A RED LETTER DAY

    Today was a RED LETTER DAY.   Back in late August, this area experienced Hurricane Irene.  
A tree fell  in the next door neighbor's yard 8-27-11 and 3/4 of it hovered over our yard, endangering persons and property.  We have been trying for 3 months to strike some agreement regarding its removal.  The house is not occupied which made any effort to resolve the issue most difficult.  When I was at Hawthorne Ave this morning, it appeared the tree was gone.  It was such a surprise that I had to physically walk next door to stand on the spot where the tree once stood.

8/28/11

A tremendous thanks goes out to Beverly in the Community Assisted Public Safety department with the city for all her efforts in making this happen.  Now we can have our fence completed and our house and back yard are safe again.

KUDOS TO BAMBOO

    Hurricane Irene has now past Virginia leaving us here on Hawthorne Avenue relatively unscathed but for lost electricity and some downed limbs.  I find myself in the position of offering KUDOS to the bamboo (something I did not anticipate since we just spent time, effort, and money preventing it from taking over our yard). 

    A mammoth  tree came down in our neighbor's yard during the winds of Irene.  The bamboo prevented thousands of pounds of tree from destroying our new brick wall.

As seen from our yard

As seen from neighbor's yard

As seen from neighbor's yard

The fallen tree has caused no damage to us thus far.  It will, however, certainly prevent the fence folks from beginning  construction today.

ALL BUTTONED UP

Thanks to Donnie #2 and his framing crew, by the end of today, our Hawthorne house is all buttoned up and braced for hurricane Irene.

(side note: Our friend and general manager of this adventure since day 1, March 2011 is also a Donnie.  I have named him Donnie #1.  He has deservedly earned the title of Number 1)

Northside view

View from inside the butler's pantry

The new roof as seen from inside

We are comfortable now that all possible has been done to protect 

our new home-to-be here on Hawthorne Ave.

DEAL OR ORDEAL

 We are anticipating a significant amount of rain as hurricane Irene approaches the East Coast. 

 That the backside of our house is not yet under roof is of great concern. 

The framers assured me Thursday morning that we would be under roof and wrapped by the end of Friday.   And then Thursday evening we got a thunderstorm.....

Rain on new construction...not such a big deal.  Rain on heart pine flooring...

Ordeal.

The GOOD news is ...

Our new built-in gutters and downspouts work!

(See other ROOF postings here)