Making Old, New Again

I started to work on the old clapboard siding I saved from the original house. The clapboard siding is all redwood. I'm cuttin' and rippin' the siding into smaller slats that I will use for trim and as a ceiling covering in the new building. It should look real nice when completed!

Praising the Appraisal

The appraisal came back favorably. The property once completed actually came back worth more than I expected. The key words are "once completed". Now that the appraisal is back and the bank is willing to lend me the funds, all I need to do now is submit the building plans for permits and hire a contractor.

Conditional Approval

We're getting one step closer to construction of the Blue Myrtle House. The bank has given conditional approval for construction based on the appraisal of the house plans. If that goes well the process for vetting vendors will begin!

Cottage Law

Governor Brewer signed into law House Bill 2103 which allows baked and confectionary goods to be made in a private home for commercial purposes as long as the goods are not potentially hazardous and ingredients are properly labeled.

This is good news for those who would like to make some extra income on the side. The Blue Myrtle house will be a great outlet for this who need a place to sell their homemade goodies!

Glendale Open Air Market

I stopped by the Glendale Open Air Market on Saturday. I was disappointed with not only where it was, but the lack of vendors. The market was in the parking lot next to A Mad Hatter's. I'm not sure why the planners think this is a good spot, but in my opinion it should be located in a more central area that is near as many storefronts as possible. Murphy Park or on 58th Drive between Palmaire and Myrtle would be much better locations. Closing off 58th Drive and having the Open Air Market here sets a wonderful tone for the event amongst the white picket fences and mature shade trees welcoming visitors to the Bungalows-turned-specialty shops, and Old Towne boasting brick-trimmed sidewalks and glowing gaslights. I got the last line from the Glendale Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The lack of vendors was also disappointing. There was next to nothing as far as food vendors go. I didn't see any agricultural produce or prepared food items typically present at more established markets.

Hopefully it will grow more popular and the vendor base will expand to include more food products and services. The Blue Myrtle House will eventually compliment this event or fill the niche the Glendale Open Air Market fails to meet. My hope is the Glendale Open Market becomes a raging success and a west valley alternative to the Phoenix Public Market.

Coming 2011!

Well that's the plan. Ideally I'd like to have the Blue Myrtle House constructed and open with vendors before the start of Glendale Glitters in November. The draftsman should have the plans permitted relatively soon and the financing should be in place by the end of the month.

Farmers Market and Coffee Bar

I finally decided on making the Blue Myrtle House an indoor Farmers Market and Coffee Bar. Thank you to all who participated in our poll.

Over the past couple of years I've been to numerous weekend farmers markets. If you've never been to a farmers market I recommend visiting the Phoenix Public Market. Although the Phoenix Public Market is no Des Moines Downtown Farmers Market it is one of the best in the area.

One of the things I kept hearing from the vendors at these events is how they are trying to get their products into the big grocery stores. I guess what they are saying is that they want to be able to have their items available to as many consumers as possible 7 days a week. The reality is that they are micro businesses compared to the companies that have products in the big grocers. The farmer market (micro business) vendor has a difficult time getting their items on the shelves of the big grocery stores. The truth is that if they were on the shelves of a state or national grocery chain they wouldn't be renting a booth at a weekend farmers market.

That's where the Blue Myrtle House comes in. The Blue Myrtle House is a micro version of Sprouts. We are a micro business giving other micro businesses the opportunity to make their products available 6 days a week.

I know that it's not enough just to have a place to have products available, people have to know about the Blue Myrtle House and vendor's products. One of the easiest most cost effective ways of doing this is by word of mouth. The more mouths the more words. In other words; get as many people as possible talking about your product. Two of the best ways of telling friends and friends of friends about what you are selling is by posting it on Facebook or Twitter. By talking about your product and telling people where they can buy it not only helps you but other people who are selling products at the Blue Myrtle House. You don't have to have a Facebook business page, you can do it from your own personal page. And you don't have to do it all the time. Letting friends and family know from time to time is plenty. Imagine a bunch of vendors selling at the Blue Myrtle House just occasionally telling their friends and family about their products. Together we could start a revolution! Micro-biz, micro-biz, micro-biz! Sorry, got carried away there for a moment.

I'm not officially taking vendor applications at this time, but you are welcome to tell me and others about your product by filling out the form at the bottom of this blog entry; Click Here.

Busting Up More Concrete

I finally got around to doing some more work this month. Since there is not much left to do before construction starts I took off Nov and Dec (Glendale Glitters). I've been putting off tearing out the walkway that went around the front of the house. It took three trips to get all the concrete to the dump. As it turned out it was just under 3 tons. I also tore out a pad of concrete on the back of the house, which was also about a ton of material. The pad looked like it was originally the floor for a shower that was added on years after the house was built. The pad has a drain cover and drainage pipe. I'm leaving the pipe in place as it will be extended to the new building at the end of the driveway.

I also cut off a couple of big limbs from the tree in the front yard. The limbs were hanging over/into where the house is going to be built. The new house is going to be a little bigger than the last. I did all this over the 4 weekends in January.

Google SketchUp

I found this cool program from Google called SketchUp. With it I am able to put my house plans into 3D. I'm just an amateur on it, but I got it figured out enough to draw up and model the house I'm going to have built. The smaller structure I'm building is going to replicate one of the original homes in Glendale built by the Sine family in the early 1900's. Below is a picture of the original house and my sketchup rendition of it. Go to this LINK for more 3D images of the proposed Blue Myrtle House and floor plans. There are a couple of photos of houses at the link that I got my idea for the Blue Myrtle House. Lemme know what you think!

I sent the house plan and model I came up with to several professional Draftsman for quotes. Hopefully I'll get these drafted soon and get a permit to start building.

Grass is Growing

Well the grass hasn't spread as much as I had hoped. I know I said it would be almost all grown over by now, but I've had a couple of problems with the irrigation. On two separate occasions the timers shorted out and didn't shut off. Both times the valve box filled with water and ruined the battery-operated valves. I was perplexed as to what the problem was because there was water everywhere and I couldn't find any leaks in the system. The entire side yard was flooded with about 3 inches of water. Man I was not looking forward to the next water bill. BUT that was where the mystery started. The bill was actually not that much. Long story short I finally figured out what happened. The lot next to me has monthly irrigation flooding and it leaked over into my lot and filled my valve box. I had to build up a berm where it was coming through. All good now.

Picket Fence and Bees

With the help of my father-in-law, Mike, I was able to get the picket fence erected around the driveway. I built the fence off site and then disassembled it into 8 sections for transport. We began by reassembling the sections and placing them in the holes I dug earlier in the week. We started about 8:30am and were in the shade.

Carol from the Cottage Garden II came over as we were setting up. She let us know the beekeeper was coming by at 11:30 to take care of the bees that were in the tree between my yard and hers. The only way to get to the bee-side of the tree was from my yard. Mike and I wondered how that would effect us since the tree was only about 20 feet away. By 11:00 we had the fence all in place, all that was needed was cement poured into the post holes. We decided to take lunch and come back in about an hour and a half to finish that part.

When we got back from lunch we didn't notice anything different around the bee tree. The bees were buzzing around more that normal, but they weren't really swarming. It didn't look like the beekeeper came so I went next door and asked Carol if he came. She said he did and that he said to stay away from the area for a couple of days. Well that was not an option since the last time I left my picket fence unsecured it walked off. I told Mike what she said and we pondered it for a few minutes as to what to do. We decided just to keep one eye on pouring concrete and one eye on the bees. Long story short we didn't have any problems. We got all the cement poured and called it a day.

House Idea

These two graphics should give you an idea of what the house will look like inside and out. I'm only at the first stage of planning. I sketched out the floorplan and googled "two story craftsman". I came across this house and it looked very close to the house I tore down. I liked the balcony especially on this house. I originally thought about a semi wrap around porch, but I like this better. Just imagine this house blue and this is what you can expect to see. Click to enlarge.