I decided to take a couple of “long” shots of the house from the middle of Cottage lane during my visit to the “L” Shaped House this morning. These views will change significantly over the next couple weeks as the exterior painting continues and the driveway “morphs” across the front yard.
First; the view from in front of Frank’s house…
Next; from in front of the Steinhauser’s place…
Jay and his crew spent Friday afternoon working on some of the landscaping projects around the “L” Shaped House. The first photo shows the original driveway after they removed yet another layer of crushed limestone and have uncovered what everyone hopes is just one more shallow layer of rock. This shot also shows the music room end of the house with the fresh coat of paint on the siding.
The next photo shows the continuing efforts on the other side of the house where the new driveway is taking shape. Here the last load of crushed limestone is stockpiled in the center of the driveway as Jay and his crew work to set the final grade and prepare for the hard surface work to come.
The third photo shows the area in front of the garage where the cement apron will be poured. Jay has carefully set the height and compacted this area in anticipation of the arrival of our old friend Jim Sletten who will be pouring the apron shortly. The fourth photo shows the new paver patio outside the back breezeway deck where it meets the back wall of the house. Running the pavers up to the foundation wall provides a very nice finishing touch to this area. Both Deb and I like the combination of the pavers and the cloak grey paint on the siding.
The last photo is another effort to show the back yard landscaping “big picture”. This panoramic shot taken from the master bathroom window shows the back yard from the new paver patio on the right to the trail leading up and out of the back yard on the left. Most of the 28 trees planted last fall as well as the serpentine plastic edging defining the low-mow turf area are visible in the photo.
Matt Sletten was back last night working in the basement bathroom. The two photos below show the basement shower after he installed the remaider of the Durock cement board on the walls and built up the dry-packed mortar shower base.
The selecting of lighting fixtures for the “L” Shaped House continues. Deb and Anna visited Lowes the other day and picked out this rather bland ceiling light/fan combination.
Consider yourself warned Master Luke…
A surprisingly persistent question related to the “L” Shaped House has been; “How are you ever going to turn around in that driveway?”
Today’s video should serve to answer this important question even as it raises a few new ones…
After spending yesterday afternoon masking the exterior windows…Rick and the Carmichael Decorating crew started painting the James Hardie siding today. The first photo shows the front corner of the house with the first coat of Sherwin Williams paint (cloak grey) on the siding. They are spraying most of the surfaces and will double back to roll on the white trim paint after all the siding is covered.
The next photo is a (slightly warped) panoramic shot of the back side of the house. Here we can see more of the grey paint applied to the siding surfaces below the white trim “stripe” that encircles the house. Rick and his crew are concentrating on the lower half of the siding in an effort to get the painting done in advance of the landscape planting scheduled to start Monday morning. I’ve gotten so used to seeing the house in the green primer I can’t yet decide if I really like the grey!
The next photo shows one of the corners outside the front entry under the porch after James finished rolling the first coat of paint on the siding. The last photo shows the sample door section with a third coat of the mahogany varnish applied. The sample is finally getting close to the red color Deb has been envisioning all along. I think the mahogany door, grey siding, and white trim are all going to work really well together!
I visited the “L” Shaped House on my way home from work to see how Jay and his crew fared this afternoon. The first photo below shows the crushed limestone base installed all the way to the back end of the garage. Jay left the last load of rock at the top of the driveway and will probably spend some time tomorrow setting the final grade as he prepares the base for asphalt.
The paver patio out back is standing ready for the soldier course edge and granite sand grout. The pavers look really nice in front of the freshly painted grey siding.
Jay and his guys have been working all morning installing the driveway, paver patio, and landscape edging. I stopped in around 1 pm to take a few photos and answer a couple of questions. The first photo shows the driveway at the street with crushed limestone installed and compacted all the way to the top.
The video below captures the delivery of a load of limestone. The first half shows 20 tons of crushed limestone being dumped on the driveway…in the second half Jay spreads it around with his Bobcat.
The next two photos show still shots of the delivery and spreading operations. The asphalt driveway will sit on an 8” base of crushed limestone with a fabric base underneath. Each truck delivers 20 tons of stone. Jay figures we will need 220 tons of base material.
The photo here shows a panoramic view of the garage from the far back corner of the driveway. Here we can see the fabric underlayment spread out on the compacted soil base before the limestone in installed. Jay is in the Bobcat in the distance spreading limestone by the breezeway deck. They hope to have all the limestone installed and rolled before they leave this evening.
The next photo shows the paver patio outside the back breezeway deck. Jay and his crew have been cutting and fitting pavers to the curved edge of the patio in between the loads of limestone out front. The soldier course of pavers is installed most of the way around the perimeter of the patio and dog run leaving only the front edge to be completed.
The last two photos show Jay’s crew preparing to install landscape edging along what will become the line between the low-mow turf and the mulch at the front edge of the forest. These guys run the trenching machine along the imaginary divide and then double back installing plastic edging.
I stopped by the “L” Shaped House on my way home to check in on the progress made by Jay and his landscaping crew this afternoon. It’s always difficult to capture “big picture” items like landscaping so I decided to make a panoramic series of the day’s events. The first shot shows the driveway from the back corner after the landscaping crew compacted the soils with the Benford roller. They plan to start installing the 8” crushed limestone base tomorrow morning.
Today’s earlier posting included a view of the back yard from the music room after Jay and his crew completed their cleanup along the edge of the forest. This photo shows the view from the opposite corner of the yard looking back toward the music room. Jay and his crew have significantly cleaned up area around the power pole and made some necessary repairs to the silt fence.
The last two photos show the new paver patio just beyond the breezeway deck. It looks like Jay and his crew got most of the “soldier course” around the perimeter and about half of the patio area pavers installed. The patio looks great and will be a very nice addition to the back yard at the “L” Shaped House!
Jay and his crew spent the morning finishing up the PVC drain system in front of the garage and preparing the back yard for plantings. The panoramic photo below shows the back side of the house and back yard after they finished cleaning up the area along the edge of the woods. The whole back yard looks a lot nicer now that the volunteer buckthorn is cleared away from the 28 trees we planted last fall.
Jay and his crew are going to spend the afternoon installing the paver patio outside the back breezeway deck. The first photo shows the crew just moments after the first load of granite sand was dumped on top of the compacted limestone base.
In the next photo Jay is leveling the granite sand using a 2 x 4 screed on top of a couple of PVC pipes. We decided to extend the paver patio all the way to the downspout in the far corner to allow the Air conditioner condensing unit to sit directly on the patio. After studying this new reality closely we also decided to forgo the “shifted circle” pattern (like the lower patio) in favor of a rectilinear pattern with a circular edge leading to the dog run (pictures tonight…I’m sure). The last photo shows a few of the pallets of pavers ready for installation…Exciting stuff!
