New patio in the works

[68gtxman]

Roughly 35 by 40 feet. EP Henry pavers with a bench wall with columns in one corner with a pergola. I will install the pergola myself and add three retractable awnings on it (we're light skinned sunburn-prone people). I will add a future gas fire table and will build a curved bar for it too. The yard is 2.56 acres big and the backside of the house has a brick patio and wooden deck that hangs over the bank to the creek 40 feet below (see this photo):

Here is what the front of the house looks like:

I've been working my building projects since I retired from the USAF 10 years ago. Here is what I did:

Added a home theater
Cleaned and organized the basement and garage
Added a poolhouse (Amish built) and built a powder room in it (including 90 feet of trenching for sewer)
Built rear patio retaining wall and deck
Added water and power to three far locations in the yard
Replaced the roofing
Repaved and added “circle” to driveway (contractor)
Built custom sign for end of driveway
Added LED lighting to 500 foot long driveway
Replace pool liner
Rebuilt, painted shed and reroofed it
Installed hot tub
Rebuilt a John Deere Gator, added dump bed lift kit and lighting
Removed underground 550 gallon heating oil tank (contractor)
Plus other things that I can’t remember now (on top of getting married 9 years ago)

Here are some photos of some of these projects:

 

[snakeyes]

is that a copper ceiling in the bathroom if so I like it nice work

 

[Richard Cranium]

A 500' long driveway and there are no burnout traces? For shame, for shame.............

 

[68gtxman]

is that a copper ceiling in the bathroom if so I like it nice work

Plastic ceiling in the color of copper. I embedded LED lights in it that are barely visible when they are off.

 

[68gtxman]

A 500' long driveway and there are no burnout traces? For shame, for shame.............




View attachment 532101

Hey, it was brand new . I did leave several burnout stripes in the old one over the years, but they go away in a month or so on their own.

 

[Ironbuilt]

Very nice work sir. Where I grew up in NJ, there was NOTHING that nice. I tend to forget that West and South Jersey have some beautiful country areas.

 

[moparwacko]

Forget all that nonsense.
60 x 100 garage with man quarters is what you need.
Did the spending on that house thing coincidence with the marriage thing?


Seriously tho, very nice work.
And Mrs Wacko will never see posts like this

 

[68gtxman]

Forget all that nonsense.
60 x 100 garage with man quarters is what you need.
Did the spending on that house thing coincidence with the marriage thing?


Seriously tho, very nice work.
And Mrs Wacko will never see posts like this

No, these projects have been on my life-long To-Do list (31 years at this location). I am truly enjoying working on these projects and enjoying using them! The wife wants me to build a new pole barn - for my cars! When I took a serious look at that, all it meant to me was more hard work to restore the additional cars that I would buy to fill it up. The “new” wife is a keeper! Every time that I mention how I like another car, she says “buy it!”

 

[Ghostrider 67]

No, these projects have been on my life-long To-Do list (31 years at this location). I am truly enjoying working on these projects and enjoying using them! The wife wants me to build a new pole barn - for my cars! When I took a serious look at that, all it meant to me was more hard work to restore the additional cars that I would buy to fill it up. The “new” wife is a keeper! Every time that I mention how I like another car, she says “buy it!”

Does she have a lot of female siblings and relatives? We need more like her around...

 

[moparwacko]

Take her advice
Oh, and keep her!

 

[moparnation74]

You did some fine work! The bathroom is very cool....

Burnout video? Where is it?

 

[kiwigtx]

I like how you went to the trouble of doing a proper sketch of your intended patio. Most of my plans for home are in my head right now. I guess I should put it down on paper....trouble is, when I write it all down it may look like an awful lot of work to do. Time is not my friend right now.
Love what you have done to your place so far.

 

[Car Nut]

Nice job, you guys and your big lots, I’m jealous!

 

[Richard Cranium]

60 x 100 garage with man quarters is what you need.

Now we're talking!!!!

 

[747mopar]

Nice work

You have a beautiful place, looks nice and secluded too.

 

[68gtxman]

Does she have a lot of female siblings and relatives? We need more like her around...

She’s has three sisters (one of whom is single but crazy). The other two are nice but not nearly as nice as the one I got.

 

[68gtxman]

Nice work

You have a beautiful place, looks nice and secluded too.

Yes it is secluded. Most people who visit don’t even see any of my neighbors and they think I have none. When driving down the road to my house, many first time visitors stop and call me because they are sure that they are lost. I have the first house on the long road that goes past the local high school’s sports fields (see the aerial photo below):

Two sides of my property are part of the county park. One side is the sports fields’ storm water basin and one side is a neighbor’s property that another neighbor and I bought to keep it vacant. I value the privacy, but many times it is merely an illusion as people can see us through the trees while we can’t see them back.

I bought this place 31 years ago and almost didn’t because it was so run down (even though it was only 14 years old at the time). The couple that built it, did so to make it their retirement home, they bought the first parcel of land (1.5 acres) which had two fishing shacks on it. They carefully built the rancher in between the tall beech and oak trees. (I've had to pay big bucks to remove some of the oaks after many of them died in a blight.) The couple bought another acre of the farm field next to them to make the yard bigger. When the high school bought the farm field, their idiot engineer determined that my yard was part of their property and they planned a soccer field for it. If i wasn’t watching them closely, I would have lost it. Sad state of affairs with local politics. To punish me for pointing out their error, they placed their retention pond next to me so I could enjoy the extra mosquitoes. I did get even with them by usurping their property that is between their pond and my yard. I use it for party parking and storage of my boat and trailers.

 

[Richard Cranium]

Very nice, being in NJ, the taxes must be a killer!

 

[Ghostrider 67]

Been there before. Used to live next to a church in downtown Camden, SC. My big backyard ran next to their back yard. I came home early one afternoon and they had a big backhoe operating on their side of my fence and were happily pulling up my trees and plants and banging up my fence. I asked them what the hell did they think they were doing? The guy said to F**k off they didn't answer to me. Had the police there in 5 minutes. They ended up having to replace 40 feet of my 6ft tall wood fencing and replant all of the trees and plants. See the thing was, my wood fence was purposely 4 ft INSIDE my property line with a chain link fence on the line. I got tired of seeing and hearing the raft of kids playing out there while we were trying to enjoy our pool and yard. They just thought they would steal that 4 feet from me.

 

[68gtxman]

Very nice, being in NJ, the taxes must be a killer!

The township had been using a private assessor and he just loved my “waterfront property”, so he kept placing an inordinately high value on it. I always argued with him that if it was such great “waterfront property”, why was the creek in my backyard instead the front of my house facing it? I kept appealing every reassessment and being an engineer, I was able to construct strong enough cases to get each increase reduced significantly. But when the a-hole retired and the township hired a national firm to do the next reassessment, they finally gave me a fair value and my taxes dropped from $7,700 to $5,600. When compared to a house that I owned in Tennessee, I paid $240 per year in property taxes, I realized that NJ sucks! One of my neighbors rebuilt his home, garage and added a big workshop to his property and the a-hole assessor doubled the assessed value which raised his taxes to over $14K per year. He appealed (his case was heard right before mine was) and his only argument was that he couldn’t afford the increase (unfortunately that is not a valid argument). He lost his appeal and the assessment stood. He wasn’t lying that he couldn’t afford it on his retirement, and they were forced to sell it. The county bought it and added it to their county park facilities that were adjacent to it.