Seamless Rain Gutters Factory Tour

We had seamless rain gutters installed on our house.  

A couple of weeks ago a worker came to the house and measured, marked where the down spouts would be, and matched the color they would use to the color of our house.

Unfortunately, this day when the workers arrived I wasn't there.  When I told one of the worker guys how sorry I was to have missed watching the process, he kindly gave me a demonstration. 

 

The first thing the workers did was to measure each run on the house.  

This giant roll of metal is the start of the gutter:

The roll isn't attached now but this is the beginning of the machine.  The roll would be held on top of the machine and fed through the back.

Inside the machine the roll of metal is formed, a little at a time, so that it doesn't crimp.  The end result is - a seamless gutter.

With all the trees around our house, leaf guards are mandatory.

They matched the color exactly to our house.  You can't even tell there are gutters.

This is all they had left to finish when I got to the house.

I know you were wondering and, YES, the new gate still works with the gutters in place.

I think we ended up with 10 down spouts.  This is a big roof.

It was a lot of fun having my very own factory tour right in the front yard.

New House Update - 3rd Week

Well, the painters are gone.  Notice I didn’t say they were finished but they are gone.  They came close to finishing but even with an extremely detailed list of areas that weren’t painted or didn’t have two coats of paint, they still couldn’t manage to finish the job and were asked to leave.

We have had a lot of projects going during these three weeks.

We started, and finished, painting the inside of the garage.

It looks great:

We hung up a birdfeeder and it is already very popular.

I've gotten my magnet collection moved:

We had a load of mulch delivered and spread it.  It looked so good we had another load delivered.

We're getting some projects finished inside the house too:

New blinds for a few of the windows. After seeing how good the new blinds look, we've decided to replace all the blinds in the house.

Next time: You know how I love factory tours?  Well, I had a factory tour experience in my own front yard!

Our New Furniture Arrived (Sort of)

 Here it comes!

This is our new dinette set.  It seems to be missing an important part of the 5 piece dinette:

Do you like this bed frame?  

Too bad it's NOT THE ONE I ORDERED:

This is where the new dresser is going.  If it had been on the delivery truck you would be able to see it:

One piece of furniture did show up with all the pieces.  The TV stand.  I'm going to enjoy that fireplace/heater in the middle:

More updates coming.

We Sold Our House

Yesterday our next door neighbors (who are also the managers here at the RV resort) called to say that a woman came by to inquire about moving to the resort but wanted a park model.  They let her know that our place would be available.

We met with her this afternoon.  It took her about 20 minutes to say she wanted it.

Sooooooo, now we have to move.  We weren't expecting to sell the place this quickly!

This is what happens when you don't have any moving boxes - - -

More updates on the new house coming soon(ish).

Inside Pictures of New House

It's hard to take a picture that shows the whole room but you'll get the idea.

Bedroom #1 (Master Bedroom)

Bedroom #2

Bedroom #3

Closet #1 (Master Bedroom)

Closet #2 (Master Bedroom)

Closet #3 (Master Bedroom)

Closet #4

Closet #5

Linen Closet

Pantry

Bathroom #1 (Master Bedroom)

Bathroom #2

Livingroom

Dining Room

Kitchen

There are still many projects on our list of things to do.  Bathroom #2 - remodel, replace kitchen sink, install water filtration system, seamless rain gutters will be installed in 2 weeks, etc.

The carpets were cleaned after these pictures were taken.  They did a great job.  

The rock guy is still working on the outside water feature.

We have started painting the inside of the garage.  Why is it builders never paint the inside of the garage? 

That's it for now.  We still have plenty of projects to complete.

Oh No!!

We were so pleased with our new fence, including the two gates that give us access on either side of the house.  The smaller gate would not fit under the eave of the house, so the fence builder worked out a solution to have it close just outside of the eave. Very nicely done, I thought...

The next day, Teri looks up there and says "There isn't enough room for the gutters.".  And sure enough, the gate is so close to the eave that the gutter crew (due in a couple of weeks) would not be able to install the gutter across this area. 

So now what?  I called the fence guy and explained the problem. He said that he'd look into returning the 8' tall gate and replacing it with a 6' tall gate, but the top hinge would have to be cut and re-welded, and it would look odd. And, it would be a couple of weeks until he could get back. 

Teri suggested just cutting off the corner of the gate, but I was concerned that the gate wouldn't remain square. Eventually I decided to see if there was a welding shop nearby that would take this on as a project. I found a couple of candidates, and the closest guy simply texted me back and said "bring it in.". So I did. 

This guy is one of those country fellows in a dim old machine shop built by his grandfather during WWII. Equipment and steel and parts all over the place.  Had a big ol' dog that came out to play and he just gave you the right feeling. 

I was going on and on with my explanation and plan to cut the corner off and weld in a new piece of pipe on a diagonal, when he suggested simply cutting the corner out and "flipping it over". Yep, sounded like a good idea. Took him about 5 seconds to come up with it...

I dropped the gate off at 4:30, and he texted me at 11:00 the next morning to come and pick it up. 

So, for the princely sum of $60 we have a new customized gate, still 8' tall, with plenty of room for a gutter. And I now have "a guy" to go to for this kind of fabrication in the future.

Mark

No More Mr. Nice Guy!

It’s a good thing we have a lot of parking space because things are hopping at the new house!

Sometimes you just have to put your foot down to get your point across. After getting some work done on Saturday, the painters slacked off again, leading to another very stern discussion on Monday. 

So, after a couple of VERY long nights (the painters, not us), the inside painting is finally coming along.  The first coat is almost complete, some of the trim has been painted, and the second coat should be started today.  We have been promised that they will be painting late every night and will finish this week. 

The fencing was finished Wednesday.  There is not a deer in Texas that can jump that high! 

The fence guy has been very efficient and does wonderful work.  The corner bracings were welded on site and (tediously) painted. 

It might look like we have a pet giraffe but this high fence is needed to keep the deer out.  We have a very long list of landscape plants to be purchased.  This area is going to be planted for birds. 

The rock guy has started and should be finished next week. He specializes in meticulously dry-stacked rock. Everything is carefully fitted and no mortar is used. It is quite a process!

This water feature will have cascading water pooling on these large rocks that will provide plenty of space for birds to bathe and drink.  It will look awesome when finished. 

There are still a few things we need to do before moving in but it is good to see progress!