Nov 10 - real progress

Yes, we are making progress.  Sometimes we take a tiny step back, as in yesterday when I was surveying the laid travertine and it occurred to me to ask the foreman -- "did you plug that sprinkler ?" -- which prompted him to ask the other foreman -- "did you plug that sprinkler ?".  Oh oh.  So he removed a couple of tiles where he thought the sprinkler head was and I turned on the irrigation for a few seconds.  Bingo.  He was spot on.  Another fellow dug down and I did the required plumbing.

Then, at the end of the garden where the fellow was laying wall block, I asked him where the sprinkler riser was ... dunno.  Oh oh again.  Turn on the irrigation.  It's right under the wall block.  I couldn't re-route there, so I plugged that spot and dug down elsewhere to add a "T", a short length of pipe and the riser.

It's far better to catch these things now than afterwards.  Today will be much of the same as they start to work on the driveway.  Every one of those heads has to be moved back from the existing concrete by a good foot.  They shouldn't have been there in the first place, but that's a different story.

We do have expanses of travertine in the back yard now.  They actually expect to finish the back today, which includes a lot of thinset work, capping all the garden surround wall block etc etc.  They throw up a huge amount of dust with that concrete saw but they're good at it.  That said, I really wish that they'd wear a) hearing protection; b) eye protection and c) dust masks.

They moved my grill onto the travertine yesterday so that we can cook outside, as we do so much but didn't last night; that figures.  Sandy picked up crab cakes.  Eric figures that by Tuesday they'll be working on the so-called outdoor kitchen so we'll shortly be using the new grill and this one will end up at the end of the driveway.  No, I'm not bringing it up north !!

Destruction of the existing deck underway.  

I expect that this was some creative plumbing by Riley.  This wasn't necessary.  

Wall block building up the upper deck level.  On the right side of the picture you can see the window to the powder room and the bedroom -- those used to be doors.

 Pictures from this angle don't really do justice, but they're laying the travertine.

Today the existing full dumpster will leave us and a new one will arrive.  They'll remove the concrete from the driveway and start work there, as well as finishing up the back.  Once the back is finished, we'll more-or-less be able to get back to some sort of normal.

Onward ?  I sure hope so !