Exterior Work on the home ... still

We've only lived in this house for 8-1/2 years. Why should we think we'd be done renovating it? Our goal was to be done when the kids were born, but really it meant it just got pushed even longer.

As a matter of fact, we did a lot of work on this house so far this year (to make up for the lack of work the last 2 years). We:

• bought & installed a new hot water heater & air conditioner (bot very high efficiency). Now the "guts" of the house have been all updated
• grassed up part of our front landscape (see it on my garden blog)
• planted the entire backyard per our garden plan (also on the garden blog)
• built a new fence along the side of our house and attached it to the house with a new garden gate.

Our latest endeavor was getting a new front door! At the beginning of the year, I posted a few door options we liked. We ended up getting the last option - a Simpson wood door with 1/4 glass and 2 panels stained in dark walnut.

Here's how it looks from the inside:

Before

After

Outside, in addition to the door we had a new front stoop laid. The prior stoop was the original concrete that had brick pavers glued to it. The problem with the stoop was that the paver walkway was too low thus creating a 10" rise onto the stoop, in addition to pavers becoming loose and it being so small that you could fall off the stoop when you opened the door (oh and chipmunks living underneath). So we scrapped the pavers and made the stoop just concrete and larger - 4x8. (We'll tackle the walkway in 2014).

Here's a before & after photo of the stoop:

Old door, old stoop, old house numbers

New door, new numbers, OLD stoop

New everything! Door, numbers, and stoop

New front door

We're in the market for a new front door.  Our current front door is a metal one with fake raised panels on the exterior and a gorgeous (read: not gorgeous) faux wood paint job on the inside. I guess I could have painted over the faux paint project from the previous owners say ... at some point in the last 7 years I've lived in this house... but I never did. Now it's time for a new door.

Choices, choices, choices...

On the Simpson door website, you can "test drive" front door by uploading a picture of your house and then dropping and dragging a door. Pretty cool! Turns out that a door I normally would have loved looked pretty stupid on a 70's split level.

So I narrowed the choice down to --- well, too many. I can't decided first off if a full window, 3/4 window, or 1/4 window would look best. Then you have to decide on the panels - raised? flat? Yeesh. Like I said, too many choices.

Here they are.

Full glass

1/4 glass, flat panels

1/2 glass 1 raised panel

1/4 glass 1 raised panel

3/4 glass

1/4 glass 2 raised panels

Photo gallery project: finished, well almost

My photo gallery is just about finished! I am so happy with the way it turned out. All I need now is to find a small frame for a piece of art, an F to hang, and fill in some of these with family photos.

Nursery/Office (3rd bedroom) Before & After

This room has taken many life forms over the last 7 years ... mainly as an office, a catch-all room, and occasionally a spare bedroom.  Now we can safely call it the nursery with the office in the closet. It's amazing what new paint and hardwood floors can accomplish!

Before

After

Staircase photo gallery project

In a previous post, I wrote about how I wanted to create a photo gallery going up our stairs and found some inspirational photos to help gather ideas.

In my efforts to make this become reality, I have picked out about 10 black frames. Then I traced them on to newspaper and started taping them to the wall to get a sense of what this gallery would (and could) look like.

I clearly have some issues such as: the wall plates and doorbell, and the -- to put it frank -- odd orientation of the wall going up. We don't have a chair rail and I can't imagine putting frames all the way down to the staircase (especially its little kids in the house); so I have to stop the photos randomly halfway down the wall.

So these photos represent where I am now. it is apparent that I could use at least 2 more very large frames to anchor -- they all seemed large until I see them on the wall. The first long newspaper represents a mirror, the rest are photos and art. I would also like to add a wooden F to the mix as well one other piece of non framed art.

Painted brick

Last Fall we had our house painted and we wanted to paint the brick but something was holding us back -- like fear. So we lived with it for a while before deciding that we had to paint it and we are so happy we did. We love the single color look of the house. Now the question is - do we stick with the color of the front door?

Someone else's trash ...

...Is definitely my treasure.

Last year I bought this print at an art sale at the library. It was one of those "clean out your basement" events to raise money. The print is an artists proof etching & aquatint and I loved it; for a mere $3 it was mine. The only problem was that it was a matted to an odd size (maybe cm?) so I could never just throw it in a frame. I avoided getting it professionally framed because I'm cheap! Then I figured out I could just double mat it to an 11x14 frame and voila -- it's perfect! Definitely a treasure.

Staircase photo gallery project

I always have a project or two brewing around here. Never mind that having two munchkins pretty much hinders any chance of getting my projects done in a timely manner (or ever) ... I can still hope and dream big.

Right now I want to create a photo gallery up our staircase. A lot of open wall space is annoying to me and we have some great photos and art that need displaying.

I found some great inspiration online -- but it's obvious that these took a lot of time, effort, and an eye for detail (all of which I don't possess).

Sources: designsponge.com, decorpad.com, & wildinkpress.com/blog

Landscale plan: Porch demolition

With the baby's birth, things have been slow moving but we finally picked a contractor to do the patio work. When I looked at their references, it turned out that a neighbor used them as well. Now we just need a final meeting to pick material and decide if we need a retaining wall or not.

Our landscape architect seemed to think we did not need a retaining wall, but a few weeks ago we took apart the existing porch and the grade is pretty steep. We can try and level it with dirt but will it eventually erode? That's to be determined.

Here are some pictures of the porch demolition -- that we decided to tackle to save some dinero.

 My strong man!

Another shoddy job ... No wonder the thing was falling apart! They used the wrong nails (or screws or whatever), the screen underneath was in strips (I guess that was cheaper than using a solid piece?!), the bottom beams weren't even attached to the house but just laid on top of each other ... Incredible!

Office in a closet - our version

Last summer, we decided that our second baby should take the small bedroom, therefore pushing our office to ... the closet? I found some great photos of office in closets that showed me this was doable solution for a small house, like ours.

Of course, we had intended to get this done a long time ago but life gets in the way and on a recent day off -- that's what I call Mondays when my mom has Wesley and I can run ALL my errands -- I went to the Container Store and had an office in a closet designed using their Elfa system. I wanted something that could transition to a kids closet in about 3 years, so I didn't buy anything "extra."

This system of wire shelving and solid pieces cost around $250. Elfa can be pricey, but we liked it's versatility and the fact that we can add drawers and extras to this when we are ready to convert to a real clothes closet. Sitting here right now typing, all I can say is ... I love it!

Landscape Plan: Front yard Design thoughts

Right now my front yard is what you call a "Gardner's garden." I don't take offense to that - I love plants. The problem is that the perennial beds are just too big for me to take care of and I can't afford to hire a landscape company for regular maintenance. I'd love to satisfy my gardening with smaller more manageable beds and make my front entry way more inviting.

The Landscape designer came back to inventory all of my plants and so we discussed the vision for the front yard.

Here they are:

1. Fix the front stoop: Existing brick stoop that the previous owners either did themselves or hired someone who made a lot of shortcuts. Since we've moved in, it's been falling apart and we have to fix it properly. Structurally bad, it's also too small and the step is too high. The idea is to make it a 2-step stoop.

Our crumbling front stoop - priority #1

The LD also assured me it could be made bigger without compromising the life of the Oakleaf hydrangea next to it, which I wish to keep.

2. Make a courtyard entrance/walkway: Right now I love the canopy the crabapple gives to this space and my bench underneath it feels like a courtyard ... somewhat. I told the LD I wanted a courtyard and he really felt that utilizing the L-shape area would be a perfect place for this. He agreed and is making me a plan to incorporate a courtyard with my perennial bed that is under the crabapple - which is pretty and low maintenance.

Larry, Darryl & Darryl and the future courtyard

3. Viburnums-a-bye-bye: I love Larry, Darryl, & Darryl, my 3 Judd Viburnums, but the new courtyard design will eliminate the 2 soldiers standing guard near the front door to make the door more visible. Larry can remain.

4. Spruce, another bye bye: The Spruce by the road had the plum tree in front and so it has a lot of dead areas. The LD said he's like to see it go because it's unsightly and is in poor health. Once that tree is gone, there will not be much need for all the groundcover growing underneath. It's low maintenance, but I'm getting invasive groundcovers coming in which is making it high maintenance. The plan is to grass up this area. That way, the bed behind it can be seen from the road and it is a pretty perennial bed.

The lonely, spindly, spruce

5. Shared Sunny Garden, Simplified: My neighbor and I garden the shared lot line between our houses. My side is always a mess and I can't stand it. I like the 2 lilacs, the magnolia and the beautyberry (of which I both planted). Other than that ... yuck. Our LD agreed that this area needs to be simplified and he will tackle that with the understanding that 1/2 belongs to my neighbor. I also have a thug in that garden - bishops weed - which the only solution to eradicate is Round-Up...

A hodgepodge of mess

I was happy to learn that I am growing some plants he said were difficult to grow - pulmonaria, corydalis, and the beautyberr, that my 2 trees (magnolia and dogwood) have frost damage (no disease), I planted my dwarf blue spruce too deep (re-plant), and that my spicebush may be right on or over the lot line (ARGH!).

And a tree came a tumbling down ...

The design plan for our backyard won't be ready for another 4-6 weeks, but we know it involves removing the small maple tree, so we went ahead and took it down this weekend.  This will be our 5th tree we have taken down since moving in (2 poorly sited apple trees, 1 diseased service berry, and 1 diseased plum tree). I'm a tree hugger, so all this tree removal is throwing me for a loop.

I was pretty sad to see it start to get taken down, but behind this large bramch was another one that was completely dead. In fact, there were a lot of dead branches to this tree. Our LD said it wasn't healthy and competing with the enormous sugar maple behind it for water.

When we got to the roots, we were surprised that there were not that many and spreading out - typical of maples. Looks like the root ball was still intact from when it was planted. The wire holding it all in was still there and the poor tree never had a chance.

 Wesley woke up from his nap in time to take a few pictures with our woodsman, my grandpa - "tree remover extraordinaire"

Refinancing the 'ol split level: Part 2

I last wrote that we decided to refinance our house in February ... and we finally signed all the papers yesterday. It took almost 2 months to get everything in order since we had a major hiccup in the process: appraisal value.

I was told that to refinance, we needed to have 20% equity in our house; so that even if the value fell, the fact that we put 20% down in 2005 and paid seven years of mortgage principle (including an extra $150 of principle a month) should cushion any devaluation. Well, that was the theory. The reality was that the appraiser had a personal vendetta against me (there could be no other explanation) and valued our house so low we could not refinance.

I received and read the report late one night when Matt & the baby were asleep, my eyes welling up as I tried to decipher what went wrong. One of the comps was a house I had been watching - it had sold when we bought in 2005 for the same price, and recently sold again for less but for a good amount - and I thought it would help our value. Instead the appraiser said it's remodeling was far superior than ours -- by $50,000 -- and chose to comp our homes to small tiny ranches with falling down detached garages. Why? Because we live in a split level and we can only count our main floor and top floor as livable square footage. Our family room space - 1/2 grade below - does not count, and neither does that bathroom. So our home was being compared to others with only 1300 sq feet of livable space, 1 bathroom + basement, even though ours has 1300 sq feet + 1/2 grade below family room, 2 baths + basement. Crazy.

So after a lot of crying all through the night, I learned that you can appeal an appraisal if you can find serious fault. And I did. All 3 comps were in a different school district, had smaller total square footage, and 2 were not remodeled as nice as ours. They also had detached garages and much lower assessed values. After talking to our lender, he suggested I write this up and present it with some new comps found by a realtor, which I did. One week later, we received word that our value was raised by $30,000 and we were cleared to refinance. I felt the surge of victory run through my veins as the new report came through.

I know that Matt and all my family were thrilled for us -- not only for the saving money aspect - but because it was all I could talk about for weeks and they were sick & tired of hearing about it. But honestly, when I quit my job I not only made it a priority to raise my children but to help out as much as possible financially (I can't really make money, but I can sure help us save it). This refinance was a huge endeavor for me, I wasn't going to let some _______________ [insert any unkind word about appraiser here] ruin it for me!

In the end, our monthly payment is now $30 less a month but it includes the real estate taxes and home insurance: a savings of $5400/year!

Landscape Plan: Backyard design thoughts

My initial meeting with the landscape designer went well. We talked about what we could do in the backyard - incorporating my wishes into this already small space. We had some constraints, the existing maple tree and exit from our basement, that seemed to pose problems. All of that was clearly taken care of in this initial talk.

Initial backyard plans:

• Remove Maple tree: The small maple planted by previous owners has shallow roots and is planted far into our yard. Any plans for expanding the existing deck, or adding a patio was stunted ebcause of the tree. At first, this tree was a non-negotiable because of it's pretty shape, but we decided it can go and now we can expand our patio to this point. In addition, the tree competes with the huge Sugar Maple behind it for water, so it's not in the best health. 

 

The tree to come down

• Remove Deck, Replace with Softscape: The deck was off the dining room (and now off the kitchen with our new window configuration). It was over a sloped grade in our yard, as well as the exit from the basement (per code). We figured this was our only option. Not so. We are going to remove the deck and plant a softscape along the new dining room window. At the corner of the house we can put up evergreen screening or a specimen tree.

The deck to go BYE BYE, and area for patio

• Add patio: Off the new kitchen exit, we are going to build a nice stoop that leads to a terraced patio (terraced because of the sloping grade). It will extend out into our yard and wrap around. Along it we will have perennial beds and our water fountain. It should be big enough for some eating, lounging and a chiminiea.

• Utility Pole: Climbing hydrangea 'Moonlight' for this shady area

Climbing hydrangea 'moonlight'

• Existing garden beds: To be determined. The plants need to be inventoried and a new bed designed. The only plant non-negotiable is the Pagoda Dogwood.

• Vegetable Garden Design: Where our existing patio is will be a new vegetable garden "potager" style with brick pavers throughout to walk and raised beds. A paver walkway into the yard will leave small areas open for thyme and other groundcover.

Patio & veg garden to be new Potager

I am giddy with excitement!

Landscaping Plan: To do it all or not?

Our house is almost completely remodeled, so now we can move our focus on to the yard - specifically the back yard.

I love to garden, as is evident by my gardening blog, but I'm not formally trained and I have almost zero knowledge of design. That said, I also find it difficult to see past the issues in my own yard (it's easier to critique others, right?).  We've been living in our current home for seven years, and have been throwing around several ideas of how to make our backyard into a place where we can relax  (seating), garden (both ornamental and vegetable), and enjoy our kids (family friendly). The constraints of the yard  -- namely the awkward maple tree, the confined space of the screened in porch, and the crumbling patio -- have held us back. We have a vision (private, courtyard, potager) but can't seem to get there.

The solution? Hire a landscape designer.

My thoughts on hiring a landscape designer, over a landscaping company, was that the designer could work for me, with me, and with our garden in my best interest. I'm paying for the design, not each individual boulder they decide to plop into the landscaping. He is going to inventory all my plants and use them as much as possible - maybe even leaving them if they are sited well and growing good. He knows I love to garden, but that with two small children my available free time is limited. I'll get small softscapes in the backyard in which to garden, but the overall maintenance will be less fussy than the "gardener's garden" I have now.

I initially wanted the design for the backyard, as my front yard seemed to be doing well and the previous owners designed it already. The only area in need of immediate attention was our stoop where a lot of shortcuts were taken and now the stoop is falling apart (the designer pointed out all the issues and exactly how to rebuild it properly). So between a new stoop design and the backyard, that was all.

Then I took a good look at my front yard.

We only briefly talked front yard, but the designer noted a few things that were not to scale, not sited properly, etc etc. I looked at the massive circle un-designed perennial garden in my front lawn that I have to constantly manage. I looked at the center garden in full sun where a new ground cover has taken over. In short, the front yard is too much work for a mom of 2 kids under 2. I decided that a small "gardener's garden" in the backyard is all I need to be "horticulturally" satisfied, and the front can be handed over to the designer. So now he can design the entire 50 x 130 lot I live on.

So there. We're getting a whole new design to our yard and when we have the time (and money) we can tackle each area piece by piece, dollar by dollar.

House Numbers

I'm thinking about the exterior of the house, now that the painting in almost done and the windows are in. My mind is on a few little details like ... House Numbers

Right now we have the cutest little set of numbers made from ceramic tiles we bought when we were on vacation in Ixtapa, Mexico. My dad set them in a wooden frame which I rub with linseed oil 2x a year. I can keep them, but they are pretty small and don't really match now with the house. (I was thinking of hanging them in our kitchen.) 

This is our house now. The cream brick will get painted brown like the rest of the house, and I haven't decided if I want the numbers on the brick or over the door. (This picture also reminds me to prune back those 2 Viburnum - ah the garden To Do list begins.)

My idea now is to move to large modern looking numbers (Is 4" too small?).  Here are some numbers I found that I like.

From chiasso:
$14 each - 4.5"H  x 1.5"L x .25"thick -- zinc

From modernhousenumbers:
$21 each - 4"H x 3/8"thick ($25 - 6"H) -- aluminum

from Designwithinreach:

$40 each - H 4" W 2.75–4" D .75"-- aluminum

 

from moderndwellnumbers
 $22 - 4"H x 3/8" thick ($26 - 6"H) -- aluminum