Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from our spooky motion-sensor spider:

Seriously this guy just will not go away and sends us cute little "hey, I'm still here" emails from our camera every 20 minutes all night long. At least in late October it is seasonally appropriate.

And we found a temporary use for our former-tree mulch pile:

Good place to store a body. Or parts of a body.

Have a spooky day (and night)!

Gone, part 2

Last week I mentioned some "other complaints" about our tree removal service. I was actually pretty furious with them when I showed up as they were finishing the job. I left a mean voice mail at their headquarters and planned to leave them bad reviews. Our neighbor, however, a retired arborist who knows a thing or two about yards and trees, said they actually did a great job (and for a great price). The damage, he said, was pretty minimal and was to be expected when taking down such a big tree. So I felt better, and was a lot nicer when I eventually talked to the company. Still not too thrilled about them though, so any recommendation would come with a lot of caveats.

First though, some more pictures of the removal that our neighbor took for us. A sad and naked trunk:

So remember last week, I mentioned one complaint was how they didn't leave us with the wood we asked for. We were so disappointed, but couldn't say too much, since it was never in the contract. The other stuff though, was a bit more legitimate.

First, a branch came down and hit our power lines. Fortunately, it didn't knock out the power, but it did break the steel inner wire that holds all the lines secure:

My frustration wasn't with this, per say (I know accidents happen), it was their nonchalant way of dealing with it. When I showed up, the crew said they weren't sure if we had lost power, so they were glad I was home to check (um, ok, I know you had my phone number because you called me in the morning, so it might have been nice to call and let me know this happened so I could have the chance to come home and make sure). Then they hemmed and hawed about calling our power company and expected me to do it. Finally they told me that the foreman was going to call later. The next day when I talked to the company, they were completely clueless. The foreman did claim that he alerted the power company, but after a week and a half of no results (and more phone tag with the tree people), we called the power company ourselves. And that same day:

Fixed! I'll give the company the benefit of the doubt because the power company claimed that a work order had been put in and then inexplicably cancelled, so who knows what happened there.

Next on the list, our poor front lawn and garden:

A lot of grass got uprooted from the falling limbs and they just laid it back down, like detached sod clumps. It was so bad that I felt at risk of twisting my ankle walking across my yard, thanks to all the divots. The damage was especially frustrating since the foreman had originally said they would not be taking the trunk down in one giant piece because it would do too much damage to our yard (well they did and it did...).

But this too, they resolved. After I complained, they came back the next day to lay topsoil and grass seed:

Final complaint on the list, the giant pile of stump chips. The contract said clearly that they would "leave grindings in hole" when they hollowed out the stump. To me, that meant that they would level the ground with the grindings to avoid leaving a gaping hole where the trunk was. Instead, they left this:

A 2.5 foot mound of wood chips, covering all my plants. Because the crew was still there when I arrived, I questioned them on this before they drove the big dump truck away and tried to insist that they haul this away too. They argued that they always leave the work site in this condition and that this was according to the contract. I told them I was really unhappy and they shrugged and left.

Fortunately, our neighbor came to the rescue, offering to take it all back to his yard, where he could use it as mulch. And so away it went:

I had to do a little more leveling (and stomping, to try to compress it) and it's still a small hill, but that should settle over time. Leaving grindings in the hole seems pretty different than leaving a giant hill, but maybe this is normal for tree companies? I'm hoping that I won't have to find out any time soon - I don't want to have to remove any others from our yard if I can avoid it.

Gone

This beautiful old tree is gone. It was taken down on Monday. You can see how it towers over the neighborhood, even above other nearby trees. But you can also see how it is sparse and how many branches are already dead (and we'd already removed some of the worst).

This is going to be a story with many pictures - which is funny because actually we weren't home to take most of the pictures, but between security camera footage and some house guests who left mid-day, we documented it pretty well. It was tragic but had to be done, as you'll see from the pics.

The crew showed up at about 8:20 and got right to work. They were still there when I got home at 3:00 and wrapped up around 4:00. We weren't thrilled with the outcome (I mean besides the fact that we don't have a tree anymore), but I'll leave that explanation for the end.

First round, the upper branches - they started in the driveway with the cherry-picker, working from the lower branches on up to the top:

Here they are lowering a branch:

 Even better - our friends got a video of one of the limbs coming down:

Then they left to catch their plane and we moved on to the security footage (D remembered to move our front door security cam that morning so that he could check out the action).

Here's where the sad part happened. First I need to give you a little back story. The night before, we learned that a friend of ours, who is building a giant boat (seriously, it's amazing - check it out) told us that white oak would be very useful for some of the internal floor structure. We worked out with him that we would ask that they leave us giant lengths from the trunk and that he would take them away with a flat-bed tow truck the following weekend. We'd already discussed having them leave us firewood and a cross-section of the trunk anyway, and they indicated that leaving the wood behind might reduce the price, so this seemed like win-win. Our price goes down, our friend gets valuable wood, and our tree lives on as a part of a boat. We knew that this was not in the contract, so we had to hope for the best.

D stayed at home in the morning to wait until the crew showed up, to explain what we were looking for. The foreman sadly replied that it wasn't possible because of the power lines. They would be removing the trunk in small pieces, not as one giant trunk. Bummer.

Apparently, D didn't make it clear to them that small was 6 feet or more, not necessarily the whole 20 feet or so.

And so it was heartbreaking to see this picture at 2:10 - just a giant trunk to go:

 This one at 2:25 - they just took down a giant piece! This is exactly what we asked them for, yay!

And then this one, at 2:42. Our precious trunk, chopped into tiny and unusable pieces. Heartbreaking.

Miscommunication, and nothing in the contract, so really nothing to be done. I got home early enough to talk to the crew and express my despair, but obviously it was too late. The foreman thought we could only use the whole trunk up to the split, when less would have been fine. No boat after all, it seems.

I was greeted with this view when I arrived home from work that afternoon:

They were still doing some final chainsawing and mostly just blowing away wood chips. Our security camera captured the stump grinding:

It was clear from the debris that taking the tree down was the right decision - look at all that hollow wood just waiting to come down, say this winter in a heavy snowfall?

The trunk, however, had been completely intact, sadly. I was dismayed to see that not only did they misunderstand us on the trunk, but they had forgotten to give us a cross-section. I managed to spot one fairly large piece in the truck that they removed and left for me (and for our boat-building friend, though obviously this is much less than he hoped for). I don't think it's from the main trunk because it is small, but I suppose it's better than nothing.

They did remember to leave us the cord of firewood (half a cord for us and half for our neighbors). We'll have to split it (and move it away from the mailbox - move it completely away from the house, in fact). We were reminded by a friend to let it age a year before we use it, so the moisture doesn't ruin our chimney.

I was going to talk about our other complaints but I think this post has grown big enough. I'll save those issues for next time.

Bye tree!

Goodbye/Hello

Our big oak isn't gone yet but it's days are numbered (literally, since they are coming to cut it down in about 2 weeks). In the meantime, we've been trying to decide what else to plant in its place. The new tree won't go where the old one was, for a few reasons. The first reason is that given the root rot, the arborists suggest waiting about a year to replant in the same hole. The second reason is that it's right below power lines, so a new tree would quickly grow to be a nuisance. The third reason is that it will be nice to pull into and out of the driveway without a small but persistent worry that I'm going to hit a tree.

So the new spot will be a few feet away on the other side of the driveway, between the two holly trees (which are our neighbor's). Between the power lines that run to our house and the ones that run to our neighbor us and hopefully far enough away from the driveway to avoid having the roots cause damage (but still close enough to the driveway to be on "our" property).

Which bring us to the next big decision - what tree to plant. Our neighborhood prides itself on having big leafy trees that create a shady canopy, so we want to help by replacing what we take down. However, our arborist suggested that the new location (and indeed, probably the old location, if we start from scratch there) should not have quite such a giant tree. I am in love with sycamores but even our town recommendation is that they are too big and unmanageable. And I will be happy to not have the annoying acorns that drop yearly from our white oak. We briefly considered a gum tree per our arborist's suggestion, but learned that they drop even more annoying sticky "gum balls" all over.

The arborist thought our best bet would be a Zelkova serrata and we are about to bite the bullet and say yes. It grows pretty quickly and seems to grow up (rather than "out" - which was the landscaper's concern because it would be over the driveway). It can sometimes have exfoliating bark - something I really love about sycamores, so that's good. It won't get as high as the oak, which is disappointing, but that's almost not our problem as the time frame for it reaching its max height is likely well after this house gets new owners (no imminent move planned, but still we are talking about 20 years out or more so its unlikely we will still be here). Here are some pictures of a Zelkova from the web:

Close up of the leaves:

We asked around the neighborhood and people seem to like them, so hopefully we will too. What do you think? We're about to tell the arborist "yes" so if you have any opinions about Zelkovas, please comment right away.

Small Cost Big Change

You know you're in for a trip down memory lane when you link to one of the first ever posts on the blog.

We inherited the burgundy in our guest bedroom from the decor in our old apartment, picture here, and even before that to our first apartment over 10 years ago, when we shopped exclusively the line of "What is the cheapest thing that will cover our windows/keep us warm/etc." It wasn't bad, and we made it work - the comforter cover, lamp shades, and curtains were a little worn and faded by now, but they were tolerable.

Still, we never particularly loved them. And when we finally re-installed the cordless blinds one year after taking them down to have new windows installed, I left the red curtains down and wondered whether it wasn't time to replace the outdated burgundy.

D and I decided on blue, to match so much of our house color scheme, and purple (since the accent wall already was) and I went to work. I found a really lovely organic cotton duvet cover that was so much better than the ripped-then-stitch-witchery sealed and stained burgundy cover. In perfect coincidence, they have pillow shams in a silk/cotton blend (remember, I'm weird - these things matter to me) that seemed like the perfect matched shade of blue despite being from a separate set. They have a cute tie-on look, too.

That sort of ate up our budget though, because we didn't really want to put too much money into room that we use so rarely. We tried buying a set of cheap curtains from Target but the color wasn't a good match and they looked cheap, which was exactly what we were trying to avoid, so those went right back to the store. But to our surprise, we still had some purple sheers my mom gave us as temporary window covers from back when we moved. They might not be our "forever" curtains, but they were free, which is infinitely better than cheap. We also had some lamps in the basement that hadn't quite made it to the donation bin from our first apartment that worked in a pinch, after we saw how expensive lamps are.

Finally, we removed the sad, faded 2' x 4' rug that wasn't much better than a front door mat, and dug out the second flokati rug we bought after realizing how much we loved our first one and how much we feared it would wear out quickly (5 years later, still going strong).

So besides the bed linens, this was an upgrade from random stuff we had laying around the house. Though they still had their costs.

Cost the first - apparently cheap lamps with cheap bases disintegrate into a pile of concrete, sand , plastic, and...I don't even know what else when picked up for the first time in a long time. That was a fun clean-up. Without a base, the big stand-up lamp is very unstable, but it works wedged into the corner.

Cost the second - to make room for the big and cozy rug, I had to push the bed to the left, meaning that the frames are no longer centered. It bugs me. But not so much that I want to fix it. These frames are the kind that require a nail at both ends instead of the middle, so shifting them will leave me with a visible hole to fill AND the pain of having to recenter them and re-level them. It can only be seen from inside the room, so my plan is to ignore.

My view from the hallway is nothing but cozy:

Have you had any cheap decor upgrades lately?