Just got our confirmations for Myrtle Beach this year! Last year was a blast, looking forward to this year.

Here is a pic from last year…

Here are the tee times for your golf group.

11/5 Myrtle Beach National West

11/6 Waterway Hills

11/6 Witch

11/7 Aberdeen CC

11/8 Kings North

11/9 River Club

11/9 Willbrook Plantation

Thats a lot of golf!

Here are some before, during and after shots of the landscaping. We did a simple design for the front, and are planning on adding another layer or two of the brick to finish it off. We just did one layer so we could put the initial mulch down and that is all that would fit in my truck.

Everything seems to be growing pretty good, the grass has some bare spots and I’ll address those in the spring. Hopefully some of those weeds will go away with the next weed and feed session. Next up is to do a fence along the side and back (behind the new arborvitaes we planted). Waiting for that tax refund!

Front Before

Front After

Another Shot of the front – An in progress photo

Another two shots of the front – All done – And sidewalk / walkway is power washed now!

The Backyard

Before:

In Progress (All cleaned up and seeded)

After – John Power washed neighbors fence too

Two more backyard shots

Well,  this isn’t a normal “house update”.  The house was updated, but with a few thousand pound branch that crushed my truck, scratched Chrissy’s car, and took off my brand new gutters.  Below are some pictures, it happened at about 10:45pm (about an hour and 1/2 ago) on 3/8/2008.  I reported 3 claims (yes three) to Allstate.  They made me do one claim per car, then one for the house.  I’ve herd some horror stories in the past with claims of this nature with Allstate, lets just hope they handle everything correctly.

I do have a question for everyone, this was a branch from my neighbors tree.  What do I do? Who’s responsible for the tree cleanup and all of the other expenses?

Sideshow here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/burmjohn/sets/72157604073525656/show/

All pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/burmjohn/sets/72157604073525656/ 

Yes, the tree is IN my car!

Roof is crushed in, windows smashed, quarter panel is smashed….

Wifes car has a lot of scratches and missing a side mirror now…

Thats one big branch!

Well its been quite a busy month or so, we have gotten a lot accomplished thanks for family and friends.  I figured I would post a few updated pictures, I haven’t had time to update the site the last few weeks.  A brief overview of what has been accomplished so far: Downstairs – Bathroom is 90% done (Waiting on a Vanity from Home Depot), Sub floors are down (Vapor barrier, CDX Plywood) and the hardwood in the Living Room is done (see picture below).  All the walls are spackled and primed downstairs, and I just finished up giving the ceiling in the Living and Dining room their second final coats last night (see the other picture below). My father-in-law and wife put the slate on the fireplace this weekend, it really came out nice and brings a different look to the whole room.  See pictures before and after below.  Thats all for now.

Fireplace Before:

Fireplace After:

Wood Floor In Living Room:

Painted Living Room (Ceilings, Walls will be painted This Week)

Here is quick video of the current progress of the first floor. I havnt had the time to post more video’s, but I wanted to get this one up of the first floor.

So far everything is going OK.  Last night after work I ripped up some of the carpet on the first floor while waiting for the kitchen cabinet place to come.  The kitchen guy measured the whole area and should be drawing up some plans / options for us over the next few days.

Tonight I’ll be tearing down some sheet rock in the kitchen because we will need to re-wire / upgrade the electric anyways.  And if I have time, I’ll finish taking up the carpet in the other room.  I am taking off tomorrow and I’ll be meeting my friend there to help me spec out what needs to be ordered from Home Depot (sheet rock, wonder board, wiring, outlets, etc) and make a few trips and get everything there so we are prepared.  I am also having a dumpster delivered tomorrow morning to the house, this way we can get rid of everything pretty easy.  I ordered a 20 yarder, and that should be PLENTY for the demo work we need to do.

Things are moving full steam ahead, however as I anticipated there are a few more things we need to do that we did not plan for initially. There are some studs and rock that had some mold issues due to a leak, as well as just some old wood that I’d rather replace then taking a chance.  No reason to go cheap now, I’d rather just do it right.

I’m hoping to get the plumber in there the end of this week to replace the main water cutoff valve as well to do some other minor changes.

Wow, this weekend went fast. We closed on Friday, then Saterday I had just a few hours in the morning to work at the house. We went to my sister-in-laws house warming party. Sunday was spent demoing almost the whole first floor, crazy day. Anyways, the kitchen, bath and a few walls are now gone on the first floor. Below are some video’s from day 1 and 2, I posted them on youtube.com and I also uploaded the higher quality ones to the site (requires quicktime to play I beleive). I’m shot, so tired, hitting the sack now.

Day 1 (high quality) http://burm.net/movies/day-1-levitt.m4v

Day 2 (high quality) http://burm.net/movies/day-2-levitt.m4v

Day One

Day Two

Well folks, my golf days are soon over! We have a closing date of this Friday on the house we purchased.  I also have the Co-Op sold, and the bank appraiser is coming tomorrow to look over the place.  So I’ll have to miss work for a bit twice this week, but at least tomorrow I can work from home.   I am very excited, I can not WAIT to get out of this Co-Op.  It was great for the first year, but then after that it drove me nuts that I could not just walk outside to fire up a BBQ or smash a golf ball or two.  It is going to be a quite a hectic next 6 months or so, because most, if not all of my free time will be spent renovating the fixer upper we just purchased.

I hope to document most of the renovation process with both my camera and my camcorder.  I did get a beta invite to Justin.TV, they allow you to broadcast live (stream) a video feed from anywhere to anyone wanting to watch.  If I can some how get my renovation progress to broadcast from the house I’ll do it.   I do not think I will have a broadband connection from there the first few weeks, so I’ll just tape and or photograph the progress and post it when I have time.

Reality of a “real” mortgage is really hitting me, the past (almost) three years have been quite easy with the Co-Op.  We shall see what will come of this, keep tuned in.

Found my camcorder today, I haven’t used it in a while. Since I have a Mac, I ran out and purchased a DV Cable so I could get the moves off of it and into iMovie. My first little movie is below…

This is my crazy goldfish (I think thats what it is) he is about 2 years old now. He likes to move anything and everything in the tank, including picking up the gravel and spitting it out on the side of the tank.

This video is Ron Paul appearing on the CNN Late Edition on 5/20/2007 – Its a interesting watch, this guy has some great points. And seems to be a real straight shooter.