Our new friend Janey Westin showed up last week to carve our address into the face of the rock at the end of the driveway. We decided to include Pentadic numerals under the Arabic numbers on the address rock in keeping with the Runic theme we plan to spread all around the “L” Shaped House. The photos below show Janey carving and then painting the numbers…using the same paint used on the Golden Gate Bridge!
Pat Berry from InsideOut Studios sent me image files of the paver driveway from the Anchor Block photo shoot on Tuesday. He has produced a pair of wonderful photos from both the front and back ends of the driveway. The images are going to be a great addition to our memories of this big adventure.
The “L” Shaped House has never looked better!
Helen and I stopped by the “L” Shaped House on our way home from the September birthday(s) party at the lake to turn on the sprinkler system and took a few photos while we walked around. The panoramic shot here shows the house, driveway, and landscaping bathed in the late afternoon sunlight.
Click on the links below for a computer wallpaper image…
Despite visiting the “L” Shaped House many times over the weekend I never took any photos of the work completed by the landscape crew on Friday. Jay and his crew spent most of Friday working on the asphalt patches at the end of the new paver driveway and the abandoned cut out where the old driveway used to be. The first photo shows Luther and the crew as they work to re-assemble the pavers after re-working the end of the driveway. Jay decided to tear out the last 10’ of pavers, re-work the crushed limestone base, and re-set the pavers before installing the asphalt patch at the street. He re-configured the end of the driveway by raising the area beyond the white accent “stripe” about 1.5 inches and tapering only the border at the very end to the street. The second photo shows the details of the asphalt patch at the edge of the street.
The next photo shows the end of the driveway from a the middle of Cottage Lane. Here we can see the subtle difference in pitch near the end of the driveway after Jay and his crew finished re-working and patching. Brett Nutting and all the JLM folks spend a lot of time explaining how paver driveways are the only “repairable” surface in the business. This re-configuration of our driveway at the street provides pretty compelling evidence that they’re right.
The last photo shows both the asphalt patch at the site of the old driveway and the state of things at the “L” Shaped House this morning. After beautiful weather all Labor Day weekend it rained all night last night and turned the phase 2 planting bed back into a sloppy wet mess!
Oh…how I hope we get some dry weather soon…
So…what exactly are our friends Andy and Kevin doing back at the “L” Shaped House on a Friday night.
They're fixing the new sod on the edge of the driveway…of course!
Thank You…Andy and Kevin…I appreciate you guys stepping up like this!!!
Why? you ask…
Another “trailblazer” (don’t know who) decided to back straight down an 18 foot wide drive that has a wonderful gentle curve half way down the hill leaving a pathetically inadequate “patch” job in their wake.
Really!
Andy, Kevin, and I decided a 4000 lb boulder placed just inside the curve on the right might provide just the kind of incentive necessary to keep our wayward travelers on course. A Photoshop version of this idea is shown in the image below. I think it will be effective and look good too!
A little curious about the name?
Look closely at the right front tire of this driver backing down the hill…The rock has her name on it!
As the JLM landscaping crew wraps up this phase of their work at the “L” Shaped House it seems like a wrap up blog posting is in order as well. The first photo shows the front walkway, and porch from the middle of the paver driveway after Jay and his crew finished moving plants and adding mulch. The paver walkway will become the main entry to the “L” Shaped House as Paul completes the stairs, railings, and decking on the front porch. The paver surfaces, landscaping, and plantings are all coming together very nicely.
The next photo shows the front walkway from the end of the porch looking out toward the driveway. Here we can see the “meandering” sidewalk, repositioned plants, and white accent stripe as the pavers spill into the sidewalk from the driveway.
The third photo shows the paver sidewalk and front porch from the opposite side of the driveway. Here we can see the straight white stripe and “interlocking” edge running along the driveway in the foreground with the same accent stones curving into the walkway to the front porch across the way. The next photo shows the East edge of the driveway after Jay and his crew “feathered” the fill and topsoil all around the driveway surface. The site looks great after the clean up, backfilling, and new mulch.
The next three photos show some of the details Jay and his crew finished up late yesterday afternoon. First they “pitched” the grading under the back breezeway deck, re-set the paver edging, and installed a polyethylene barrier covered with river rock to prevent from pooling under the deck. All three of the decks at the “L” Shaped House get this same treatment.
They also terminated downspouts and installed leaf guards on all of the PVC gutter drains. The two photos here show the downspout at the back corner of the upper patio. Jay decided to fill a short section of the area inside the upper wall with river rock to channel water away from the foundation wall and hopefully prevent mulch from washing away during big rains. The system of gutter drains here and along the front of the garage have been working great even as we have endured this unusually wet summer.
Jay also put some finishing touches on the water feature and garden area at the West end of the front porch. Jay’s guys added some additional plants and small rocks selected by Matt Wolf around the base of the bubbling rock and added another layer of shredded hardwood mulch throughout the garden area. The plantings and landscape features are making this front corner of the house a very nice place!
A switch controlling the pump in the bubbling rock water feature will be located on the wall in the screen porch making it easy to turn the fountain on and off from inside the house. We hope the flowing water and plants attract a wide variety of birds to this area.
A video of the bubbling rock in its current form.
The last photo shows the two pallets of left over pavers from the job. The JLM folks plan to store them away at their yard in Shakopee in case we need a few replacement stones.
I stopped by the “L” Shaped House a little early today to walk the site with Jay as he prepares to leave us for another JLM assignment. He and his crew are going to spend the day concentrating on the finish grading, some additional plantings, mulching, and generally cleaning up the grounds. They will back in a couple of weeks to install edging and lay sod in the front yard but for now (at least) are finished working at our place.
The photo here (the only one I took…believe it or not!) shows the paver walkway leading to the front porch after Jay finished installing the last few pavers this morning. I really like the way it looks and feels. The rise to the step works nicely…the 4” step itself seems about right…and the white accent stripe running around the edges with the random field inside looks great. I think this pattern and edging contributes to a free flowing feel as you exit the driveway and “meander” toward the porch. It feels very casual while maintaining a simple elegance.
Nice work Jay!
As promised earlier…a photo of the paver walkway to the front porch as Jay and his crew close in on finishing their paver work at the “L” Shaped House. With the paver surface in place the “meandering” in the walkway becomes clear. Jay plans to do some more moving of the plant materials now that the walkway is completely defined. They will be back in the morning to finish setting the last few pavers.
The next two photos show end of the driveway at the street as Jay and his crew were finishing up around 5:30 this evening. The first shows the left hand corner of the driveway with the white accent “stripe” and end details finished. The second shows a close up of the outside corner with one of the important tools of the paver driveway trade left behind…the white color crayon!
The video shows Jimmy on the vibratory plate machine as Jay and the crew “set” the last section of the driveway surface.
A shot of the finishing operations on the end of the driveway.
According to Jay…We may now drive on the pavers!
Jay and his crew have been dodging rain drops all morning as they work to complete the paver driveway and front sidewalk. The first photo shows how they almost made it to the street before the skies opened up and soaked both the crew and the last 18” of compacted limestone base. Jay says he is going to get this last little bit dried (or dug…if he has to) out and laid in the next hour. You can see the little dam they made to direct the runoff in the street away from the end of the driveway at the lower right.
In the next photo Jimmy is working to re-arrange pavers in the driveway surface as he breaks up a couple of “lines” Jay considers to be too long. This is a process they have to repeat over and over as the driveway is being built. Jay tells me that he does not want to see any discernable pattern in the three sizes of pavers they are using in the random field (6”x 9”…6” x 6” and the 3” x 6” Twinkies). Including…
On top of all this…they work to keep the paver surface oriented in the same direction they started with at the front of the garage. They have torn up a few pretty big sections of pavers to correct problems as this work has continued. I’m going to say it one more time…Jay and his crew have done a magnificent job on the driveway!
The next photo shows the front walkway as it continues toward the porch. Jay got the step installed yesterday and is slowly working pavers up to it. He had to move a few of the plants along the inside edge to make room for the sidewalk which has grown to 78” wide (fewer cut pavers).
We chose to “meander” the walkway (almost 12” to the right) as it moves toward the porch from the driveway surface. There will be an informal rock path to the front yard made up of flagstones that meets the paver sidewalk at the top of the (paver) step and “meanders” through the plantings toward the lawn. The (extreme) panoramic photo below shows some hints of this but a better shot will almost certainly appear in these pages later tonight after jay is finished. The 78” paver walkway and the 5’ wide stairs leading to the front porch should combine to create a very “welcoming” front entry to the “L” Shaped House!
Jay and his crew started working on the sidewalk that will connect the driveway to the front porch this afternoon. We have decided to put a single step in the paver surface near the driveway entrance to help deal with the 11” rise required between the paver driveway and the base of the stairs to the porch. The 6’ wide walkway will lead to a 5’ wide stairway on the end of the deck. The photo here shows the step installed in the walkway and the crushed limestone base nearly ready for pavers.
I tried over the weekend to get a few photos that show the progress and capture the beauty of the paver driveway. The sheer scale of the driveway makes getting the whole surface in one photo completely out of the question (aerial photography…perhaps?). Each of these three shots show the paver surface from a little different perspective. The first shows the driveway from the second floor laundry room window.
Next is an extreme panoramic shot from the East property line made from six individual photos stitched together in Adobe Photoshop. The photo actually does a pretty good job of capturing the “feel” in this section of the driveway despite the obvious distortions.
The last photo shows the driveway from the center of Cottage Lane. Here we see that Jay and his crew pushed the paver surface down the hill to a point just above the rain garden. This last section of the driveway will “pitch” to the East (3%) to ensure that the runoff from the hard surfaces runs into the retention “pond”.
A collage showing some milestones in the progression of events as the driveway takes shape at the “L” Shaped House (click to make it big).
Enjoy…
Jay and his landscaping crew spent the day pushing pavers further down the hill toward Cottage Lane. The first photo shows the driveway from a spot near the bottom of the hill in the front yard. From this vantage point we can see new driveway disappearing over the top of the hill as it extends to the breezeway deck and beyond. The pile of sand visible on the driveway marks the transition between newly set pavers toward the bottom and the finished (filled and vibrated) surface above.
The next photo shows the driveway extending toward the street from the sand piles marking the transition. Here the paver surface curves sharply to the right before straightening out as it intersects Cottage Lane. The last section of unfinished driveway is about twice the length of the Caterpillar loader parked in the distance. Jay and his crew have at least a few days of cutting ahead of them as they work to complete the paver edging through this section.
The third photo shows the completed paver driveway on the East side of the house. The beginnings of the walkway leading to the front porch is just visible at the far side of the paver surface.
The last photo shows a close up of the white accent edging detail curving toward the front porch as the driveway pavers transitions into a front entry walkway. This 6’ walkway surface will “meander” slightly as it continues to the stairs and include one 4” step near the half way point.
Tonight's evening report is a series of panoramic photos documenting the great progress Jay and his crew made this afternoon. The first photo shows how the newly laid driveway surface now extends well beyond the plantings in the front yard and the edging on the right is complete to the hackberry tree.
The second photo shows a straight-on shot of the new driveway from the middle of the front hill looking up toward the garage. These first two photos capture the look and feel really well…The pavers look fantastic!
The last photo is a panoramic shot of the East side of the “L” Shaped House that shows the new paver surface running along the face of the garage and breezeway entrance. Jay and his crew have finished “setting” this area with granite sand using the vibratory plate machine. The Kingston pavers in the North Oaks color look absolutely fantastic set off against the cloak grey siding and the white accent stripe leading the way into the garage service door is a nice touch. The paver surface has absolutely transformed this side of the house!
