Hung out to dry

It's been a dry suumer and we are still waiting for Henry to return to working on the teahouse. In the past he has told us that it was too cold or wet to work. Is it too dry now?

In the mean time, the fence is mostly finished (but not completely stained), and the holly trees are planted.

Inching Along

Very slow, and not very steady progress this week. Henry's crew came two days, while the landscapers were here most of the week. The retaining wall was installed behind the tea house. It will enable us to make the ground level and keep soil from eroding into the neighbors yard. The space in this photo is where the path to the teahouse will pass through. It will be mostly filled with black bamboo.






Henry's crew worked slowly on adding the brass trim on the exterior (below). They will use chemical oxidation to stabilize it to a dark bronze color, matching the existing bronze seen on the corner. Once the exterior trim is completed, the tarp can come down and the steel beams can be painted (finally!). The concrete step (with attached steel steps) on the left below is teahouse entrance.




The landscapers have also been putting up the garden wall. The first section was finished this week.

Arrival of Trees

The landscaper is slowly bringing the trees and shrubs. The holly trees arrived first:

Another wait for Henry

This picture shows where things have been for the 6 weeks. Henry's crew has shown perhaps 2 or 3 times during this period, but we can't see that anything has changed. The tarp is still in place because there is still external bronze trim that needs to be put into place. In the meantime the landscaper has gotten started and has leveled the back yard.

Glass installed

Most of the glass was installed this past week. Two panels somehow disappeared between the glass company and Henry's shop. They should arrive in the coming week. In the front view you can see the double doors that open into the yard. There is still a tarp covering because it is not yet fully sealed.


The side view shows the entrance door. The triangle shaped pieced of wood inside are the base to the inverted pyramid ceiling.


The interior view. The metal posts hold the floor and ceiling together, and continue through the roof to the suspension beams. In the interior, the will be encased in mahogany.

No joy in mudville

We've reached the end of March, and things don't look a whole lot different than several months ago. The main things you will notice are that the tarp is getting gradually more shredded, and recent rains have left the ground significantly muddy. Our backyard is beginning to look like the aftermath of some terrible war. But some progress has been made, and Henry hopes to work on the roof this week, and perhaps put in the glass walls in the following week. After that the tarp can come down, which will be a significant improvement, and may help towards thawing relationships with some of the neighbors.


And we should also be able to start some of the landscaping soon. Most of the following photos were taken at the landscapers farm last weekend. The picture below is an example of the horsetails that will be used to the left of the tea house, to hide the compressor for the air conditioner.


Then in the left most corner of the yard will be several Holly trees like this one.

These will be interspersed with winter berry bushes:


And we picked out several boulders to be placed in front of the tea house.

Construction resumed

Henry restarted regular work on the tea house during the past two weeks. He is now predicting completion in about 6 weeks, but this remains to be seen. All of his past estimates have been wildly optimistic compared to the actual outcome.

We heard nothing from the neighbors regarding the letter I sent. I'm hoping that this closes the chapter on complaints from them, but that may be too much to hope for. The sad thing is that if we were building a three-car garage with vinyl siding, they probably wouldn't have had any complaints at all.