Lukas Nursery

Plants

Mother's Day Landscaping

Eric and I got up early Saturday morning and were off to Home Depot to do a landscaping project in honor of Mother's Day. We planted 36 plants in the front yard and it turned out nice.

Down Goes The Tree Fort

on the ground

Dining on the new Porch

Here we are having dinner  on the new porch.

New Back Porch

This was shot prior to the eaves being cut back to the concrete block walls.

It took about a week to install the new screen porch. The porch is 33' long x 16' deep. Plus we installed a pan roof along the north side to keep the rain off of the french doors to the office.

New Back Porch

The back porch was demolished in December in anticipation of a new insulated roof screen porch with two doors to the pool (plus a dog door for Hoover)

New Kitchen complete

Here is a shot of the new kitchen. We chose a WilsonArt HD laminate counter top and GE Profile appliances.

We are quite happy with the final kitchen. Although relatively small, it is well laid out. We can't say enough about our choice in appliances. The 25 sq ft french door refrigerator with its LED lights and front control panel is great. We are so happy to have another Advantium microwave / convection oven after being without one for a year. And the Induction Range with Convection Oven is simply amazing. The power boil on the induction stovetop can bring a 10 qt pot of water to boil in just a few minutes. If only our existing stainless pans were magnetic! Oh well, they have now been replaced with induction ready cookware and we are pleased.

Kitchen Remodel

The counters came off on August 29th in preparation of our new kitchen counters being installed.

More Tile Progress

Tiling has moved towards the Kitchen. Good progress is being made.

Tiling has begun

Our new stone tile with the modern 1/16th inch grout lines is coming along. With luck they will be done this weekend and the carpet installed Tuesday and Wednesday. Which is good because we are hoping to start moving in on Thursday.

Garage Drywall is Up

More garage. (sorry) But we did have them add a two inch styrofoam insulation. Eric's bed is going to be on the other side of the wall where the washer and dryer will be installed. Hopefully the extra styrofoam insulation will help keep the noise down.

New Front Door

They are not painted yet, and the hardware is sitting on the rental house hearth, but we have replaced the front door that belonged on a rundown Motel 6 hotel room with a very nice set of double doors. Yeah!

Walls are painted

After a lot of consultation we picked a very interesting wall color. We are very happy with the choice now that it is on the walls.

Kitchen Ceiling is refinished

We are told the kitchen was redone 10 years ago, but no one ever bothered to finish the ceiling. That is now taken care of and the ceiling matches the family rooms.

Pool bath vanities out

George has also removed the vanities from the main guest bathroom in the hallway that we call the "Pool Bath"

Bathroom Counters Out

The tile and vanities are gone from the Jack n Jill bathroom that will be Eric's.

New Walls in the Family Room

We have covered up the 1969 yellow painted wood paneling in the family room with a thin wallboard.

Blame Your Parents

GE Profile™ 30" Free-Standing Electric Range | PHB925SPSS | GE Appliances

For 23 years Betsy has said "You only want that because that's what your mom has..."

And here I thought I simply had really good taste in furniture when I insisted on Scandinavian teak furnishing for the house. Anyway Mom & Dad had an induction stove top for about fifteen years at their beach house.

We were out picking out appliances, and decided on GE profile. We selected a really cool 28.5 cubic foot french door refrigerator, an Advantium microwave, and found a deal on a used GE Profile dishwasher. We were settling on a range, when Betsy asked: "did GE ever come out with a free standing range with induction cooktop?"

Heh, yes in Fall 2009. So Mom, if you are reading this, we have a free standing GE Profile free standing range with induction cooktop and convection oven with a warming drawer in the bottom. This has got to be the biggest indulgence in the entire ruins project.

Now we have to go find a set of magnetic cooking pots and pans to work with this magic cooktop....

Garage, blah blah blah, garage...

It's probably funny to keep harping on the garage. But we all put a lot of work out here to restore the garage to a clean and useful place. Thanks to Henry Electric we now have two flourescent lights over the car area, and 3 area lights along the back path of the garage. The plumbing is now in place for the washing machine, and electric is in place for the washer and dryer.

We have also added a 30 volt outlet so you can park an RV in the driveway or power a table saw. The light switches are in places you would want light switches to be, and all the outlets work.

We also have the plumbing in place to install a slop sink next to the washing machine.

We now have a dedicated (unswitched!) outlet for the garage door opener. And Branch Garage Door came out and fixed and programmed the opener.

O.K. enough about the garage until after the drywall and ceiling are repaired and the walls are painted.

15,000 Volt Ozone Machine Attacks Mutants Living in Garage!

We have mentioned the bad smell in the garage multiple times. We have scrubbed the garage floor and painted the walls. We have demolished the majority of the drywall at the back of the garage. But the bad smell lingers.

This all points to a likely biologically caused smell that is likely embedded in the porous garage floor. So my next plan of attack was to soak the garage floor with a combination of Hydrogen Peroxide, Baking Soda and Hand Soap. This "secret formula" basically is an oxygenated attack on whatever combination of bacteria or mold is embedded in the concrete.

However, before I have had a chance to try the secret formula, David Henry called and brought over his personally built Ozone Maker. If you google Ozone Maker you will come up with a lot of interesting pages describing how a 15,000 volt version is used in unoccupied areas to kill embedded bilogical contaminents. David's 3 fan monster machine really moves the Ozone around. He left it for a day, and we ran two 12 hour cycles in the garage. Right now you can't smell anything but Ozone in the garage and we are hopeful that we are finally done with the bad smell.

As soon as we can, we will paint the garage ceiling, and seal the garage floor. Once we are finished the garage will be like a showroom.

And for anyone into garages, the lights that Henry Electric installed for us will make you jealous. We really have beautiful bright lights in the garage. Better than any garage we've ever owned.

TV above the mantle

It's funny how you come up with ideas. Betsy had recorded an issue of "Flip This House" and they had a short thing on installing a flat screen TV above the mantle.

Hey! That sounds like a good idea!

So while the Henry's were working on the house we had them add an outlet above the mantle, and he pulled to RG6 cables for us. I provide the cable, and David Henry was kind enough to pull it for free.

The last two home we have lived in we have pointed the furniture at the TV and away from the fireplace. Now for once, we will point the furniture at the TV *and* the fireplace.

Bet they never thought of that in 1969.