Sam, Helen, and I have visited the “L” Shaped House every morning this weekend to water the new plants. The peonies in our temporary perennial nursery along the back edge of the forest burst open yesterday afternoon and looked particularly this morning. The photos below show the peonies, snap dragons, and hydrangeas showing off in the morning light.
I got up early Saturday morning and decided to have coffee at the “L” Shaped House. The early morning light provided a nice opportunity to take a couple of photos of the East side of the house painted in cloak grey for the very first time. First…from the front corner.
Next…from the rear.
The “L” Shaped House has three porches; one on each side of the breezeway entry and the big porch across the front of the house. Although all of the porches will have square hole lattice obscuring the view under the deck we decided to clean up them up and cover the dirt with river rock anyway. The first photo shows the breezeway entry from the driveway with the area under the deck filled and raked ready for river rock.
The next photo shows the West end of the front porch under the screen porch with the river rock installed. Jay and his guys fill the area with dirt, rake it smooth, and then cover it with black poly before adding a generous layer of river rock on top.
The end result looks like this…
Rick and his crew have made their way around to the front side of the “L” Shaped House applying the first coat of paint to the Hardie board siding. In the first photo we have Rick and Jordan painting the front of the East gable while James finishes the trim around the music room. The standing seam metal roof is plenty slippery even when it’s dry causing Rick and Jordan to adopt a “take no chances” approach to safety.
The next photo has James removing the masking from the front window of the music room after applying the second coat of paint to the white trim. The house looks really nice with the crisp white trim “outlining” all the windows and doors. The next photo shows Jordan refilling his paint can as he and Rick continue painting the siding above the porch. Jordan tells me that they have now consumed 25 gallons of cloak grey exterior paint and they are probably only 2/3 done.
The next photo shows the garage with the first coat exterior paint covering all but the top of the bonus room gable. The 40’ ladder they are using to reach these heights around the house is set up waiting for Jordan to return from helping Rick out front.
In this long shot taken from Frank’s front yard Rick is about to cover the very last bit of green primer with cloak grey exterior paint. I think the grey color already looks very nice and that the “L” Shaped House will look even better once we have the new sod put down in the front lawn.
As we take a little break in the landscaping efforts at the “L” Shaped House Jay has fashioned our own little plant nursery tucked back in the shade of the Norway maple behind the garage. The area under this tree is a particularly nice place and looks absolutely beautiful ringed with all these wonderful plants…
Jay and his landscaping crew set the last pavers in the breezeway patio and finished up most of the planting in the back yard. The first two photos show the breezeway patio and dog run after after they finished up the paver edges. They will build the limestone trail up to the pavers after the dog run is complete.
The paver edge in the dog run area is pictured below. Jay now has to start the somewhat complicated process of finishing the dog run that includes installing the fence posts, building up the limestone base, fitting the rubber membrane, installing the plastic floor tiles, and covering it all with K9 Grass.
The next seven photos make up a photographic tour of the new back yard plantings. The first two show the back yard from the garage wall to the power pole. Taken together you can see the low-mow turf area that goes through the middle of the space with mulched planting beds outside the plastic landscaping edging on each side.
Next a panoramic shot taken outside the basement walk-out door on the lower paver patio. Here we can see the plantings along the modular wall to the right and the new greenery climbing the boulder field hill to the left.
The next photo shows the view looking back toward the breezeway deck from the top of the boulder field hill. In this shot we see the new upper paver patio outside the breezeway and the plantings in the terrace between the modular walls as well as the lower patio and boulder field.
The next two panoramic photos continue our back yard tour to the West end of the house. In the first we see the new plantings as they crest the boulder field hill and spill across the back of the music room.
The second shows the front corner of the “L” Shaped House with new bushes, trees, and perennials in the planting bed that wraps around this end of the house and heads off across the front porch. The mulched beds filled with plants combined with the freshly painted siding and trim give this end of the house a nicely finished look.
And finally… Jay moved the temporary steps from the front of the porch to the East end where they now meet the limestone base for the front sidewalk. This new arrangement allowed me to park in the driveway and come in the front door…almost like we were living there. Exciting stuff!
Jay and the landscaping crew are spending the day finishing up as much of the grading, planting and mulching they can as they prepare to leave the site of the “L” Shaped House for a few days. They plan to return to continue the planting across the front yard as soon as Paul and the painters finish up a few details . The panoramic photo of the front of the house does a nice job of showing how Jay has set the final grade across the front. He has removed the dirt piles and has the final contour (mostly) set from the music room on the left to the new driveway on the right.
The planting crew has made their way up the boulder field from the basement walk-out and around the music room to the front of the house. As they move across these areas it is as though they are painting with a wide brush dipped in green growing goodness (whoa…I better watch it here!).
The last photo shows the front corner of the “L” Shaped House as they complete the finish grading. Jay has installed the limestone base for the sidewalk that will connect the stairs on the end of the deck to the driveway. This walkway will become the entrance to the front of the house as we have decided to eliminate the stairs off the front of the porch in favor of more greenery (we could add them later). The white stakes mark the ends of a PVC sleeve for irrigation running under the walkway.
The yard surrounding the “L” Shaped House is getting greener every day as Jay and his crew work work their way through the two plant deliveries from Gertens. The first photo today shows the music room (West) end of the house with the plastic edging on the property line in the foreground and new plantings extending into the back yard spaces. They have almost all the planting done along this side and are just starting to install mulch in the new beds.
Next we have Jay’s crew happily posing for a quick photo as they work pitching mulch into the new plant beds. The ever growing stack of “empties” testifies to the amount of work these guys have put in planting!
Rick and the Carmichael Decorating crew have finished painting the siding on the back three quarters of the house (below the “stripe”) and have moved on to painting the trim. The first photo below shows James as he works on some of the MiraTEC trim pieces below the back breezeway deck. He started on the front corner of the music room and had worked all the way to the back door by about noon.
In the mean time Jordan is cutting-in the high spots on the East side of the “L” Shaped House as they prepare to spray. Rick thinks they will have the first coat of paint on the front of the garage by the time they leave this afternoon and hopes to be able to start the high work around the back side tomorrow.
Jay and his crew spent the day planting the trees, bushes, shrubs, and perennials delivered by Gertens nursery yesterday. The first photo shows the boulder field above the basement patio with most of the juniper bushes planted and the ground cover pots laid out ready to be planted. It is amazing how different this area looks with even just a little greenery in place.
The next photo shows the area in front the power pole with the new plantings running inside the plastic edging. The entire area inside the edging will be covered with mulch and allowed to fill in with plant growth. The area to the left hand side of the edging will be planted in low-mow turf.
The third photo shows the planting area opposite the music room along the property line on the West side of the lot. Here the landscaping crew is adding a black dirt and compost mixture to the soils before installing the plantings. A second load of plants from Gertens arrived today and is lined up just in front of the edging waiting to be distributed around the site.
The last photo shows the two very nice Pagoda Dogwood trees Matt plans to plant on each side of the stairs leading to the front porch.
Jay and his landscaping crew made more progress on the breezeway paver patio yesterday afternoon. I stopped by the “L” Shaped House early this morning and took a few photos of the patio to highlight the Anchor Block Kingston pavers (north oaks) against the freshly painted siding (cloak grey). The white edge pieces in this pattern are a tumbled stone from the Britton palette of colors (cambray tan). Both Deb and I have become very fond of this combination of materials and colors…
The next two photos show this combination of colors and materials both as a close up and a long shot across the back wall of the house. The close up shows the very nice corner detail Jay has provided at the outside of the deck. The long shot shows how nicely the pavers blend in with the back wall of the house and backyard.
Matt Sletten was working in the basement bathroom when I stopped in on my way home last night and I got to take a few photos as he set wall tiles in the shower. The first photo shows the bathroom with the first two 12” x 24'” tiles set on the Durock cement board walls. The second photo shows the back side of a tile as Matt prepares to stick it on the wall. He “butters” the back side of the tile with thin-set mortar and then “plops” a bunch more on as big dots. Finally he places the tile on the wall and “smushes” it into place using a straightedge as a guide…(technically speaking).
The last photo shows the shower wall with the first 13 tiles applied. The 12 x 24 tiles will run all the way to the ceiling. The off-set pattern and color should further enhance the “fun” nature of this shower.
Jay and his crew have really pushed the landscaping along since they arrived about a week ago. The (really warped) panoramic photo below taken from the neighbors back yard shows the music room end of the “L” Shaped House with three landscaping projects underway in the background. I specifically included this shot to show the grading at the top of the old driveway that has housed dumpsters since last summer. Jay has cleaned up the area and filled it in with dirt removed as he cut in the new driveway on the other side of the front yard.
In the photo above you can see the trench for plastic edging as it winds toward the front yard. The two photos below the trenching and edging installation process underway. First; the trenching machine digging around the end of the music room. Second; the landscaping crew anchoring the plastic edging and the serpentine ribbon of edging disappearing into the distance. The plastic edge will serve as the dividing line between mulch on the left and low-mow turf on the right.
In the next photo Matt Wolf (blue shirt) adjusts one of the tree stakes as he and one of the landscape guys work to get all the trees staked out and standing “proud”. The fifth photo is “surprise” for those of you who have read this far…The landscaping plants have arrived at the site of the “L” Shaped House.
The curtain-sided Gertens Nursery truck arrived just as I was about leave at around 1:00 pm this afternoon. About three quarters of our nursery order was on board and the JLM landscaping guys were busily unloading everything as I left.
Exciting…
Rick and his crew continue to paint the exterior of the “L” Shaped House. They are concentrating on the music room end and and back side of the house adjacent the planting beds in an effort to stay ahead of the landscaping crew as they begin to place plants. The first photo shows Rick and Jordan as they the paint siding above the back breeze way deck. Once they finish this upper section they plan to double back and spray the second coat on all the areas previously painted.
The video shows Rick as he sprays the James Hardie siding above the dog run adjacent the back breezeway deck..
The last photo shows the garage as the Carmichael crew works their way around the back end of the fourth stall and starts painting the front side. Here James is “cutting-in” all the tough to spray sections before Rick shows up with the sprayer. It’s amazing how much better things look after the limestone went in and there is a little paint on the walls!
Sam and I delivered a load of lighting fixtures to the “L” Shaped House this evening and came across some more of Matt Sletten’s very nice work. Matt spent the day setting mosaic floor tile in the basement bathroom shower area. The first photo shows the new tile floor set off against the wethersfield moss wall paint. The second shows the whole floor shot from above. The (nearly) nine foot ceiling and large floor area in this shower gives it the same sort of “cavern” feeling we get in the first floor shower.
The last photo shows a close up of the mosaic tile and floor drain in the basement shower floor. Matt has once again done a very careful job of centering the drain assembly in the floor tiles. These kinds of little details really separate his work from the ordinary. The tile looks really great on the floor and is going to help make this shower a kind of “fun” space in the house.
