside of our home doesn't need any immediate attention. The only major inside project that we've ID'ed is to rip out some kitchen cabinets and replace them with open shelving; we'll add a tile backsplash at the same time. For reasons that pass my understanding, the cabinets are only 12" wide; two of them are in spaces at least 18" wide and, to my mind, look funny. This project is not urgent, though; it's just something that we want to do. 

The outside is another matter. We are literally sitting on an acre of bare dirt. With the rains we've had so far this rainy season - Paso Robles has already exceeded last season's rain total in only two months! - we've grown accustomed to muddy shoes and the constant cleaning of mud, dirt and gravel tracked into the house.

Fortunately, we had 8' of gravel placed around the entire perimeter of the house. Additionally, our driveway and parking areas are all road base, which drains very well. Because of this, one can get into and out of the house without too much mess being made. Beyond the immediate perimeter is another story.

Our immediate focus is the front of the house. We need to install rain gutters first. The way that our roof is constructed, the gables from the garage and porch dump the majority of their collected rainfall right in front of the house. Even with drains installed at the corners, our front "yard" is swamplike.

So, first gutters, then a sprinkler system, then grass out for 25-30' or so. After that, we're putting a rose garden out front; Cathy's already ordered some bareroot roses, which I believe will get shipped next month. 

After all that's done, we'll probably do something quick-and-dirty for a vegetable garden. I say "probably" because Cathy wants to build the deck out back next. I think we can do a garden quicker and easier, first... stay tuned.

What about the RV?  We are going to downsize. We're going to sell or trade our 40' fifth-wheel trailer in for something in the 30-32' size range. We recently went to an RV show and saw several models that will meet our downscaled needs. We fully intend to hit the road again - but we won't be living in it. That makes a big difference. We want something a little smaller; it's both easier and slightly cheaper to tow, and will allow us to get into some state park and forest service campgrounds. The beast we've got now is pretty much restricted to RV parks. Also, we will be getting a trailer with an RV refrigerator, which will allow us to boondock (camp offgrid) which isn't possible with our current home. 

WE ARE HOME!

 Yes, we are finally in our new home. It's been a long haul. Here's a brief timeline...

July 2020 - We purchased our lot and closed escrow on it right at the end of July.

October 29, 2020 - We ordered our home and submitted the building permit. The long delay from the purchase of the property was because of numerous tests and surveys that needed to be done for the submission of the permit.

January 2021 - The permit was kicked out because of some unmet requirements of Cal Fire.

April 2021 - We were informed the permit would not be issued until we had a well onsite. This was contrary to everyone's expectations and prior experience - even the well company!

June 14, 2021 - Well drilling commenced! After completion of the well, the water was tested and a report submitted to the county.

June 29, 2021 - Building permit issued!

July 31, 2021 - House arrived onsite.

November 16, 2021 - Final inspection completed. WE ARE DONE!

November 18, 2021 - First night in the new house.

Obviously, a lot happened in between, mostly summarized in previous blog posts. Here, I'll capture what's happened since my last post.

One story about the final inspection, and the huge bullet that we dodged. Our driveway plans called for a slope of 11.9%. Slopes above 12% grade trigger a Cal Fire requirement for an "all weather" driveway - one that's paved with asphalt or concrete. That's really expensive: like, $30K or so!

Unfortunately, the plans and the reality didn't mesh. Our grading contractor couldn't get the grade below 15%! How could this happen? Lots of finger-pointing here: the grading contractor, plan engineer, survey company all felt the other guys were at fault. At the end, we decided to wing it. Our contractor said he'd never seen a fire marshal pull out a grading level to check the grade.

So, the fire inspector pulls up. First words out of his mouth were, "You guys planning on paving this?" 

"No, we weren't."

"You got the plans handy?"

"They're inside."

We walked into the house; he took a look at the plans, saw the grading plan, commented "11.9%" and never said another word about the driveway! Cathy and I worked really hard not to bust into our happy dance until the guy left!

Prior to final inspection, we continued with the numerous pre-move-in tasks we had set for ourselves. This includes things like installing ceiling fans (5) and assembling a lot of furniture. Bear in mind... we essentially had no furniture. Aside from a TV, a piano, grandfather clock and antique library table, we were starting from scratch. So, we spent a number of days assembling bed frames, a TV stand, end tables, dressers, etc. 

We also had all kinds of deliveries. We had movers move our belongings, including the piano, out of storage on the 15th. We had ordered recliners and a sofa; they were delivered on the 15th. 

Oldest daughter Sherry spent Thanksgiving with us, and it was great having her here. Not the least of the reasons: time spent with her was time we weren't spending working like field hands around the house! It was a welcome break in the action.

Right now, the house is pretty much assembled inside. We don't have anything on the walls yet, but we have a number of items set out which will get hung in the next couple of days. We are starting to morph into a more "normal" life style for us: Cathy's busy organizing the inside of the house and I've been able to focus a little more on outside activities. We are busy planning on having the whole family here for Christmas. Not surprisingly, we've got a bunch of things to do before then, but they'll all get done - I think!

Was it worth the wait? You bet. Here's the view out our back door...

Not Yet? Really!?

No - we are NOT yet in our place. Real Soon Now. We hope.

In hindsight, we were probably being unrealistic in hoping to be in the house by October 15th. A lot of things needed to happen, and they didn't.

Nevertheless, we are almost there. The house is 99+% complete. We've got not only the power turned on, but the water and internet are functional. We even bought and had installed a new washer and a dryer. What a luxury after 3-1/2 years to do laundry without paying for it!

The good news is that, with all the utilities in, we moved our trailer onsite on October 15. We are thrilled to be here. It's quiet and beautiful; being here has quelled a lot of our anxiety and impatience about getting in the house. 

The house is beautiful. Here's what it looks like right now:

Actually, that's not completely accurate. A couple of days ago we painted the garage door the dark brown trim color, but I don't have a pic. (More on that below.) Final grading will bring the driveway up to the bottom of the garage door. 

So, what's holding us back? Our grading contractor. He was originally scheduled to finish our driveway and grading the front of the house the week of October 18. He postponed his work until this week, stating that he's got a bunch of people out with COVID. Of course, this same contractor delayed putting in our septic system because he had a bunch of guys out with COVID! Go figure. Anyhow, I've been told they will finish things up 11/3 and 11/4. We'll see.

Meanwhile, we've taken advantage of the delay, and our proximity, to get a bunch of tasks done inside the house... you know, all the little (and not-so-little) things that you do in a new house. Here's a list of what I can remember:

We installed tile backsplashes in both bathrooms

Added extra towel bars and hooks in both bathrooms

Installed paper towel holders in bathrooms and kitchen

Installed extra clothes rod in MB closet

Build out shelving in hall coat closet

Build out shelving in linen closet

Painted garage door

Install external keypad for garage door opener

Added the shower curtain rod in the guest bathroom.

LOTS of cleaning, with lots more to do.

Pending: 

Install five ceiling fans. Actually, got one done today, so it's four more. 

Figure out the sliding glass doors. They shipped without latches installed. I am sparring with the manufactured home people to get this done, but they are ignoring me. I will probably have to do these myself, since I can't believe the house would pass inspection with exterior doors that don't latch or lock!

We hope that next week we will get the final inspection and, assuming no issues arise, the long-awaited Certificate of Occupancy! 

Are We There Yet?

 Almost. Maybe. Probably real soon now.

This is probably going to be a rather disjointed post; a lot has happened since I posted last month. As I write this in early October, we are quietly optimistic that our house will be "done" by October 15. Why so specific? Our monthly rent here at the RV park is up on the 15th, and we'd really rather not pay another month's rent. Even if the house isn't liveable, if the utilities are in, we are gone from the RV park. We can legally park and live on the property, since we already own it outright. 

So much has happened with the construction of the house that it's nearly impossible to capture it all, at least without boring you to death. Here are the key points:

1. There is electricity to the house, although it hasn't been turned on yet. (Not sure why, though... we keep getting vague answers on that)

2. We managed to get AT&T to splice in a new phone line under our driveway, at no cost to us. This, after our grading contractor dug a new, deeper trench for the new line - at a cost to us. All in all, though, this was a net win for us: it'll cost us about half what AT&T quoted us. 

3. The septic tank installation has been completed and backfilled. The back half of our lot has been graded. The front part plus the driveway won't be done until work on the house is nearly done; driving big trucks up and down the driveway really beats it up.

4. Our garage and porch, which are both conventional, stick-built additions, are getting completed. They really add a lot to the house, in terms of both functionality and adding dimension to the front of the house. 

Here's the porch. The deck will have Trex matching the small, built-in porch that's barely visible. 

The garage... and a huge trash pile.

This is an older pic, showing more of the front of the house. 

5. The Wall - This could probably be a post all by itself. Several weeks ago, our contractor - who is a great guy - approached us about building a "small" retaining wall. We intentionally had our house built as far to one side of the lot as possible. We did this in order to leave room for a driveway around the other side. Basically, the house is shoved as far east as we could; since the land slopes east to west, this necessitated a cut about five feet tall right up against the property line. Building code requires that this cut be backed with a retaining wall. 

We're talking about stackable block that you can buy at any big-box hardware store. I had experience using these in Ohio, building a number of planters on sloping ground. 

Like fools, we agreed to take this on. Our original thoughts were that this would be a wall about 40' long and maybe 2-1/2 or 3 feet high. Wrong.

First of all, when we factored in the depth of the porch - an additional 8', plus the slopes in the cut, the wall ended up being just under 60' long. But that's not all.

A week or so before we were going to to this, our contractor said that to do this right we should lay down a 6" bed of fill (crushed gravel) plus a 6" bed of sand. We did some calculations and that worked out to about a ton of each. 

One last tidbit from our contractor: "You really should set a perforated drain pipe, buried in 6-12" of gravel, behind that wall before you backfill any soil, for good drainage."

We got a little lucky with the gravel and sand... I think. A local sand and gravel company sells this stuff literally dirt-cheap. The only hitch is that they charge a fortune for deliver. Fortunately, the Beast - a so-called one ton truck - can in fact handle nearly a ton-and-a-half of total payload. Using our truck saved us over $500 in delivery fee... on sand and gravel that cost us right at $100. Of course, we had to unload it ourselves!

So, Rick and Cathy, a pair of 68-year-olds, hauled and spread a one-ton load of gravel and then a one-ton load of sand... all in the same day!

Putting the Beast to work!

This is just the base of crushed gravel. A ton of sand was leveled on top of this.

The next day we started setting the previously delivered block. We set and leveled a couple of courses of block, then hauled and spread 1.3 tons of 3/4" gravel, the drainage line, and a couple more courses of block. We finally ran out of gas, quitting when we still had another 3-4 courses of block to set - plus backfill with dirt. 

You can see we still have a ways to go... this is too low.

Surprisingly, we were able to move the next day without too much drama. We put a couple of courses of block on the wall and shoveled some more dirt. Both of us felt we needed a couple more rows to get the height up where it should be, but we'd had enough for the day. We ended up waiting until the next weekend to finish things up.

It wasn't until we moved over half the block that I checked: they weigh 23 pounds apiece. We moved over 550 of them... for a total block weight of over 12,600 pounds, or 6.3 tons!

So, this whole project required that we move about ten TONS of material! I'm glad we did it - it turned out nice and we're both proud of the work, and I am sure we saved a ton (pun intended!) of money, but, Oh, Lord, it was a lot of work!

The finished wall!

We are having our flooring installed this week. The well guys are supposed to finish their work this week, as well - we think. The garage and porch should be done this week, or early next week - we think. A lot has to happen before the 15th!