LAND SURVEY DONE

SURVEY DONE!

Had my property surveyed by https://escarezlandsurveying.webs.com/.  I was given contact information for two local survey companies from my design team I had originally contacted the other firm 3 separate times and never heard back.  Their loss and my gain as Escarez is awesome!  Ray came out with his mask on (because of Covid) and surveyed for 3 days getting all the different things he needed.  He did all of the permitting, recording with King County, etc. so my property will never have to be surveyed again.  Any future owners are good to go as everything is transferable.  The cost was $2,800.  Again, I give the cost in case any of you out there would like to have your lot surveyed and recorded with the county.  It was $1,800 if he just surveyed my lot for no other reason than I wanted to know what my property lines are.  The added cost is for the permitting/recording with the county which my design team recommended I do and I am glad I did as it is done for all time!

What I learned...my neighbor to the north and I are square.  No problems there.  My neighbor to the south, however, had an old chain link fence separating our properties which I had replaced with a wooden fence 5 yrs ago.  I assumed the fence was the property line (makes sense, right?) but apparently not!  Some neighbor in the distant past put the fence a foot onto my property and so I need to reclaim it.  Ray told me it is in my best interest to reclaim the land sooner than later because over time the neighbor can claim it as their own if they have been maintaining it over an extended period of time.  I have decided to put the fence in the proper place after the backyard cottage is built as there will be all kinds of construction and mess back there and makes sense to move the fence last.  I also learned that my backyard neighbors own about a foot of my backyard.  I figured the concrete retaining wall that separates our two properties is the property line but again, I was wrong.  This technically means they own 1/2 of the cherry tree.  I had three copies of the survey diagram made and have given each of my neighbors a copy as I think it is best to be transparent and show respect to my neighbors as we share land together.  The backyard neighbors already knew about where their land ended when the bought a few years ago which was a relief for me.  And they indicated they are fine if I fell the old cherry tree.  Hopefully this stands, although, I did suggest we cut it down, have it milled and split the cost.  They laughed and laughed so I think I am safe with this one.     

FINDING A SAWYER

TREE MILLER ANYONE?

Housemate Marty hugging tree to give it some scale for photos for the miller!

Finally met with a miller, Peter Peterson, who is willing to mill the old girl after Seattle Tree Service fells her.  I was able to contact him through Urban Hardwoods furniture store in Seattle.  As I was saying before, finding a miller has been challenging.  According to Peter they are out there and they seem to all know each other which is pretty great; I just had to do some cold calling to find one.  I was also put into contact with another miller out in Maple Valley through word-of-mouth...options are nice to have and to compare.

Here is what I learned...Cherry Trees/Fruit Trees in general are divas!  Peter will come to the house the day Seattle Tree Care cuts her down and take her immediately to the mill to be processed.  Turns out fruit tree wood can warp pretty quickly and dry wonky so if the cut tree sits in my yard for a week or more she will be more difficult to mill.  We decided to have her slabs cut 8 ft. in length and less than 2 inches thick as that is what the furniture makers prefer.  I will also be drying her for 2 yrs under my deck as the location of the mill has quite of bit of wood slabs drying that are from city diseased trees and Peter doesn't want my wood contaminated.  Diseases can be killed in the kiln but first the slabs must be dried outside for 2 yrs and then kilned and unfortunately the diseased trees hang out in the outside lot with everything else.  Also, not going to have the tree milled in the backyard with a portable mill.  Seems that it would be best just to haul it to the actual mill and have the work done there.  I will be able to go and watch which will be pretty damn exciting!

As it stands I am looking at $3,000.00 to have the tree milled and $1,900.00 to have the tree taken down and the stump removed.  Why am I giving you the amounts?  So in case you want to do this same thing you have an idea of the cost.  I did some looking around online and cherry wood isn't cheap.  Granted, I am milling more than I would probably buy for my project but I really didn't want tree to go to waste and if need be I can always sell anything I don't use.

After starting this project I have been eyeballing more backyard fruit trees in the area.  Turns out Plum is a great tree for making things and Pear is highly sought after for woodwind instruments.  Funny, as I never thought/heard of anybody using Plum when building cabinets or furniture and same with Pear.  I am learning so much and suggest if you have a fruit tree in your backyard that is old and tired maybe look into having it milled and sell the wood.  And those huge old Maple trees are worth gold but may be an 'exceptional' tree so have it checked first by an arborist or you will be fined big time by the city as neighbors will definitely rat you out if you cut down one of those.