Thank you all for the responses. texas-weed, I have not taken any offense to your comments, and will continue to welcome any feedback. Yours is especially helpful because of your expertise with this area. Would you be able to speak to the success rate of Zoysia in this area? I've some some really deep emerald grasses in the shopping centers that look absolutely beautiful. I've been told that this is Zoysia. All of the trees have some degree of issue with surface roots. I have three trees, however, each one is about 75 ft from the other. I'm posting a link to some other shots to give you an idea of the canopy. You can see that I have been attempting to raise the canopy and thin the tree to allow for more sun. It seems that the builder didn't put a lot of through into planning this yard, because I have giant Crape Myrtles growing right under the eaves, and a Live Oak no more than 12-14ft from my house. I am not a fan of St. Augustine, and I would like to avoid it if at all possible. The neighbor has it, and the other half of my lawn that is divided by the cement walkway is thoroughly St. Augustine. At some point I had hoped to install a french drain for drainage and form a physical barrier to re-establish the Bermuda on that side. This feels more and more unlikely by the day. I do have issues with erosion, and I also have trouble setting the mower low enough (though I can mow at the second to lowest setting if I'm VERY careful) because of the exposed roots. I would like to level the lawn somehow, or build it up and regrade it, but I have no idea where to even begin attempting this. I'm concerned that the lawn will be much higher than the sidewalk. Thank you for the information about Common Bermuda, I'll check out the Tiffway 419 to see if that hybrid resembles my lawn. You may have noticed that the grass was pretty high in my previous photos, and that is because I was working long hours. I'm currently working on cutting it back down to the second setting on my mower. Here is a link to the gallery showing the tree: http://img695.imageshack.us/g/img1290i.jpg/ Please disregard the butchered Crape Myrtles if they are apparent, the previous owner was very hands off with this yard and the gentleman performing the lawn services apparently subscribes to the popular belief about cutting them back in the winter. Again, all feedback is much appreciated.

Your bank just wants to see the house finished (regardless of condition) so that they can get the construction loan off the books. They they'll probably sell the mortgage to someone else and you'll be history as far as the bank is concerned. Meanshile, your builder - no matter how bad he is - just might bring them in more business someday. In a similar situation, where I had chosen the banker and then my builder turned out to be terrible (like yours), my banker kept telling me that I couldn't fire my builder because then my house would never get done. And that was even after we got hit with liens from subs and materialmen that my builder had not paid and I was able to show the banker that builder was skimming money off of my build and was supplying the bank with false documents! After I finally decided I'd been screwed with long enough by the builder and fired him, I then had to go thru a long drawn out fight with my banker to get banker to FINALLY agree to allow me and DH to take down the rest of our loan so we could GC to finish our half-completed house ourselves. And, after the house was finally completed and we'd moved in, in the midst of litigation with my builder I learn that builder and banker had apparently become great buddies after we introduced them!!!! Banker had invited builder to play golf with him at banker's country club several times and builder had loaned banker the use of one of his "hunting leases." I do understand that the "boys" only invite other boys to play so I could understand why banker never invited me to play golf. I can live with the "good ole boys network" but DH, who can "good-ole-boy" with the best of em if need be, NEVER got an invite to play golf either! WE WERE THE BANK'S LONG TIME CUSTOMERS with a nice big personal account at bank that was NEVER overdrawn while builder opened a building account there after he started on our house and then bounced checks on it on a regular basis! GRRRR!!! Worst of all was that all the time banker kept telling me that I couldn't fire my builder, I kept believing that banker was a NEUTRAL party and his interests were at least aligned with mine to the extent of wanting to see my house get built and built reasonably decently. HAH! I'd have fired my builder months before I did - and saved myself at least $50K in damages - if banker had just kept his nose out of it! I do feel for you. Based on what you've said so far, it sounds like you're probably headed for litigation. I know you've said you've taken a "ton of pictures" but you need to document the current state of the entire house in a very systematic way. If you don't already own one, go invest a couple of hundred buck in a GOOD digital camera that will also take decent videos. Get several memory cards and one of those things that will let you quickly download your digital pictures instantly to a laptop. If you don't own a laptop, borrow one. Also get a some notepaper and a heavy duty marker pen and some blue painters tape. Go out to the house and post signs showing what room and where (north wall, east wall, etc.) each of the signs is located. Pictures of one wall of an empty house look much like pictures of another wall. The writing should be big enough that it is clearly visible when you videotape and there should be enough signs so that any picture you take has at least one sign in it. Then, in each room, start by taking a video starting in one corner of the and moving systematically and SLOWLY around the room, panning the camera up and down SLOWLY as you go so that every part of every wall, all parts of the floor, the entire ceiling, EVERYTHING winds up in the video. There should be enough signs posted around the room so that at least one of them is in view of the camera at all times. If a wall is not straight or a window is installed crooked or a door doesn't line up right, include a level and plumb bob in the video. When you finish videoing a room, repeat by taking still shots, one after another following the samy systematic plan of going around the room. Take still shots so that each image overlaps the previous one... and again make sure at least one of your signs is visible in every shot. Do the same thing in the basement, the attic, the exterior of the house, and - if you can possibly get a decent light under the house - do that as well. Pay particular care to get extra shots (from all angles) of any work that you have any reason to believe is substandard. But, just because you don't think there is a problem with something, don't skip over it entirely. From looking at my pictures, I discovered that after the plumbing inspection, my builder had cut and never repaired a waste drainage pipe running across my dining room ceiling (he had to put in some extra joists because he'd cut the stringers on some and the second floor was caving in!) Amazingly, until I saw it in the pictures, I never even NOTICED the cut drainage pipe running across the ceiling! Fortunately I reviewed all the pics before I hired a sheetrocker so we were able to fix the pipe before it got hidden behind sheetrock. Imagine the mess that would have been! Anyway, you want to document EVERYTHING about the current state of the house. You also want to hang onto all the previous pictures you've taken - regardless of how out of focus they might be - and try to get them organized by date and by room. The nice thing about digital photos is that you can see instantly if they're in focus or not. When a memory card gets full - or you finish with a room, download the images to the laptop. You can download literally thousands of digital photos to a laptop. Depending on the size of your house, it may take you four or five hours or even longer to do a really good job. Also, because it looks like you may very well wind up in litigation, hang onto every scrap of paper, every email, etc., every note you've taken, etc. that is in any way related to the house or to your relationship with this builder or your relationship with the banker... whether you think it paints you in a bad light or not. You have a legal obligation to do so once litigation appears probable. Other than taking pictures tho, do NOT do anything to the house so long as builder is still on the job. If builder quits, let the house sit until you either hear in writing from him that he has quit OR you and your lawyer notify him that the contract between you has been breached, he has been fired, and he is not to return to the property.

Hi again. Happy Mothers Day to all the Mothers out there. Thanks again for helping on my cleaning journey. I got the paperwork all done so cleaned in earnest today. The livingroom floor has held up, so the livingroom is pretty much guest ready. The office/guest room is just about done. The kitchen still needs more spot cleaning, though the recycling is gone, hurray, and the bathrooms need to be spruced up. I feel like I'm going to be done by when they come, which is easing the panic some. Plus my DH has taken tomorrow off and will tackle the too long lawns. As far as the recycling goes we have to do that in this town as they only take about four garbage bags a week, and with the recycling the garbage would add up to more than that. Housenewbie, re the ceiling, no fan, :( equals a yucky kitchen ceiling. It isn't white up there any more. :( Besides my sisters in law notice everything. Hopefully I'll have time to do some ceiling cleaning. I am doing as suggested for the first night of their visit anyway, and keeping the lights lowered, lol. Thanks Sue, for that idea. :) Sorry about your Aunt, intherain. She doesn't know what she's missing when concentrating on the superficial. Your DS is braver than I, lazygardens. I always feel that if I make a suggestion that someone cleans what they don't like that they will do it, and by doing so will make my meager efforts look really bad. Terrapots you said it, no friends or coworkers around to help in my isolated world. I'm a loner anyway and have trouble dealing with more than a few people in my life, but it does make trading help with others more difficult. Anyway, I think I'm doing okay, and hope they're pleasantly surprised at my neat, clean home. I'll enjoy it as long as it lasts. Thanks again. Yeona

I love the Bright Green Office; looks very logical. I love your room. If you want some art in the room, get it first and let it drive your color scheme. Get rid of everything in the room, except what you need to work in the room, and organize it into boxes, bins, what ever so you can think straight about what goes where when. Then paint the room a nice soothing color you like...pick a color then go two tints lighter! And paint! Then decide where the desk will go and set up the computer. Find a concealer for wires and plugs online or at the container store. Add shelves and designated closed storage, even if it is baskets or fabric bins with clear large name tag designation for each bin.....get a perch for the kitty, and your are pretty done......anyway that is just my suggestion, but it might help?