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deck progress: week two
So let’s rewind to last Thursday – Kyle and I came home early to unload the decking that arrived on a truck from Eastern Washington (more on that later). With warm(ish) temperatures and hours of daylight left we decided to put on our grubby clothes and get to it. With the footings complete, the next step was to prep the area that would soon be covered by the deck.
First we leveled out the soil that was still in clumps and piles from the previous weekend of hole-digging. (It sucked.) Then we laid down filter fabric to keep weeds at bay. We’re actually not big fans of filter fabric and don’t plan on using it in other parts of the yard, but since this area will be more or less inaccessible, we thought it was worth the expense and effort. To keep the fabric in place, we covered it with a thin layer of pea gravel.
It rained on Saturday morning which delayed framing, but fortunately concrete doesn’t give a crap if it’s raining.
So – stair footing! (The above photo just shows the rebar and formwork, apparently I failed to photograph the actual concrete pour.)
We tried to minimize the amount of new concrete pours as much as possible, but the small stair leading to the basement needed a proper support (as seen in the sketch below).
By Sunday, the pressure-treated lumber had dried out enough so that Kyle could resume framing. First he covered the top of the beams with Grace Vycor sticky flashing, which adds extra protection against wood rot and will extend the life of the deck.
Next, he installed the joist hangers, which are deep enough to support both the main deck joists as well as the framing for the step along the east side. In order to avoid yet another large and annoying footing, we decided to cantilever that framing out, backspanning the members and bracing them against the joists above.
The joists hang off the outboard beam and ledger (at the wall of the house) and sit on the beam at the mid-span.
Kyle used his palm nailer to install the joists, which sped things up considerably.
Most of the PT (pressure-treated) members had to be cut, which meant we needed to treat the exposed edges with a wolmanizing agent (it’s basically a solution that gets brushed on to any freshly cut ends). We didn’t want Bailey to get too curious, so we kept him inside where he maintained a close eye on the progress.
And yes, he always lays like this.
On Monday night our friend Anton came over to help. He was probably expecting to do something manly like pour concrete or operate power tools, but instead Kyle gave him a roll of sticky flashing. But by the end of the evening, he was indeed a Master Taper.
After the joists were installed, blocking was added in the perpendicular direction to further brace the structure.
A rim joist was added to the front of the east step and all of a sudden it started to look a lot more like a deck. As an added bonus, we’re right at the solstice so it doesn’t get dark till about 10:00 p.m. More light = more work!
Kyle powered through and worked on Tuesday night as well, finishing the framing for the steps that lead up to the back door. Woohoo!
We still need to finish the framing for the north steps (on the right side of the photo above), as well as the stair to the basement, but then it will be decking time!
All in all, I think it’s going to be real swell.
the 2011 projects
What, did you think we’d take a break or something?
That’s right, it’s time to move back outside! We’re still not done with our 2010 projects, but our minds have wandered to the impending days of summer and the ragged piece of land that is our yard. Until now, the yard has been a low priority project, but we’re now ready to give chezerbey the curb appeal that she deserves. In addition to some major landscaping and hardscaping in the front yard, another project we’re anxious to tackle is a new backyard deck.
The backyard has mainly served as a lumber yard and staging area, but all that’s about to change. We’re fortunate to have a decent size yard (by Seattle standards anyway) and it’s time to start enjoying it. So, during a recent bout of barn door procrastination, we tossed around a few ideas and modeled them in SketchUp. We’re going to wait a few months before we start any construction, so the design is bound to change and evolve, but this is what we’re thinking at the moment:
At a minimum, we need a way to get from our back door down to the yard (the construction ramp is finally gone and our old back porch steps are serving as a temporary solution). We also want a deck. Our backyard is currently a barren tangle of weeds and concrete (plus one very unfortunate garage/carport combo), so a deck would provide a slightly elevated place to hang out and serve as a less abrupt transition from indoors to out.
We both imagined a terrace type deck without handrails or guardrails, but this was a tricky assignment since there is a healthy vertical drop from door to ground. Fortunately, we came up with a solution that achieves this goal while still being safe. Basically, by treating the deck as one very oversized stair landing, we’ve eliminated any areas that are more than 3 risers or more than 30″ off the ground. Zerbey’s = 1, Seattle Residential Code = 0!
For protection from the rain (yeah, we grill in the rain here) we’ll build some sort of overhead awning. Right now we’re thinking about a cedar and steel assembly with corrugated polycarbonate glazing as a roof (which will keep us dry but won’t block the sun from coming into the kitchen). Aesthetically, the back yard is carte blanche to do something more modern without feeling like it’s tacked on to a 1910 house. We also want to keep it simple and reduce costs as much as possible.
At the end of the awning would be a steel channel gutter with a steel rain cable at the left end, directing rainwater down into a corten steel raised planter.
See the dude at the grill? That’s Kyle. Right now our grill lives in the depths of the carport so giving it a proper home is definitely a priority. We’ve also talked about doing more of a built-in along this wall, something with an integral grill, countertop and storage space.
The deck and awning are the easy part for us. We still have a long way to go in the planning and design phase for the landscaping, pavers, etc. But hey, we have a new street tree!
A big thanks to all who gave their recommendations on what species to get – with your encouragement, we took a risk and went with the Persian Ironwood! (Or at least I hope that’s what they planted.)
The 2011 project has not been entirely hashed out, but right now we’re planning to at least do the front yard and the deck and awning in the back. And of course we’ll post about the plans and ideas as they develop. It’s been a long time since we had a summer that wasn’t laden with house projects so taking on something smaller (and more importantly, something that can stop and start easily) sounds pretty freakin’ fantastic.
progress report: week 27/28
Week 27, 28…I’ve officially lost track. We’ve been focusing on the kitchen, but we’re keeping that under wraps until it gets closer to being done. And this past weekend, we installed the cork! We are exhausted and sore, but excited with how it turned out – a rich blanket of chocolate-brown that, without the finish, resembles a dark suede. The wax goes on this week, so we’ll have a start to finish post next week on how it all went down.
In the meantime, a few random things:
Tomatoes! Fall is here and the garden has been harvested. Now, what to do with them? I’m tempted to just throw them all in the food processor and see what happens.
We’d been looking for a way to provide some privacy at our back door without a clunky roller shade. So we put up some inexpensive, translucent window film. One lookout for the people, one for the dog…everyone’s happy. Oh, and the door trim still needs to go up.
Speaking of roller shades, did we ever show you the ones for the skylights? We put them up several weeks ago but the diffuse light and varying silhouettes are so pleasant that we’ve kept them closed ever since. (We have one of those fancy extension rods to operate them.)
This photo is a few weeks old, but the pile of lumber and sawdust in the driveway is gone! We even mowed the lawn again. What? Is it time to take down the construction ramp off the back door? Let’s not rush things. Even though the backyard is shaping up, the front yard still looks like that of an abandoned house. We actually considered hiring someone to weed our yard, but have since decided to just suck it up and do it ourselves. Eventually.
progress report: week 13
With the long holiday weekend and cloudy weather, we were able to make some headway on electrical. Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell.
First of all, I think there is a misconception (or at least, my misconception) about electrical work. What seemed like the straight forward task of running some wire and popping in some boxes has manifested into lots of drilling (which means lots of wood shavings everywhere), lots of moving stuff around and lots of tools and supplies scattered amongst the three floors (weird…we do have three floors now). In general, it’s chaotic. I guess on our other projects, it was more straight forward – a couple outlets, a few switches, done. For this project, our 2×4 walls don’t know what’s about to hit them. Power, cable, data, audio, security, etc. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that this setup will keep us happy until everything goes wireless and running stuff through the walls becomes obsolete.
And yes, the tools have officially taken over.
One of the challenges with electrical has been locating the outlets and switches. Since we eliminated most of our interior walls and need to reserve the other one for the sliding barn doors, the options are few. Fortunately, we were able to find this 5-gang electrical box that will go next to the back door (in the kitchen backsplash) and will house the back porch light, kitchen reach lights, island light, under cabinet lights and one outlet. Phew. (The strap to the left is temporarily anchoring the dishwasher to the wall.)
Electrical might not be that glamorous, but Kyle discovered a few new tricks of the trade that will save us time and headache.
1. Wago wire nuts – these plugs replace the need for traditional wire nuts and easily pop off when it’s time to install the receptacles.
2. The electrical boxes themselves are adjustable via the set screw at the top of the box. This means no more approximating what the final wall finish thickness will be. This is especially great for places like the kitchen backsplash or island where we don’t know exactly what the finish material will be just yet.
Kyle also started installing the recessed media box in the living room. This is a hub of sorts that will house incoming power, audio and cable (hence the three blue boxes) and comes with a cover panel that will be flush with the adjacent drywall.
We’ll also be hard wiring our smoke detectors (no more low battery beeping to make Bailey hide in the bathtub).
Kyle more or less taught himself how to do electrical work from various how-to books and the money we’ve saved by doing it ourselves has been well worth the education. (Ok, he was also on the bomb squad for a few years prior to architecture school (think The Hurt Locker), so that may have given him a leg up on the whole wiring thing.)
We’re also coming up with even more places to add blocking! After seeing a cool, wall-mounted shelf/media center we are considering doing something similar in the living room. This is a cut list of sorts, stapled to the wall as a “to-do” reminder.
We also bought a new microwave! The one we have now is from my dorm days in college. It works ok, but it’s huge (by 2010 standards at least). Plus, we are going to put the microwave in the open shelving at the end of the island (we wanted to minimize the appearance of a microwave as much as possible) so small was critical. This one is just under 13″ deep.
Kyle also finished the pony wall behind the island cabinet boxes. This helps anchor the cabinets and provides a cavity for an outlet on each side. (He also installed a layer of plywood in between for extra rigidity. A sheet of 1/2″ plywood on top will serve as a temporary work space and is a mock-up for the butcher block counter top size.
This end of the unit will house a fir shelving unit with one upper shelf for the microwave and one lower shelf with cutouts for Bailey’s bowls (we’ll buy more standard stainless steel bowls that will just drop into the cutouts). But for now, we thought we’d see how he felt about the set-up.
Rough in for the new island outlets. This kind of thing wouldn’t normally make me so giddy but our old kitchen only had two outlets. Soon we will have six(!).
This morning, I found Bailey curled up with an extension cord. Poor dog, couldn’t even find a clear space to sleep…
In non-photo news, we also made a recycling/dump run, picked up the bead board panels for the vaulted ceiling, and weeded the yard (it was bad, real bad). I also finished up the polyiso insulation in the loft. We can add that task to the “never want to do again” list. Let’s just say I had to shop vac the grass from where we cut the strips on the table saw. (But more importantly, I was intrigued to learn that using the shop vac on the grass worked really well.)
This week it’s more electrical. Although there isn’t much instant gratification, there is a certain feel-good factor knowing that everything will be up to code and that we will no longer rely on extension cords, fuse boxes, power strips or those two-to-three prong converters. 21st century, here we come!
progress report: week 1
It’s been almost a week since we did a post, but not because there is a lack of activity here at chezerbey. There’s just not a lot of visual difference to get excited about. So we thought it might be a good idea to start weekly progress posts – a summary of what we’ve done the previous week and what’s slated for the upcoming week. In addition, if there is anything that warrants its own post, we’ll do that too. Besides keeping up with the blog, we’re still getting in the groove of working full-time, working on our house, and squeezing in time to eat and do laundry (which seems to double during renovation projects!), but we’ll aim for a Sunday/Monday update from here on out. So let’s say the first progress report will cover April 5th-11th (since we already shared the thrill that was demo weekend).
As soon as the dust settled from demo, Kyle got to work on the basement stair. But first, a little history – the house was not built with a fancy interior stair to the basement, but one was added at some point. We’re not really sure what the logic was in this or the numerous other stair issues, but we knew the whole thing had to be re-done. During the great basement dig out of ’08, we rebuilt the stair per our new design. The only problem was that you had to duck under the new beam which was doable but pretty awkward.
Not anymore!
With the interior wall gone, Kyle was now able to cut out the piece of oak flooring and framing (after heading it off), allowing us to walk down to the basement minus the ol’ crouch and duck. As you can see though, there was some serious patching that needed to happen as well.
After a couple of days we were all patched up and ready to go. We’ll be adding another stair stringer and putting down new treads and risers that will span the full 36″ width.
As a side note, one day I was picking up debris and came across this – and it reminded us of home.
After the framing for the stair opening was complete, it was time to tackle a few other areas. On demo day, we discovered that the framing under the kitchen cabinets was pretty sub-standard…as in, there was no rim joist for the subfloor to bear on. So all that got ripped out, a new rim joist was added and new plywood went down. We also had the old back porch flooring to deal with. Since it was built as a porch, all the floor framing sloped away from the house. This meant setting up the laser level (Dad – best present ever!) and sistering on new joists, each one slightly angled to make up for the slope. Since our new kitchen cabinets will be going in here, it was extra important to make sure everything was level and plumb.
The complexity with these two areas is that most of our plumbing, electrical and ductwork happens in this area. So there was a lot of time spent re-routing (annoying, but necessary). At least there was a nice crawl space slab to stand on…
One of the challenges in creating one space from several small ones is that you have to compensate for different floor materials and thicknesses. Fortunately, the oak floor in the living/dining room flushed out with the old fir kitchen floors, which were hidden under two layers of linoleum (leading us to believe that the oak floors were original and not an upgrade). Much to our surprise and gratitude, the linoleum came up very easily (the black color is the glue residue). The patch at the back door is where part of our old bathroom used to be and was filled in over a year ago. The next step is to cover all the floor with 1/2″ plywood. This will add some extra rigidity and will even out any subtle changes in floor elevations (the 4×8 sheet in the corner is sheet #1).
So yes, at this point we’re planning on doing cork everywhere. Part of me wanted to re-finish (and maybe stain) the oak floors, but this would have meant an awkward threshold between the oak and cork which (in my experience) can be a toe-stubbing nightmare and would take away from the goal of creating a cohesive space.
We took tonight off, which is shaping up to be a good way to recover from the weekend blitz (especially when House MD is on and someone invites you over for a homemade meal! Thanks Aud!). This week we’ll focus on installing the 1/2″ plywood and some minor electrical work. And then, skylights? We could use more light…
