Kayo Libiano

Plastic Plates and such…

11.17.2018 by Kayo Libiano //

Plastic rainbow-colored dishes, bowls and cups from IKEA . That’s what my kids use to eat and drink from these days. Right now, they are shamelessly out in the open for all to see. In the future set-up, I’d like to conceal all the kids dishware in an accessible drawer and all that chaos will be hidden from view. I have no desire to continue looking at rainbow plates cluttering up my shelves.

When I was growing up, my mother had the family use china from almost day one. I don’t ever remember eating off of a plastic plate, or a paper plate for that matter. That woman even used “real plates” on pizza night! I wonder if that would work in my family dynamic today? Can my 6 and 3-year-old boys eat off of porcelain plates without any disasters? I suppose they could… There will most definitely be a few broken and chipped plates, but I could teach them to use the real stuff.

“You must gingerly place these plates into the sink when you are done.”

Do I want to say these words and deal with all that right now on top of all the other things? Quick answer: No, I don’t. I didn’t even have to ponder that one.

It’s too easy to just bust out a plastic plate that I don’t care about and fling it frisbee style at my kids. On pizza night, I just scrape the crusts into the trash and throw those shitty plates into the dishwasher at the end of a long week… Yea, I’m not changing the system for now. So for a while longer, no-spill sippy cups and plastic rainbow plates for me and my kids.

“GOHAN DEKIMASHITAYO-! plastic NO OSARA O DASHITÉ KUDASAI!” (“Dinner is ready! Get the plastic plates out!”)

-K

Palm Tree Woes

10.16.2018 by Kayo Libiano //

So we have a palm tree in front of our house. It lives in the area that is City owned. Visualize: front of house, yard, sidewalk, patch of grass where palm tree is, curb, then street. There are palm trees all up and down our block and they are great. They stand tall, proud and stately, reminding us that we live close to the beach. Some of the palm trees on our street have been removed by the City because of whatever reason City’s remove their trees once in a while… We have no issue with the palm trees in general: except for when the wind blows really hard and the gigantic dead fronds (that the City should be maintaining) fall off onto our cars and then scatter into the street with their prickly thorns all over the place while leaving unsightly scratch marks on the roofs and sides of our vehicles… that part is slightly annoying, but it doesn’t happen often. Also, there was that time when a particularly large frond blew onto our roof and then scraped down onto our driveway along with a bunch of roof shingles. That was also annoying. But it only happened once.

The palm in front of our house is valued at $6,080.00. How do I know this? Well, I’ll tell you. We just got back our Engineering Department corrections and there was a problem. The problem was with the palm tree. The one we do not own. The City has requested that we remove their palm tree and replace it with a new tree when we build the new house. Why? Because we can not pour the new proposed driveway without getting too close to the drip-line of their palm tree. What is a drip-line you ask? It’s the area where the roots grow underground and there must be a 5′-0″ clear diameter area around the tree measured from the center of the trunk and our plans show that our new driveway impedes on this 5′-0″ diameter area. (so much eye rolling going on around here that my eyeballs hurt from the strain)

The City has sent us a request form. On this form there are three questions.

Are you willing to pay for cost of Removal?
Are you willing to pay Loss of Tree Value?
Are you wiling to pay for Replacement Tree and Labor?

OK. I get #1 and #3. Yes, the tree does not technically belong to us, but we get that since we are making the changes to the driveway that okay, we will agree to pay for removal and replacement of the tree and the labor associated. But come again with #2??? Will you be willing to PAY THE LOSS OF TREE VALUE? What The…? So correct me if I’m wrong, but after all is said and done, the city would like us to essentially spend $6K on the removal and replacement and loss of value of the palm tree which we did not even plant let alone own? Hells-to-the-NO.

How does this make sense? Can someone please explain this to me?

Annoyed and to be honest, kind of baffled.

-K

Siding – Take 2 (Because things change…)

10.12.2018 by Kayo Libiano //

I’m sitting here pondering over my cement board siding post and laughing because I just convinced my husband to scrap the cement board and go with a stone product that looks like wood. Faux wood called Vintage Ranch which looks pretty good but with practically no maintenance. That is a great combo in my opinion.

ES_Vintage-Ranch_Foxwood_nationwide

It all started with the poured in place concrete garage. The bid came back at close to $13K and the husband and I both had individual mini freak-outs. Why the hell does board formed concrete cost so damn much?

The answer: Labor.

So do we go stucco down there? (not at all the look I want…) So I dug around and found Eldorado Stone. This company has a concrete looking stone siding called Longitude 24 and Zen 24 which are both modular and pretty sleek. As I was flipping through the catalogue, I saw it. Faux wood stone siding for the fraction of the cost per square foot compared to the cement board (which is still pretty cheap), but when you think about the labor it takes to cut the cement board material down to size, it gets up there… The husband and I were both sold. Almost instantaneously. So goodbye painted cement board and board formed concrete! Hello modular stone siding!

This house keeps getting more and more interesting as we go along! It’s all still in our dreams, but the numbers are coming together!

Feeling very accomplished today!

-K