Day One.....

Day One was Monday. This is what our little palace looked like before the crew showed up.This is about midday. No more grass. No more concrete along the north edge of the house/driveway. Already it's a relief and it doesn't matter if we get a huge rainstorm. The water won't be pooling in the carport. There isn't an "after" photo yet. The work is on hold until Friday or Monday. We better hurry up and make mud pies while we can.While the yard is on hold. We're trying to figure out paint colors for the house and trim. This is why some people are happy to have an HOA. They fear the neighbor next door who paints their house crazy colors. We're going for pink with cobalt blue trim. "Yikes," you say! This will not be Pepto Bismal Pink. I do have some limits.....The Chicklet was itching to paint something. She wants a very intense pink. No, I don't think so. We tried painting the shutters and window trim next to the house to get an idea of how the colors will interact.The block wall.....it will get stuccoed but for now I'm going for the absolutely perfect cobalt blue. The top two are too green and the bottom one too light. I'll be going to get some new samples as soon as I can.

The color is very visible from down the street....I didn't need to paint the end of this wall but my lovely next door neighbor-the one who parks his car on the dirt that was once a lawn, the one who revs his motorcycle for a half hour at 3am....He had an absolute fit about the jack hammers starting at 7am on Monday. He called the landscape company and complained about the noise and the dust.

The landscapers were "very tan." My neighbor threatened to call Sheriff Joe to search for illegals...

What do think when someone says "construction?" I talked to him Sunday afternoon and let him know we were starting a huge construction job re-doing the yard and pulling up concrete. "No problem," he said. what a Blankety Blank Jerk. Hope he hates blue. he has to look at it when he pulls into his driveway.

The olive tree in back is coming down on Day Two. I asked the crew to start with the chain saw as early as possible. I'm such a bad girl....
Marissa