site plan
After all this talk about concrete removal and deck building, I realized last week that we didn’t have an actual site plan on our blog. So, I took our CAD version and prettied it up for you (click to enlarge).
A few things to mention:
- The deck will have steps on three sides, providing a direct connection to the yard, driveway and basement stairs. The remaining sides will be enclosed by two steel planter boxes. An awning above (shown in this post, but redesigned a bit) will provide protection from the elements (rain, not sun – this is Seattle) and a structural steel gutter will direct rainwater to a chain that will feed the south planter box.
- The concrete pavers that we salvaged from our old sidewalk will go in the front yard, connecting the driveway to the front steps. Additional pavers (either salvaged or new) will provide a path from the street to the sidewalk. (By the way, the Persian Ironwood that we picked for our free street tree (after much blog discussion) – well, the city planted a Serviceberry. Oh well.)
- Additional concrete pieces will be used as small pavers extending off the existing south sidewalk and connecting to a sitting area in the southwest corner of the front yard. The front gets good evening sun and even though we often hang out on the stoop, it would be nice to have an additional lounge area with a couple of modern Adirondack chairs.
- The concrete apron that connected the driveway to the carport (that is now a pile of rubble) will eventually be replaced with grass or additional plants. While we want to preserve a small area of lawn in the back, if everything else was a lush blanket of native plants and edibles, that’d be a-ok with us.
- Most of the existing trees are not on our property, but do provide a nice buffer (along with pine cones, needles and under ripe apples). The Red Oak, Katsura and smaller Italian Plum were planted this year and we hope to eventually add more along the perimeter of the back yard.
- The area to the north of the backyard driveway is where our current raised veggie bed is. We’ve considered expanding the garden along the entire north fence line and maybe someday filling in that backyard portion with trees to provide more privacy. At the front, the fence ends about 12′ shy of the sidewalk and so this strip could be a good spot for a fruit tree espalier, shared with our neighbors.
This site plan is still somewhat conceptual and needs more extensive landscaping and drainage design, but these are our big picture thoughts. Although our lot is not huge, there are plenty of projects to take on and we’ll most likely divide the work into several phases based on time and funds.
But the deck, the deck is happening now. More progress photos soon!
deck progress
Last weekend, with the pesky concrete gone, Kyle started work on the deck footings.
First step – dig holes. 14 of them. I should stop and say that this deck is probably bigger than you think. It’s grown since our initial sketchup design, but is now large enough to accommodate a grill and table and chairs without the worry that someone will scoot their chair back and find themselves in the grass.
So after a morning of back-breaking labor, Kyle covered the bottom of the footing holes with a layer of 1/4- gravel to help set the footings.
Oh hey, remember all that concrete that we jacked up? Well, Kyle had the genius idea to reuse some of it for the footings. Normally, we would have poured new concrete footings but it seemed crazy ridiculous to not take advantage of our cementitious bounty. So we DIY’d our own using concrete pier blocks over “reclaimed” concrete slab pieces. Adaptive reuse people, adaptive reuse.
Of course, the slab pieces don’t have rebar and this isn’t something we would do to support a more complicated structure, but for a deck, it should work just fine.
After the footings were in place, we started the painfully boring (for me anyway) process of making sure everything was precisely level in the x, y and z coordinates. Mathletes, keep reading.
To do this, we used our handy laser level. The laser is high-tech, but our process was not. To adjust the heights of each footing (the footings were set “close enough” and then we used the adjustable beam saddle to get each one perfect), Kyle would stand centered on each footing and I would then rotate the laser till it aligned with his sternum (yeah, he was shirtless at this point). He would then use a tape measure from the laser dot down to the saddle to check the vertical dimension.
For accuracy in the x and y directions, we busted out some old school triangulation. The corners of the house were our “known values” and by correctly placing the two outer footings we were able to set the remaining footings and then use the hypotenuse of a triangle to double-check measurements.
A simple string line confirmed that the saddles were all aligned and ready to drop in our first beams.
Wood, steel, concrete – the architectural trifecta!
This should come as no surprise, but Bailey was absolutely no help during the whole process (the dog wouldn’t even help dig!). In fact, he preferred to sit or stand in your way before sauntering back into the house where he’d promptly deposit 10 lbs. of dirt.
By Sunday evening we had set the two main beam lines. On Monday night, Kyle manned-up and got the ledger board installed after work.
First, he installed large plastic washers to provide a gap between the shingles and the pressure-treated board. This allows air to circulate and any water to escape, preventing rot.
He then used his right-angle drill to attach the ledger to the house. (The stud locations were determined from the crawl space on the other side of the wall).
At one point, Bailey awoke from a backyard slumber, only to find himself is some crazy MC Escher print where stairs lead to nowhere. His facial expression kills me.
Can you visualize the deck now? It’s going to be big, but it’s going to be awesome.
Initially I was worried that it would make the remaining yard feel too small, but now I think we’ll still have plenty of space. The truth is – we don’t really use our yard that much but I think the deck will change that. Oh, and a fire pit. Definitely need one of those.
chezerbey quilt
My mom is a pretty crafty lady. In fact, I like to think that my early design skills were influenced by her – honed at a young age on handmade hairbows, puff-painted Keds, and trips to Hobby Lobby.
Although she has been sewing forever, my mom just recently started quilting and her first project from design to finishing details was a quilt for chezerbey. Yay! (She even made a small pillow out of the scraps!) We love the colors and pattern and for as many times as we’ve been to IKEA in the last year, we’re thrilled to start a collection of things that are hand-crafted and have sentimental value. I love to think that we’ll have this quilt for years and years and that one day it will be like the favorite blankets of my childhood – the ones that were super soft after hundreds of washes and had that comforting and familiar smell of home.
Thanks Mom!!
(The pictures aren’t great and don’t really do the quilt justice, but the sun (or lack thereof) has not wanted to cooperate with me this week.)
concrete, jacked.
Hey ho concrete!
When we bought our house nearly five years ago, we were “blessed” with a ridiculous amount of concrete. Some of it was original 1910 but most was from what I imagine as a 1960’s concrete-pouring acid trip. (Apparently, concrete is also an excellent way to kill weeds.) We started the arduous process four years ago when we tore out our concrete planting strip. This time around we needed to remove the sidewalk that wrapped around the backside of our house in order to install the new deck. But since we had the rentals for the weekend, we decided to invoke mass destruction throughout our yard. (Bonus – it was also an incredibly gorgeous weekend (we finally broke 70 degrees!) so we didn’t mind being outside.)
First, Kyle rented a masonry saw to cut the sidewalk into clean pieces so we could reuse them later.
The backyard sidewalk was cut into four 5′ long pieces that will eventually become pavers for the front yard. We had been planning on pouring our own large-scale pavers, but figured we’d try recycling what we had if it wasn’t a total headache.
Fortunately, the cuts turned out pretty nice without any cracking.
The only downside was that the saw was incredibly loud and produced a crazy amount of dust. An upside – Kyle’s new gray hair (and Flock of Seagulls swoop) foreshadowed his later years and a growing resemblance to Flaming Lips lead singer Wayne Coyne.
Next, Kyle moved to the front yard to cut out yet another random strip of concrete. This section will eventually become an espalier of fruit trees shared with our neighbors. Can’t wait!
The sidewalk at the back of the house wraps around the sideyard and into the front. Since we’re planning on a little seating area out front we took out this portion of concrete as well.
After four years of remodeling, Kyle’s jack-hammering skills had vastly improved since our 2007 project and he was able to cut a lot of the concrete into decent sized chunks. We’re planning on reusing some of it for pavers and maybe retaining walls and the rest will eventually go on Craigslist.
On the left, the future espalier location, on the right – more random concrete.
Our house originally had a “Hollywood drive”, or two lanes of concrete with grass in the middle. Sometime (probably circa 1964), the strip between was filled in with, yes, more concrete. We really don’t use the portion of driveway that extends to the back yard so our plan is to return that area to its original glory and further reduce the amount of impervious surfaces on our lot. We tried sawcutting out pieces, but eventually had to use the jack hammer to knock them loose. [Disclaimer: I was not operating power tools in flip-flops.]
Even though the 5′ pavers that we salvaged from our back sidewalk will eventually go into the front yard, we had to temporarily relocate them so we could build our deck. Kyle rented a heavy-duty dolly (which we though might be for hauling kegs, but apparently it’s for boulders and big rocks). Our neighbor Blair came over to help with the process of heaving the pavers onto the dolly and then unloading them next to the front driveway.
We did some quick calcs and realized these bad boys were 600 lbs. a piece. That’s 2400 or over ONE TON of concrete. Needless to say, we felt pretty badass when it was said and done.
I even got a victory lap around the back yard! (That is actually a look of terror on my face.)
Post-concrete destruction – our poor little house is just screaming for a back deck, right?
Oh yeah, we also demolished most of the concrete apron that extended to the carport. We are 99% sure that we’ll never park a vehicle in that space and would much rather have the extra yard area. Plus, it just looked dumb. Real dumb.
Bailey was stuck inside all day but was finally let outside to review the carnage. We’re in no rush to actually remove the concrete – it was more about getting everything done so we didn’t have to rent the jackhammer again (remodel tip: find a rental place that’s closed on Sundays. We rented ours on Saturday afternoon and got to keep it till Monday evening for the price of a one-day rental).
So there you go – lots of manual labor and a huge mess. But the joy of knowing we never have to rent a jackhammer again is worth it all.
interior elevations
First of all, three-day weekends are amazing. (In fact, I think it’s high time we made them mandatory.) With an extra 24 hours to burn, we made some serious progress on our to do list, lounged in the sun, listened to some new records and ate really well. To jump-start the festivities, Kyle and I met at Velocity Art and Design on Friday during lunch to check out their warehouse sale. There were so many goodies and with everything 40% off, we had to consciously restrain ourselves. But, we did pick up a few things.
Like this throw pillow from Dwell Studio. I am a magnet for mustard yellow.
Oh, and this!
We bought a larger Boskke planter for the living room! We don’t have a lot of free floor space (or wall space for that matter) so hanging things from the ceiling really is a good solution for us. For this planter we wanted something sculptural and more substantial and orchids are apparently the go-to plant for chillin’ upside down.
Oddly enough, there is an orchid store in our neighborhood so on Sunday afternoon Kyle walked over with the Boskke under his arm and came back home with a really beautiful orchid, planted and ready to hang. The planter doesn’t come with its own cable, so we scrounged around in our bin of miscellaneous IKEA hardware and came up with a similar set-up to the basil planter in the kitchen. We centered the planter on the wall behind (and between two joist bays) and simply attached the cable to the MDO ceiling (which is also the subfloor for the loft above).
In short, we love it. It’s elegant and simple and doesn’t conflict visually with the basil on the other side of the house…
…which by the way, is not only alive but prospering! The little basil stems have curled back up towards the window and if I give it a little water every other day or so it’s happy.
We also bought two sets of Normann Copenhagen rocking glasses. After picking up some smaller, stemless wine glasses a few summers ago in Austin, we’re all about this style.
I believe the Velocity sale has been extended through this week so if you’re a local go check it out!
In other decorating news, we finally christened the art wall. These wood block photographs were taken by our friend Todd and were part of a showing at architecture firm Mithun a few months ago.
Todd and I used to work together, but he has since started his own firm called Syndicate Smith and now practices architecture, furniture making, art and photography.
We really love the simplicity of the wood blocks (which are actually from Todd’s childhood!) and richness of the black and white photos (though I’m sure my own photography skills aren’t doing them justice). We picked these three from a larger collection and were drawn to both the composition of each individual print and how they read as a whole. If you like what you see, there are still prints available for sale on Todd’s website!
(The aluminum frames are IKEA and were $18 each.)
Finally, we also finished the loft! After my post about duvet cover options (by the way, thank you so much for all the awesome ideas and suggestions!), I ended up ordering the West Elm cover. I did scope out the IKEA options but the ones I liked were mostly white and I was worried that the darker down comforter would show through.
To make things feel a bit more complete (and functional) I picked up this “nightstand” from IKEA. It’s actually a step stool, but I didn’t have any luck finding a small table and was intrigued by the two tier idea. So for $15, I brought it home. It comes as unfinished solid beech, but in our ongoing attempt to inject more color into our home, I painted it the same mustard yellow as our kitchen window jamb.
To make people feel more comfortable going up and down the loft ladder in the middle of the night, we installed a switchable outlet behind the bed that is wired to a switch at the top of the ladder. The lamp is now plugged into this outlet.
The loft will continue to evolve over time, but for now we needed a space for guests to sleep and we wanted to spend as little money as possible. So here’s the breakdown:
Aerobed: already owned
IKEA sheets and down comforter: already owned
Yellow pillow: already owned (purchased at West Elm earlier this year)
Lamp: “vintage” IKEA, already owned
Duvet: $60
Nightstand: $15 (painted from a quart of leftover BM paint in the color “luminous days”)
Not bad for $75, huh? The above photo also shows the roof window in action. It was a warm day when I took these photos and the breeze up there was quite pleasant. I foresee lots of napping up here.
In less pretty news, we’re making headway on our exterior projects. In fact, when I got home from the grocery store tonight Kyle was standing in a waist-high trench with a shovel in hand. Stay tuned.
