Wow that looks great, now you need a few Trees so you will have some shade in the future!!
Will you leave it the dark grey or paint it a different shade?

 

The unfortunate thing is that there were already 3 trees there - right about in the middle of where the front wall stands now. They were fruit trees that were just getting mature enough to bear full size fruit - ranging from about 8 to 13 feet tall. I paid a company to come move them as step 1 of the project (just to the left of the garage) and they killed all 3 immediately.

They chopped the root ***** down to the size of a basketball to move them and it wasnt nearly enough. One tree actually fell over before nightfall the first day - we had to pull it back up with the tractor. Followed their instructions for watering to a T and they all immediately died - totally brown in a week and bare/brittle in a month. We bought a chipper to grind up most of the branches several months later, but I still need to deal with the stumps.


That is in the longer term plan though - to plant some new trees. I need to rent a skid steer first to re-grade the whole lot though so the flood irrigation works properly again. The lot has always been fairly poorly graded for it (it pools in some areas and barely covers others/ berms to bound the flow arent tall enough, etc), but the work the recent grading company did around the irrigation port has made it baaically unusable at the moment - the waterflow is all wrong. It'll end up backing up around the garage foundation before it ever flows out into the yard.

Im struggling as it is to keep our existing trees alive on just tap water with this heat. They really need the ultra-deep soak of the flood irrigation to saturate the roots. So for that reason, Im holding off on adding any more plants until its resolved.

For now, it's going to stay this color. To appease the city (and their ambiguous regulations about accessory buildings being 'compatible' with the main house), Id agreed in the permit to paint the garage the exact same color code as the house.

In the mid-term, Id like to paint two horizontal white stripes around the top about 6" wide each - one at the very top of the parapet and one about 6" below that. Then it'll match the house exactly. I didnt put that in the permit as I wasnt sure how easy it would be to mask and paint that detail, but I do think it would make it look a little less bland, epseically since the walls on this are so much taller.

Longer term I think Id like to get away from this dark of a color. I didnt realize until we started painting how extremely faded the house is (even after having just been painted 5 years ago by the previous owners). It's literally the exact same color code / paint supplier, but it doesnt even come close to matching with how faded the house is.

Of course I also dont know what grade of paint they bought- chances are they likely just got the cheapest stuff they could find. I bought the highest grade for the garage, so we'll see if it holds up any better.

Either way, we'll need to repaint the house in the next few years as the fresh / vibrant gray of the garage makes it look poor. So Ill decide at that point if we stick to this color or go to something lighter. Im really trying to avoid the tan / sand / light brown trap that 99% of the houses out here have.

 

Congrats on passing the inspection! That is awesome!
Earlier this week I bought a LOT for my upcoming electrical. I am most likely looking at 10/4 to rent a trench digger and get my feed line in. Looking forward to being DONE with that step. I hope that weekend works out for me!
I will look forward to your epoxy floor project! I used some disposable supplies from Dollar Tree (like bucks for mixing and pouring the epoxy and cheap brushes for striking the edges).

 

Did you pick up the feed wire yet? Id been pricing some out online and man that stuff is expensive! I need to break out my flexible 50' tape at some point to see exaxtly what length I need to get around the back of the shed / septic. Need to figure out gauge and exact length so I can get a better idea of what Im in for. I think Im going to fall around 125-150 feet of run.


I did get the crack filler in today along with a crack chaser blade for the angle grinder. I figure I can get the cracks and saw cuts filled as an easy first step over a few cool mornings. Still going to wait until it cools down in the daytime to actually start coating anything. Ive had my absolute fill of working in the heat...

 

I bought conduit, wire, ground rod and a bunch of misc stuff. I am sure there are some small stuff I did not totally account for, but it is what it is. But I needed some materials to plan my start.