Status Report

I haven’t blogged here for a while because I’ve had very little good to say as we have slogged through a very frustrating permitting process at the City. We still don’t have permits and have filed an appeal with the City Council (after hiring an attorney). We go to City Council on October 2nd. Hopefully, I will have a positive and celebratory entry on the 3rd.

However frustrating we have continued to make plans for the house. Last week, we had a wonderful afternoon with Geri Willingham, a stained glass artist, who is designing a series of windows and transoms for the our “soon-to-be-permitted-we-hope” house in St. Pete. I can’t tell you how excited I am about the designs…when I get the photos of the sketches I’ll post a few. They are filled with images native or common to Florida…bird of paradise, sea grapes, gardenias, orange blossoms, egrets, herons, osprey, and turtles (you know we have to turtles for Jerry) even a roseate spoonbill. Those of you who know my love of birding can just imagine how “happy as a clam at high tide” I am. Just think how much happier I’ll be if we actually get permits and build the addition where we plan to install the stained glass!

Small Victories

Heard from John yesterday and the banana tree, umbrella (schefflera) tree, and "purple" bush that we transplanted are all doing well. All have significant new growth....yeah! AND the crape myrtle are astonishingly sprouting a lot of new growth...astonishing since a big wind toppled them over for 2 days about a month after transplant...I'm still not sure what shape they'll end up since we had to "lop their top"...but I figure if they make it I'll invest in a good arborist to work a little magic.

Make that 80,000 gallons

that would be 10 pools worth of water...where is it supposedly going (see previous post), coming from, why aren't we seeing anything? have sent pool guy to shut off auto fill and have sent my contractor to search under and in the house and cabana for evidence of leakage. I hate long distance micromanagement!

16,000 gallons!!!

Got a note from the St. Pete utility department saying that we used 16,000 gallons of water last month and thought we should figure out why. Well...its a mystery that must be explained either by 1) a defective meter 2)a misread by the meter reader or 3) someone is stealing our water. to put this in perspective our pool only holds about 10,000 gallons of water. And in a normal month of no one living at the house we use about 3200 gallons of water (primarily from water evaporation from the pool and the odd toilet flush here and there when we visit the house to check it out) . So here is the mystery...1) no one is living in the house 2) all but one toilet is shut off and we checked the other one it is NOT running 3) our irrigation is from an onsite well (and we only are allowed to water once a week anyway) 4) we had the pool and equipment checked today...no major leaks...only one tiny one we've had for months that can't use more than a couple of gallons a day 5) there are no marshy areas around the house 6) there is no water under the house 7) there is no "surprise" water in our neighbors yards. so you tell me...misread, defective meter, or someone drove a water truck up to our house in the middle of the night and stole 2 trucks worth of water. hmmmm.

The Beginning

The Beginning was over a year old ago when we found a lovely old home in the historic NorthEast section of St. Pete that matched what Annette wanted in a neighborhood with what Jerry wanted in a geographic location (sunny Florida)...only thing it was too small and needed to be added onto so that we can live to our old ages there. So we decided to do something we had always said we'd never do, remodel an old home. The only sensible thing we've done is deciding NOT to be living in it as the remodel/addition is going on. Of course, that means it is 14 months later and we're STILL not living in Florida.

I probably should have started this blog at the beginning of this journey...but I was not a blogophile at that time...so better late than never. I'm sure I'll remember all the important or humorous points of the last 14 months at some time or other.

So where are we today? Waiting for approvals from the City, anticipated to be July 18th. Have moved plants and trees that were close to the parts of the house that will be demolished. Have plants we love. Have hired a contractor. Have hired our architect to be head "bulldog" during construction. Have met with a Geri Willingham who is going to design and install some stained glass windows for us. have narrowed down roof tile colors and shapes we like. have narrowed down the stucco and trim colors we like. Have decided on flooring (generally). ETc. etc. etc.

As of today, the estimate for completion is March 2009. Keep fingers crossed.