Homeowner Thread

I am extremely stressed-out on your behalf about the lack of a timeline on the griddle!  You sound so calm here, though...  I hope they're quick about getting it out to you, and that it works!  Keep us updated!

That's a great suggestion!  All possibilities are on the table; it's tricky because the septic tank and pipes really limit what can be planted too close to them, but something like that might be our best solution!

It's nice that the lids are painted green so they blend right into the yard.

Right?  They're basically invisible!

nowimnothing, I really appreciate all this work you're doing for me, and feel it will be worth whatever you end up charging me. 

(In all seriousness, the landscape designer we're working with said that a frequent solution to these dumb lids is to created a mulch area around them and paint them brown.  It would be nice if they weren't so awkwardly placed right in the middle of the yard there, though -- I feel like a rando floating mulched area will only be a partial improvement, especially considering you can't plant anything with deep roots over the tank, so there can't be any serious shrubs or trees or anything.) (The REAL solution to these things is to be able to put the tank in a more off-to-the-side area, like, say, behind the garage where you can't see it.  But nooooooooooooooo, the only place the engineer wanted to put it was right there.  UGH.)

I'm personally fond of native grasses and wildflowers and found this PDF from the University of Minnesota about landscaping septic systems that lists bunch of native Minnesota perennials that seem to skew towards the "is not tall and doesn't require much water" side of things. Not sure about native New Jersey plants, but I'm going to guess if they survive in Minnesota, they'll survive New Jersey.

I may have to accept financial reality and put vinyl siding on my house and frankly I'm angry at myself.

On federal holidays I a) go out to lunch, and b) clean the house, and today I did these in the most literal sense. Scrubbing the north and east sides of the vinyl siding with a brush and hosing off probably takes about three times as long as pressure-washing would take, but there's no rent/set-up time this way.

Powerwashing on a sunny day is one of life's great pleasures. Unless you're doing it at the top of a 40-foot ladder, as I used to have to, but that's uncommon.

We're spending close to $7K to have the Florida house cleaned and repainted. Hope that we see at least most of that back when we sell, but really, there's no way to know.

Things have really happened around here!  Behold, the end of Phase 2 of the stately Dick N Hisses Manor backyard overhaul!  WOWZA!  IMPRESSIVE!  (It has a lot more impact in person, and if you've been living with this yard for nearly 18 years...)



So, yes, the septic lids are still doing their septic lid thing.  BUT!  The sprawl of desolate tree stump is gone!  And in its place, a really spectacularly gorgeous red maple!  If you look carefully at the upper left of the picture you can see the new cherry tree, and there is a partner red maple hidden behind the foreground dogwood branches there on the right.  I am DELIRIOUSLY happy with them!  

And holy cow, that path!!  I was very taken with the idea of a path curving through the yard around to the compost bin behind the garage, but while I had a strong feeling about what it would look like I don't think I had any actual concrete mental image.  So this is not at all what I was expecting... but I love it!  The stones are all cut in flush to the ground, so the grass will grow in around them as they settle and it's going to be so lovely!  

Phase 3 of the backyard overhaul will be the patio of crushed oyster shells, which is going to the right of path (you can kinda see some of the outline there) and the planter area around the lids, the boundary of which you can see here.  Hugs and I had visions of daffodils, hellebores, and bleeding hearts, like the gorgeous spring garden we walk past in town, but the landscape designer was like, "No, what you want is ENGLISH GARDEN."  I did not think I wanted English Garden, but he said he got the inspiration from the pink of the house and the grays of the path and existing flagstone path, and he really sold us on his vision of layers of pastels in there.  So I guess we'll have a solid border of low lavender all along the path, and then taller multi-hued coneflowers and whatever surrounding the lids.  I'm excited!

Phase 4 will involve re-grading the area between the "English Garden" and the side of the garage, so who even knows what's going on there.  The landscape designer is very excited by it, while we didn't even realize there was really a drainage problem at all, but... I mean... that mile of drainpipe from the gutter might be an indication that we can do better there.  I'm willing to see where he goes with this!

So yesterday I took the nice camera out in the yard and while it's obviously hardly a cathedral canopy of dappled leafiness, the maples are a lot bigger than I expected.  And you can stand immediately under them and feel, in just that one small space, what it's going to be like someday:

I think you should paint the septic caps yellow with smiley faces, or red with white dots like cartoon mushrooms.

Gaaaaaaaaaasp!  Red with white dots!!!  That's BRILLIANT!!!  (Smiley faces would be hilarious.  If I'm ever selling this house I'll prep them like that for listing photos.)

Our house was built circa 1994, along with the rest of our street, which is all townhomes - most are either 2 bed/1 car garage middle units or 3 bed/2 car garage end units. We live in an end unit. When we bought the house it was either this one or a middle unit in a different community and we went with the not updated but more space version.

Nothing has been updated - since we’ve lived here we’ve repainted the primary bedroom and en-suite, stripped kitchen wallpaper and repainted, replaced all the appliances and the hvac, got a new front door, new glass in the windows, replaced almost every overhead light fixture, fixed a broken closet door, etc.

what we haven’t done is replace any carpeting or flooring, even though the flooring is terrible, especially on the first floor. The kitchen cabinets and countertops are pretty dated looking too.

Every so often TWBE says he thinks our house is embarrassing, but he also doesn’t want to put the time or money into renovating. Okay, I say, we could move. He thinks we’d never sell the house. We bought it for $215k 12 years ago. A house across the street was listed for $349k and is contingent! Now granted, they put a ton of updates in. But we could sell our house for a full $100k less than that and still come out way ahead financially. He just doesn’t seem to see it. This is the whole point of home ownership!

yup most likely! Is it a battery backup that's manufactured or OEMed by that company, or is it APC/Schneider Electric? If the latter, you can also buy replacement batteries from 3rd party sites. Still cheaper to do it yourself, but if you didn't want to wire it up yourself, it's still cheaper to buy 3rd party than from the manufacturer.