Cobaltchat.com

My last home in California was a 1900 sq. ft. home on a 5800 sq. ft. lot. Fairly typical for Northern Cal. I could do the entire yard in about 30 minutes. I had a mower, a string trimmer and a grass rake.

So 20 months ago we moved to Covington, LA, just north of New Orleans. We bought a 2900 sq. ft., single story home on just over 3/4 acre. I have 9 Oak trees on my lot. Three are Live Oaks and 6 are Water Oaks. In Northern Cal we had a yard the size of a small walk-in closet. We now have a yard that consists of a pool, 2 patios, 1 wood deck and a pool house. All of that is on just half of the back yard. The other half of the back yard we leave "natural" meaning whatever grows....grows. On this side are 5 of the Water Oaks. Because of this property I now have a self-propelled, walk-behind Toro mower, a Troy-Bilt riding mower/tractor, 2 leaf blowers (1 gas, 1 electric), gas hedge trimmer, gas string trimmer, a gas edger, pressure washer, 3 leaf rakes, 2 steel rakes, plus assorted shovels, loppers, shears, chain saw, etc.

This weekend I added to the Power tool arsenal. I bought this....

The Oak trees are pretty but the start dropping shit about Halloween and don't stop until now, the 1st of April. Pollen, acorns, leaves, little fuzzy things....holy crap!. Over the last 2 years I paid someone $900 to collect and bag my leaves. We can't burn within the city limits unless it's contained and that takes forever.

My new (used) Yard Vac is a commercial model and it's very powerful. It sucks up leaves, acorns , squirrels, geckos and I think I even got the neighbors cat. I used it today for the first time to clean up the last of the leaves and crap. And I ask myself why its taking so long to get the boat finished....
Shawn

I am sooo sick of this photo insertion tool.... There are much better forum software formats available

No worries.. you'll learn to hold your phone " gangsta" style

Nice vacuum pal.. let it go you ol Californian!! Haaaa

That's funny Shawn. I like your new sucker. I had the bright idea of building pretty much right under a big old oak tree about 20 years ago. Naaaaasty!

I can relate with all the crap that falls out of a tree, and its much more than just acorns and leaves. And tbe leaves? It drops about 3 semi loads... I used to dread every fall but now I just mulch and life is good!

That's a hell of a vacuum! Awesome!

I've got an old GM 4.3 laying around that I'm thinking about swapping to the vac....

Man we loved the "sucker" at my parent's house growing up. My brother and I had soooo many leaves to pickup around the yard. Sucker worked great. Ours was a Toro.

Enjoy!

that's awesome. Let's see some pics of the house and yard. sounds really nice.

liquid wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:42 am that's awesome. Let's see some pics of the house and yard. sounds really nice.

When we bought the house it had a 35 year-old fiberglass pool. It didn't look right and I had it inspected pre-purchase. The inspector said it was fine....it wasn't. So a year ago this week we had it torn out and a new gunite pool installed. Of course the leaves wreak havoc with the pool but I have a cover for it that goes on from Nov-Mar. The pool came out nice but spending $45k of my retirement money was not something I had planned on.

liquid wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:42 am that's awesome. Let's see some pics of the house and yard. sounds really nice.

I don't really have any good shots of the front except for a realtor pic from the listing. I can park 11 cars in the driveway and there is even an RV hook up. There is a pad to the right of the garage and the best thing I did was add the "Cobalt-Port". I now have a nice white vinyl gate across the front of it. My boat stays nice and dry and out of the sun.

At the same time I was doing work on the inside. We converted this room to a game room/Family Cave. (I'm willing to share) We have since added a vintage pinball machine.
shawn

Buddy - we are really on the same wavelength here.

Yesterday I had a gunnite pool guy out with an architect to start working on some plans for next year. Here's what I was just googling:

https://www.google.com/search?q=contemp ... eVGL2Cn_PM:

We're also starting to redo the basement. Currently trying to figure out where to put the pool table and am researching where to get one of these:

https://www.thepinballcompany.com/produ ... d-pinball/

I also just got tickets for Monster Jam in Syracuse but that was unrelated.

Shawn, You have a very nice place,it looks like it was built to enjoy not just look at.

hoghead54 wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 12:25 pm Shawn, You have a very nice place,it looks like it was built to enjoy not just look at.

Thank you. We use it a lot. Great new friends here and they have already tapped us for a July 4th party again.

liquid wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 11:50 am Buddy - we are really on the same wavelength here.

Yesterday I had a gunnite pool guy out with an architect to start working on some plans for next year. Here's what I was just googling:

https://www.google.com/search?q=contemp ... eVGL2Cn_PM:

We're also starting to redo the basement. Currently trying to figure out where to put the pool table and am researching where to get one of these:

https://www.thepinballcompany.com/produ ... d-pinball/

I also just got tickets for Monster Jam in Syracuse but that was unrelated.

Building a pool can be exciting and frustrating at the same time. It never goes fast enough and there are always "extras$$$" that need to be done. And in your budget, don't forget landscaping. This is the 4th pool I've had built and I found a great builder here. Turned out he lived on the block behind me and he started our pool and didn't work any others until the gunite was shot on ours. Start to finish was 6 1/2 weeks and we lost 4 days to rain and down here the pool sits for 21 days to let the gunite cure. I would think where you live that a pool is rather rare with the short summer. We don't have a heater and we swim from the end of April till about mid October. During the summer I look for ways to cool the pool down. It got up to 92 last year.

We bought this last year.... Its a 1983 Gotlieb. It was all refurbished and we bought it from a local dealer. We only paid $1500 so shop around. Everyone loves the pinball machine. Even my 83 year-old Mother-in-law plays it.

NB99...you're rockin' the pics baby! Beautiful set up my friend. Think of the great memories that will be (& have already been) made in that home. Very cool.

Keep em' coming.