You Can't Stump Me!!!

So I hate leaving projects undone.  I mean, it's quite literally a blessing and a curse.  It means that I get stuff done...but it also means that I have to work feverishly to get some stuff done!

Yesterday, we had a very successful day cutting down the large pine tree at one of the rental homes.  The job was 99% complete.  But one of the parts of cutting down a tree is getting rid of that stump!!!  And I knew the project would be hanging over my head until I completed it.  So on a whim, I decided to zip over and complete the project.  I hadn't even planned on doing it today, but I knew I would think that the tree-cutting project wasn't done yet until the stump was gone, EVEN if the tree was long gone.

I know, blessing and curse.

So I loaded up my DR Stump Grinder (one of the best purchases ever) and headed over to the house.  And would you believe that I had that stump ground down in just 24 minutes?!  And I had thought about pushing it off for a week...or three.  But all it took was 24 minutes to be able to say...

THE TREE IS CUT DOWN!!!

The stump as I started today.

My handy lil' DR stump grinder.

24 minutes later!

The tree is now 100% gone!  Ready for grass!

The yard is now ready for grass seed (I brought some and almost put it down for the snow to take it into the ground but decided to wait until spring).

No more tree against the house!  No more pine needles in the gutter!  No more foundation stress!

What a difference.

Grass will explode in this new soil that hasn't seen the sun in 20 years!

Of course, we had temperatures approaching the 50's today, and I had gas to burn out of my stump grinder.  So I figured...I might as well tackle a project that is over a year old at MY house!!!

Dad and I had cleared out an area in my side yard that was as thick as a jungle.  The previous owners let brush and weeds and trees grow up, and it was a mess.  Well, after clearing the area out, I still had tons and tons of "stumps" left over.  Some were actually tree-size, while most were more hardwood brush size.  But the fact remained...I couldn't really mow back there because I would hit stumps!

So I decided to tackle this project that we started in August 2016!  I had more than 20 stumps to grind.  Thankfully, because most had been dead over a year, they ground up (or broke) rather easily.

Finishing a project from 1 1/2 years ago!

Some stumps were big!

Others were medium!

Some were hollow!

Others were small!

Some were funny shapes!

Others were hard to reach!

But ALL were chopped up!!!

This grinder has paid for itself over the years.

Not sure if grass will grow in the shade and ROCKS!  But I can now push a mower back here without hitting stumps!

But I still needed the grinder to do so.  But another success!  I don't think grass is ever going to really grow underneath these trees (tons of shade and needles), but it's possible I might try shade grass this spring.  The grass does ok under the other similar trees close to the roadside...

Two big projects complete!!!

Tiiiiiiiiiiimberrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Today I had one goal at the blue house!  Cut down a pine tree!!!  So I've only cut down one other actual tree in my life, and oddly enough, it was another taller pine at this same very house a few years ago!  I watched videos on how to properly fell a tree and tried it out.  It landed right where I wanted it, too!  Success!

So I was hoping for more of the same today.

The large pine was literally enveloping the house!

The tree was planted too close to the house.

The view from the front.

Dad and I met at the house at 8:00 A.M. and started going at the branches.  I brought my trusty electric chainsaw and started cutting down the branches from the bottom up.  Wow, this tree had a TON of branches!!!  But being soft pine, they cut pretty easily.

I worked my away around the truck, first at the legs, then the waist, then eye level, then above my head.  Then I needed a ladder!  So we set a ladder against the tree and started cutting higher.  It was getting to be a little bit tricky with balancing a ladder at an odd angle (fairly flat) and working above my head, but we were determined to get this tree cut down!

Little by little, we worked out way up (it actually went decently fast).

One branch at a time!  Soooooooooo many branches on a pine!

Dad holding the ladder as I cut.

Look at that lean!  Probably pushing AGAINST the house!

My brother showed up a little after 9:00 with the powerhorse:  a Stihl gas-powered chainsaw.  But he saw how quick of work we had made of it:  "You guys did all of this this morning"?  Yup!  But we weren't done!  After filling it up the Stihl with gas and oil, I tried starting it.  Nothing!  I would quickly realize that you had to hold the gas lever down to engage the choke, and once we realized that, she fired right up!

I took my little YouTube video knowledge from last night about felling a tree (I figured I better remind myself since I had a house right next to the tree and a neighbor's fence on the opposite side) and started cutting!  I put a water bottle down on the ground where I aimed the tree to fall.

Tiiiiiiiiiimberrrrrrrrrrr!!!  And down she went.  My brother was quick to point out that I missed the water bottle.  Perhaps (I never did see how close it actually was), but she fell in the GENERAL direction of where I was aiming!  Actually, it fell exactly where it needed to:  right in the yard, away from everything.

And that Stihl chainsaw made such quick work of the process.  The branches literally cut like a hot knife through butter.  Even the trunk went quickly.  I would cut, and my brother and dad would load the branches into my truck and onto the trailer my brother brought.  I cut the trunk into manageable pieces, and we had the ENTIRE tree cut and loaded onto the trailer and truck by 10:00 A.M.

The tree is down!  And cut up!

That Stihl made such quick work of the tree.

All that is left!

TWO HOURS to clear out a tree!!!  I would guess I would have been charged $300-500 to have a professional tree service do the exact same thing.  And we knocked it out in a couple of hours!

We raked up our smaller branches, cleared the area, and WOW! What a difference!!!

The entire tree loaded onto my truck and the trailer.

Such a great day.

No more tree!

I love this truck!  27 years of work!

Look how much yard that tree took over!

Ever since I bought this house 2 1/2 years ago, I knew the tree had to go.  It was growing right up against the foundation, it accumulated a LOT of stuff (like toys), and it quickly clogged the gutter that it hung over.  It literally served no useful purpose.  It was a beautiful tree...IF it was away from the house!  But as it was, it literally started growing AROUND the house corners!  Someone didn't realize just how big it would grow when they planted it.  Too close to the house!

I was ecstatic.  I had to be somewhere at noon (for my own personal heat pump charging), and before we started today, I figured I would have to leave my brother and dad to work while I disappeared for a little bit.  But we had it all done way before then!  Perfect!

We unloaded the branches to be burned at Dad's house, and the project was all done by 11:00.  Woo hoo!!!

The tree ready to be burned!

I'll come back by to grind the stump tomorrow and then wait for the grass to grow in the spring.

I love successful projects!!!  Thanks, Dad and Bro!!!  Nice work!  This is a project that as 2 1/2 years in the making.  With an empty house, it was time to get the project done.

Where is the Professionalism?

You work so hard.  SO hard.  You plan, you budget, you shop around.  You get picky.  You read reviews, you trust, you hire a professional.

Professional.  A word that implies that someone is good in their craft.  A word that conjures up thoughts and hopes of a person that knows what they are doing.  An idea that someone takes pride in their work.

I am so frustrated with the lack of professionalism in my flooring installers' work.  It's tricky, too, because I am stuck with it.  And that fault lies on no one but me.  So here is what happened.  I bought hardwood from a local flooring shop.  I then used "their" installers to install the hardwood.

Well, while there, my Dad asked them if they did tile, as well.  They said they did and then went beyond that.  "Actually, you are getting screwed by working with the flooring shop.  I don't know what they charged you, but they are paying me $1.75/square foot to install this hardwood.  All you need to do is look at your receipt to see how much you are getting screwed.  If you by-pass them, I can save you a ton of money."

Of course, I immediately grabbed my receipt and learned that I was being charged $3.00/square foot!  So the flooring company was making $1.25/square foot for...nothing!  That was just mark-up!  So I could by-pass the flooring company and use the SAME installers and save $1.25/square foot?!  Yes, please!

I took that as wonderful news.  I took that as a man trying to save money on a foreclosure flip.  I took that as a way to save another $1000 on my expensive floors.  I took that in the exact opposite manner I should have taken it.

Why?

Here, I have a contractor who is trying to work against the owner who supplied him with work.  Here I have a contractor who is trying to circumvent what is probably written in his own contract.  Here I have a man who is trying to bite the very hand that feeds him.

And I was excited!

And now I have to suffer the results of that decision.

So I'm in a pickle.  I have a wonderful hardwood flooring installation followed by a fairly terrible tile installation.  At first glance, it looks good.  I mean, it had me fooled.  The tiles are down.  But it's the DETAILS where I see the poor workmanship.

The tiles are uneven.  Not terrible but certainly noticeable.  The grout is cut short of the walls and trim.  The floors don't even come close to meeting each other (a couple of inches).  And the absolute worst is the ridiculously awful and aggressive cutting of the doorjambs and trim.  I mean, it's nothing short of horrendous.

Not 1/16th of an inch off.  Nearly an inch!!!

The floor is so far away from the trim.

Can you read a tape measure?

Just horrendous work.  This is the picture where the associate said, "That looks like ****."

Another missed cut.

What am I supposed to do?!

There is just a bit off.  There is poor.  And then there is just a blatant lack of knowledge of how to cut.  This is awful.  From a "professional!"

I am so unhappy with this.

The gap between the hardwood and tile is 100% the result of improper measuring.

Floors are supposed to MEET each other!!!

Pieces left behind.  Look at the gap between the hardwood and tile!

The large gap.  I had to beg over a couple of months to get them to come install the threshold.

Can we read a tape measure?!

Gaps everywhere.

And the worst was the large overhang of tile with no mortarboard or grout below it.  At places, it was over an inch deep.  I could stick 1/3 of my finger underneath.  I demanded that grout be applied below.

The massive amount of gap yet again.

It's literally as if the contractor could not read a tape measure.  All over my house I have trim pieces that do not reach the floor.  I have tile that sits on top of open space (no floorboard or grout below it).  I have threshold that does not reach side-to-side.

The threshold comes up short.  Again, can you read a tape measure?!

I want to say that I'm being too picky, but when you look at the actual work, it's just awful!

On top of everything, I had to stay on top of the flooring company to get the project completed.  I was quoted at 4-5 days for everything, and it took nearly 2 1/2 months.  And that was ME having to call them.  That was me having to keep them on the project.  In that time, I've received mailings and phone calls asking me to pay for the work!  I keep on saying, "As soon as it is complete!"

Well, the work is so bad that I took some pictures into the company.  And here is where I have screwed myself.  Because most of the poor workmanship is in the tile, I am just going to have to deal with it.  I only went through the flooring company with the hardwood!  Yes, it's the same installer.  Yes, if I asked, the flooring company would have also used this same person for the tile.  Yes, I would have paid even more for the exact same work.

But now that I need it corrected, I really can't ask the flooring company to correct it.  Not on the tile.  They can only correct it on the hardwood.  And that is just too bad.

Because the tile work is poor!  And it's not the tile mostly...it's the wood cut to put the tile in!

Again, they can't use a tape measure!

Yes, I'm frustrated.  I worked so hard to make this house look nice, and someone else has now made the craftsmanship poor.  And I PAID thousands of dollars for that poor craftsmanship!

Seriously, folks, take PRIDE in your work.  This is awful.