A quick epilogue to attach to our series of posts about our remodel: we finally have grass! As you can see in the photos, we finished up our landscaping in December, about five months after we moved back into the house.

To be fair, we had always planned to finish the yard in the winter: it’s so dry here in the summer that it wouldn’t make any sense to put a lawn and new plants in, as it would cost a fortune just to keep them alive.

Based on a recommendation from our friends Steve and Maria, we hired Salvador and his team to install a new sprinkler system and sod and to clean up the garden and flower beds so that they’ll be ready to use in the spring. Over the course of a few weeks, they transformed our yard from a barren moonscape to a place that actually seems fit for human habitation. There were a few hiccups along the way. In particular, language was a bit of a barrier, and as a result, the team ended up having to redo a few things that weren’t quite the way we wanted them. But in the end, we were very pleased with the results.

The team started out by turning over the existing soil and removing construction debris left over from July, and they then dug out trenches to accommodate the new sprinkler system: all of the old sprinkler heads, pipes, and valved were either completely gone or not in a usable state.

Unlike our old setup, which featured an automatic system in the back yard and manually operated valves in the front, the new system has timers for both the front and the back. The grass in the back was always a bit healthier than the grass in the front—perhaps because it had a more consistent watering schedule—so we’re hoping the new configuration will bring the front yard up to par.

The controller for the system is on the south side of the house, around the corner from the patio, and the back yard valves are just a few feet away, under a plastic cover in the lawn. On the other hand, the valves for the front yard are up in front of the house, on the other side of the driveway and front walk, close to the living room window. This placement put them close to the outdoor spigot on the north side of the house, which Salvador tapped into to feed water to the valves. To make this setup work, Salvador’s team had to run the control wires under the house in an almost perfect diagonal; the cable run couldn’t be longer if we tried.

After the sprinkler system was set up, we installed sod in front and in back. We gave some consideration to going with a scheme that featured more native and drought-tolerant plants, particularly in view of the severe rain shortfalls we’ve had the last few years. In the end, however, we went ahead with grass because we wanted William and his friends to be able to run around and play in the yard, which is a bit difficult when your landscaping consists of spiny succulents, coarse native grasses, and gravel. Once the kids are grown, we may reconsider.

One section that proved to be problematic was the street tree strip, or parkway. We had grass there in the past, and expected to keep things the same, but it turns out that the roots of the Liquidambar styraciflua, or American Sweetgum, trees that we have there have grown very close to the surface, which would make it almost impossible to establish sod in that area. We ended up putting grass in the middle portion between the trees and planting some ground cover around and to the side of the trees. Right now, the ground cover isn’t looking so hot—maybe it’s been too cold—so we might need to freshen it up in the spring.

Another part of the project that generated some significant discussion was the path on the south side of the house, between the great room and garage walls and the fence. Before the remodel, we had a series of square concrete pavers along that path, with a foot or two of distance between them. This was a simple, low-tech solution that made it easy enough to walk along the side of the house, but didn’t really other help with other common scenarios, like pushing the lawn mover from back to front and back again.

I originally argued to do more or less the same thing again, but Julie and Joe were both adamant that the old approach was insufficient. Instead, Salvador suggested we go with a straight, continuous path consisting of interlocking pavers, with river rock along the sides. In the end, it turned out very well; it both looks better and works better than the previous solution.

Along with the path, Salvador added on a small extension to the fence and built a new gate to control access to the back yard. Our old gate was falling apart long before we started construction, so it’s a nice change of pace to have something we can actually close. It’s a little closer to the side door of the garage than we would have liked, but the placement of the door, the water heater, and the family room window left us with few options.

Finally, the team laid down a few inches of soil in the flower beds and in the garden area along the north side the house, next to our master bedroom and the office. Enzo and his crew did a good enough job cleaning up when they completed their work, but there was still a fair amount of debris and other detritus all over the yard, enough so that Julie was concerned it might make it harder to get things going next spring. With the new soil, everything looks pristine.

Even though we had very good reasons to wait to do the landscaping work, it was still a real relief when it was done. In the summer, the unfinished yard produced vast quantities of dust that blew or was tracked into the house whenever we came and went; and in the winter, there was mud everywhere. Now, we can send the kids out to play without implicitly asking them to go play in someone else’s yard. And, of course, it’s nice not to feel like our place is a bit of embarrassment to the block when neighbors walk by.

Gallery: Epilogue: Landscaping

On July 9, nine-and-a-half months after we started construction, and a day over ten months since we moved into the rental, we made it back to our house on Harmil Way. The project was a long and winding road—the first email in my Remodel folder is dated August 2, 2017—that, at times, felt like it would never end, but it was an incredible feeling to finally be home again.

There wasn’t much left to do at the house, so not too much changed between the end of week 41 and our move-in date four days later. There were a few tweaks here and there—the boys’ bathtub door needed an adjustment and various bits of paint and trim needed attention—but our primary focus was on preparing for the move.

Each of us had settled in at the rental to varying degrees. Julia was completely unpacked within a week, while it took me a couple months to get the office in a more or less habitable state. On the other hand, we left most of the decorative items from our living room in boxes for the duration of our stay: we were using the corresponding space in the rental as Will’s distance learning classroom anyway, and there didn’t seem to be much point to unpacking it all.

Nevertheless, the days leading up to the move were a flurry of activity as we scrambled to prepare for the movers. As we did when we moved out of our house last September, we opted to do our own packing and leave just the furniture and other large items for the movers in a (perhaps misguided) attempt to save a little money. This also bought us a bit of time: we didn’t have to have everything ready to go by moving day; rather, we just had to have enough packed for the movers to pick up the furniture. Even so, it was a surprisingly close call, particularly for me, as I was using the office for work right up to the evening before the move. I found myself finishing up my preparations well after midnight the night before.

Moving day itself went smoothly, the only signification complication being that the moving company forgot to send us two trucks (and a correspondingly larger crew), despite the fact that they knew we were reversing the move we’d done last year, for which we’d gone well over the capacity of a single truck. They somehow managed to squeeze most of our large items in, but that still left us with a few things to haul over in Julie’s van. Luckily, the van can hold a surprising amount of stuff, and we had a readily available supply of manual labor in the form of Joe, so it wasn’t nearly the disaster it could have been.

The movers finished delivering and reassembling our furniture by mid-afternoon, which left us plenty of time to settle in before our first dinner at home, which we ordered from a local Chinest restaurant, as all of our kitchen stuff was still in boxes or at the rental. After we ate, we got to work unpacking just enough of our bedding so we could enjoy a comfortable night at home, in our own rooms.

Even though we were incredibly busy the day of the move, I did find time engage in one bit of somewhat extravagant sentimentality. When we first bought the house, all the way back in July of 2002—just a week short of nineteen years before this move, in fact—the previous owners, the Dowds, left us a handmade sign reading “Welcome Home” and a gift basket with coupons and gift certificates from various local businesses. The sign was placed on the bookshelf in the kitchen, so it was one of the first things we saw when we walked into the house after we got the keys.

Now, because I’m a little bit sentimental, we asked the builders to save that bookshelf for us so we could put it in our new kitchen as a memento. And because I’m actually really sentimental, I hung onto the sign for the entirety of the nearly nineteen years we owned the house; it actually sat in the trunk of my car for the entire time we were in the rental. So, naturally, I ran out to get a flower basket the morning of the move and placed it and the sign on the very same bookshelf in its new spot between the kitchen and family room so it would be there when Julie came over with the movers after lunch.

The days after the move were a blur. We shuttled back and forth between the rental and the house throughout the weekend and well into the following week: there was a lot left to move, and we were faced with the daunting prospect of cleaning things up in the hope that the owners could rent it out quickly, saving us a bit of money on the back end of our lease. That didn’t go quite according to plan, but, as busy as those days were, they felt like an epilogue. After a long and surreal (if you’re reading this in the far future, look up “COVID-19”) year, we were home.

Gallery: Week 42: Home

Having passed our final inspections the previous week, things really slowed down in week 41, as there was little left to do other than taking care of some finishing touches.

For example, there were still a few areas where the paint needed attention. The water closet in our master bathroom had a few easily repair glitches, and if you look very closely at the front view of the house, you can see that the trim between the siding and the shingles is yellow, matching the siding, rather than white, matching the shingles. These would all be cleaned up in the days leading up to our move.

We also used this week (and the fact that we finally had Julie’s car back) to take care of some projects we wanted to get out of the way before we moved in. We assembled William’s bed and topped it with a new mattress; and Joe and I re-painted the mirror that had hung over the laundry tub in our old garage for use in our new laundry room. Julie picked out the color, which we also plan to use on the backing board for coat hooks by the door.

Despite my marginal success hanging the living room mirror the week before, there were a some projects we weren’t completely comfortable taking on ourselves in the limited time we had before the move. With that in mind, we paid Enzo a little bit extra to have one of the guys from his crew take care of them. The crew member, Fernando, hung the wall-mounted bookshelf that we had saved from Joe’s old bedroom in his new bedroom—the hardest part there was making sure there would be enough room for his bed—as well as the small bookshelf that used to sit over our microwave cart in the kitchen; it fulfills the same role in the new setup.

We also asked him to put up the overhead shelves we’d salvaged from our old garage. These were custom-built to match the old garage’s dimensions, so they’re not an perfect fit, but we found a configuration that works pretty well. I was happy that they were still intact, seing as they sat outside in the back yard for the last few months of the project. Since we lost the built-in storage for large items we used to have over the workbench, we bought some additional overhead storage and asked him to install it, as well.

To commemorate the completion of the remodel, Julia graciously agreed to record a brief walking tour of the house; the gallery also contains a considerably less interesting video clip of our garage door going up.

With work wrapping up and our move-in date fast approaching, the coming week presented us with one of the most arduous tasks of all: packing up for the move.

Gallery: Week 41: Projects

Week 40 of the remodel was a big one: after just over nine months of construction, the house passed the city’s final inspections, marking the completion of the project, at least as far as the city of San José was concerned. We still weren’t completely done: we were still waiting on a few fixes from Enzo, as well as some plumbing, cleaning, and other odd jobs before we’d be ready to move back in. Nevertheless, this was a big step.

Julie and the kids happened to be in Nebraska this week, as well, which gave me an opportunity to spend some time in the house alone for the first time; if the photos are somewhat lacking this week, that’s probably why. The entire experience felt a bit surreal, especially since the window treatments weren’t installed, which made it feel as though my every move was on display for the neighbors.

Externally, the most visible change was pretty minor in the grand scheme of things: Enzo and his team painted the front porch gray. This was necessary because, out of a combination of frugality and sentimentality, we decided to keep the original porch and sidewalk. Both were in reasonable condition, so there wasn’t a compelling need to replace them, but there was a small hangup: there was an unfinished gap at the back of the porch that used to be covered by the brickwork under the dining room window. With the front door now occupying that wall, the bricks were gone, leaving the gap exposed.

Enzo was able to fill and seal the gap without difficulty, but there was no way he was going to be able to match the color of the original porch. Even if he had known the specific shade it was painted back in the day, the porch’s finish had been weathered by decades of sun, wind, and rain. Instead, we opted to paint the porch a neutral gray and leave the front walk unchanged. I was a little worried that the contrast between the two would be jarring, but it worked out well.

Enzo managed a couple other tricks this week. The temporary power pole, which was no longer needed after the house was connected to the grid the previous week, disappeared overnight. And our garbage and recycling bins, which vanished at some point very early in the project, reappeared out of nowhere after we casually mentioned that we needed to figure out how to get new ones. Are these the same trash containers we had before construction started? Had they been stored somewhere offsite? Did one of our neighbors borrow them for the duration of the project and return them in the dead of night? We have no idea! But they were back, and that was one less thing for us to worry about.

Around this time, I was very happy to discover some fresh shoots from the rose that used to sit in front of the house, outside the kitchen. The entire bush had been removed down to the ground during construction, so it was a pleasant surprise to see that some part of it survived. Of course—as Julie warned me—it’s very likely that these are Dr. Huey canes coming up from the root stock under the original plant’s graft, so the resulting growth will almost certainly look nothing like our old rose, but it was still exciting to see some signs of life.

Inside the house, the plumbers installed new toilets in the downstairs bathrooms: the internal hardware in the old toilets needed to be replaced, and the cost to do so, including labor, was almost the same as the cost to replace them. So, we now have brand-new toilets with fancy bidet seats that I still haven’t figured out how to use.

In what seemed to me to be something of a minor miracle, we also have a full complement of can lights in the garage. Fully half the lights had been covered up by the drywall team during construction, and I was skeptical that Enzo would be able to find them without punching a bunch of extra holes in the ceiling. He reassured us that he had accurate measurements, but I was still a bit dubious—wrongly so, as it turns out. Both banks of lights are exposed and fully operational.

While the rest of the family was out of town, I took the opportunity to work on setting a few things up for our move-in date. To start, I hung our living room mirror back in its old spot above the fireplace. It’s a bit higher than it had been, to accommodate the higher mantel, and it’s almost level. It took a few hours, and there was a false start or two, but it was gratifying to get it done.

I also started the process of hooking up connectors for speakers in the family room. I didn’t make as much progress here as I’d hoped—in fact, some of the speakers are still not connected—but at least I was able to get a sense for the scope of the project. The connectors I’d chosen, Neutrik SpeakOn connectors, turned out to be a bit bigger than I anticipated and are undoubtedly overkill for our application, so I actually checked in with Julie in Nebraska via FaceTime to make sure they wouldn’t be too obtrusive.

We were very close to the end now: just one more week of work, and then we’d be set to move in. The movers were scheduled to arrive at the rental bright and early the morning of July 9, and if everything went according to plan, that would be our first night in the new house.

Gallery: Week 40: Inspections