Are we there yet?

We’ve made some great progress, but still lots left to do:

• Re-build deck and add new stairs and railing (partially complete – need to add deck skirting and railing, which is dependent on electrical work)

• Build new fence and gate (mostly complete – need to finish off top of fence)

• Break out concrete, add drainage (just in case), build retaining wall, fill with dirt and plant garden and raised beds (Partially complete, need to get plants in the ground!)

A car full of plants!

• Add irrigation and lighting (bids in progress)
  • Hoping to get the electrician out this week to add either 2 sconces on either side of the sliding door or a single floodlight (whichever is do-able & cost effective) AND add an exterior outlet (maybe also add one in front?)
  • The plumber came by to give me a quote to move the hose bib. This is step 1 in the irrigation plan. I’m thinking of using this one.

• Repair and stain concrete patio (Still to-do, see the new plan for this area)

My hope is to mostly finish this by mid-August. Hopefully we can pull it off! -H

Concrete plans

Originally I was thinking that I would resurface the ~400sq.ft concrete patio with stamped concrete to look like bluestone.  I had someone come out to give me a bid, but it came out to $5,000.  If this was a permanent solution, I might be more open to that, but since that’s not the case, I wanted to find a more cost-effective solution.

We looked at several options including:

• Restore 10X concrete coating (or the Lowe’s version)
• Patching and staining

But then my parents were in Eastern WA over the weekend and stopped in at the Mazama Store, and saw this in their back patio area:

I love the look of this!  So… I think this is going to be the new plan. We actually had rented a concrete grinder for the day to start the patching process, but didn’t use it since now we need to actually rent a jackhammer to widen some of the existing cracks and create new ones.  We’ll see how this turns out!

-H

Fencing it in

The next step after we filled in the dirt patch was to build the fence.  We had set most of the poles a couple of weeks ago, but there were still two between the neighbor’s garage and the asphalt parking area, and one attached to the neighbor’s garage left to finish.  Alex put the two in the middle up using E-Z post bases.  The guys who had broken up the concrete had pre-drilled these into the concrete for us. Unfortunately, they melted some of the anchors making these bases really difficult to use. Not so easy 😜.  In order to make them work, Alex and Jamie ended up cementing them to the concrete and now they’re fairly strong.

Then we had to go through and ensure that each of the posts were plumb. My parents and brother stopped by during that time so my dad provided guidance on how to do this.

The next step was to use the builders level to create a level line across the whole fence and used that line to set horizontal 2x4s across the top and bottom of the fence.  These will be visible from the outside of the fence.

The next step was to nail all the fence boards in place, leaving a small gap between boards to ensure they have space to expand and contract.  We also used a product called the easy gate, which is intended to make building a gate pretty straightforward.  It wasn’t too bad, but I did get a bit frustrated since I had to make several adjustments along the way.

By the end of a long, hot Seafair Saturday, we had a fence!

We decided to install them following ground level so we still need to cut the straight line across the top and cut the 4x4s down to all be at the same height, but it was a pretty good day’s work!

-H

We have a dirt patch!

We made some pretty good progress this week!

Once we took out the garage and removed the concrete, we realized that we have some pretty serious clay soil that could cause drainage issues in the future. So, to be proactive, we decided to lay the foundation for a french drain system.  We didn’t actually connect it to any drain lines, but can in the future if we need to.  We had 4 cu. yards of drain rock delivered and went through the backbreaking work of spreading it around to create downward sloping areas for the perforated tubing to run out of the garden.

Progress one evening after work

We laid this out in the shape of a backwards “E.” Once the slope was created (1/8-1/4″ of vertical drop for every 1′ of linear distance,) we covered the perforated tube with more drain rock.

2/3 of the way there

Then, we covered all of the tubing / gravel with a layer of landscape fabric, so by Friday morning it looked like this:

Then we had 10 cu. yards of topsoil blend delivered. I selected the blend that contains a mixture of peat moss, topsoil and something else because the woman from Pacific Topsoil said that it would help with potential drainage issues.

Alex and Jamie are kings of the dirt

1 hour of hard-core shoveling later, it looked like this:

  
It looks like a great blank-slate for our future garden!  Phew – that was a ton of work, but I think it will add so much livability to this space.  Next steps – fence, finishing the deck and doing the concrete.

-H

Mid-way budget update

Well here we are about 3 weeks into the project. To remind you, my goal is to stay under $13,000 for this project. Here’s where we are:

Supplies: $3,143.19

There are some things that will get returned and I think conservatively we probably have another $1,500 left to purchase.

Hauling: $1,323.29 

We’ve had 70 yards of debris hauled away! This price doesn’t include the dumpster from this weekend which I’m guessing is around $500-700.

Labor: $1,550.80

Includes Jaymie’s time and the concrete breaking. Probably have at least 1-2 more days of labor to pay for.

Misc. other: $787

Includes the electrical shutoff and demo permit.

Total: $6,504.28

Looking forward, we may come in close, but it’s going to be tight:

Gravel & dirt: $1,000

Hauling (done but not included in above): $700

Tool rental and additional labor: $600

Concrete dye: $100 

Additional supplies: $1,500 (less any credit for returned supplies)

Plumbing & electrical: $1,500

Irrigation & lighting: $500

Landscape: $700+ this is sort of the whatever’s left over and if I want to spend a bit more section.

That would bring us right to $13,000!  Hopefully we can stay on track and can bring this project in on-budget!

-H

Weekend progress

A dumpster (the second of this backyard renovation) was scheduled to be delivered on Friday morning, but it just never showed…at 2pm I called and was assured it would be there in time for work Saturday morning. We left for dinner with friends Friday evening with no dumpster and when we returned home around 10pm it still wasn’t there. So I was in for a major surprise Saturday morning when I woke up around 7 to a dumpster parked in front of our house, blocking most of the alley! We knew our neighbors were not going to be happy with us so we made some urgent phone calls to Bobby Wolford Trucking (dumpster rental) and they dispatched someone to come move it to a more reasonable location. Apparently by the time they got here at 8:30AM, the police had already been called and put in a call directly to their dispatch. Thankfully we were able to move it over enough so cars could get through the alley.

 

dumpster in its final location

 
Alex’s friend Jaymie came and helped us again on Saturday as did my dad and brother, Ben. Alex, Jaymie and Ben (mostly Alex and Jaymie) cleared out the broken concrete in under 3 hours. It was pretty amazing – and incredibly hard work.

 

hard at work!

  

look at all those rocks!

  

Ben discovered a coca-cola bottle in the foundation of the garage

 
Meanwhile, my dad and I were hard at worklaying the trex for the new deck. We started with the stairs and moved on to the deck itself. We had a few areas that had to be cut out but everything came together nicely. I even did a quick stucco repair to the side of the house before putting the last deck board on.

 

a few boards down

 
 

finished product!

 
After the boys finished emptying the concrete area. They went to work building a retaining wall to separate the asphalt parking area from the future garden area. They laid the railroad ties and 2x8s and then hammered 2ft re-bar through the wood the ground to hold it in place. They also used spikes to nail the pieces together. It was just like John Henry 🙂

 

retaining wall complete

So that’s where we are! The deck still needs siding and railings, and we need to get gravel delivered (scheduled for today) so we can stub (put in place but not actually use) our French drain lines. Then we will be getting dirt delivered, fixing the concrete and building a fence.  We’re not quite in the home stretch, but I am starting to see that there is a finish line not too far away!
Also, an update on the rainwise – I started the perc test last Friday. You’re supposed to fill the hole you dug a series of times and watch how long it takes to drain. 

 

the failed perc test

 
In order for your house to qualify, your soil has to drain a minimum of 1/4″ / hour. Well…I filled the hole with 12″ of water around 8AM Friday morning and 72 hours later it has drained a total of 5″. So, needless to say we won’t qualify!

-H

A view from above

A couple of days ago our good friends and neighbors, Tabb and Lauren, came over and brought Tabb’s pet drone to shoot some areal footage of our work in the backyard.  This was my first time seeing a drone and it was a pretty amazing to see the images.  Check out Tabb’s company FreeFly Cinema to see some of the awesome things they do.  This one is sized for small screen viewing, so enjoy!

Not so rainwise

After we had demolished the garage and concrete slab underneath it, I happened to come across an article in the Seattle Times that mentioned that the city of Seattle participates in the federally-funded Rainwise program.  If your house is in a location that qualifies, you can be eligible for the program to pay up to 100% of the cost of installing a rain garden and/or cistern up to ~$4,500.

Well, my address is eligible, and I was already going to be putting in a garden area, so I thought this could be perfect!  Well… not so fast…  As with any government-funded program, there are a lot of restrictions and hoops to jump through.

The first is that you have to offset a minimum of 400 sq ft of roof area.  I looked at my roof and thought “perfect!” since the area for the most easily accessible downspout to the backyard is 500+ sq ft

AND, this project is actually removing 350+ sq ft of roof by taking out the garage

But… unfortunately the program measures this from a birds-eye perspective and ONLY includes the roof of the house, not any roof structure that may be removed as part of the project.  That area is <400 sq ft 😦

It seems a little counter-intuitive to me, and pretty unfortunate since this would be a perfect area!

The other qualification is that the soil has to “perk” to determine what level of rebate / subsidy you will be eligible for.  Basically this means that water has to be absorbed into the ground at a certain rate.  In order to check for this, you have to dig a hole 2ft deep and 10″ wide and then fill it with water and watch it drain several times over a period of ~7 hours.  We dug the hole but haven’t done the test yet since its not looking likely that we would even qualify based on the roof calculations.

I have been talking with a very knowledgeable rainwise contractor, NW Bloom, about this and am hoping that there may be a little room for flexibility on the roofline qualification. I’m not holding my breath though, and I’ll certainly keep you posted!

Update: Unfortunately I won’t qualify for the rainwise program – there is no wiggle room in the square footage calculations (no surprise there).  I also started the perk test by filling the hole with 12″ of water for the first fill/drain cycle.  Its supposed to drain and then less than 2 hours later you fill it again and start to time how long it takes to drain.  Well… I filled it on a Friday and then 1 WEEK later, it had only drained about 4″ of water!

-H

It gets worse before it gets better

Once we had everything cleared out, it was time to move onto the next phase – the final push before we actually start building anything. This meant breaking out the concrete where the deck used to be and removing the old deck boards.

I hired someone off of Craigslist to come out for the day Friday to break up the concrete slab, dig fence post holes and drill holes for fence post bases where there was existing concrete. 

 

such a cute little breaker

 
They came out and spent the whole day working out there and at the end of the day it looked like this:

 

who knew concrete could be so fluffy

 
We were also supposed to get a delivery from Home Depot that day, but they called to say it was going to be delayed and then it just never showed up!  I called them suuuper early on a Saturday and they sent a separate small truck over with the immediate things we would need to start our project.

 

forklift down the alley

 
Then my dad, Alex and I placed the fence posts, ripped up the existing deck boards and reinforced the old deck framing. Since this is planned to be a “5-year” project, we decided to use what was already there and just replace the top and side surface.

Of course its never that easy – we had to shim up the old joists since the new decking is not as wide as the old boards were. Some of the joists were not in great shape and had to be replaced or reinforced (called “sister-ing”) a whole bunch of other little things. In addition, we had to build new deck stairs and a railing to prevent people from falling in to the basement staircase.

The fence posts were a lot of hard work as well – poor Alex was out there with a 30lb digging bar making sure those posts won’t go anywhere!  The fence post bases that we bought and had the guys drill didn’t quite work out as planned, and, unfortunately, caused more harm than good I think. We still haven’t figured out what to do with 2 of them.

At the end of the weekend, it looked like this:

look at those fence posts – so straight!

 

thats one sturdy deck!

I’m

 I was a little discouraged because I thought we would have made more visible progress, but then Alex reminded me that just 2 short weeks ago the place looked like this:

 

before

 
 

in-progress

 
So, all-in-all, not too shabby!  My dad has been coming by this week to help finish out the more complicated areas of the deck build since he’s going to be busy for the next couple of weeks.  We’ve also got Alex’s friend Jaymie coming back this Saturday to help us clear out all of the broken concrete, build a retaining wall and work on the deck.  Hopefully we will have an empty garden area and a deck surface to walk on after the end of this weekend!

-H

A clean slate

Well we basically have everything cleared out now, and it is SO. MUCH. SPACE!  It’s amazing how much room we have back there now that the deck, hot tub and garage are all gone.

can you believe there was a deck and garage hiding all this space?!

Having everything out has made me realize how much additional living space we could have if we added on to the house!  I think that’s the long-term priority, but given how much these bids for the outside were, I think it will be many years before something like that would be in reach.  So…that means that we want a nice outdoor space, but don’t want to invest a lot of money on something that will (hopefully) get ripped up in a few years.

The new plan is a scaled-back version of the original and swaps the side where we park.

So from here, we’ve still got a lot of work ahead of us:

• Re-build deck and add new stairs and railing
• Build new fence and gate
• Break out concrete, add drainage (just in case), build retaining wall, fill with dirt and plant garden and raised beds
• Add irrigation and lighting
• Repair and stain concrete patio

We’ve actually got someone coming today to break out the concrete and dig us fence post holes.  The deck and fence supplies are also being delivered today so we’ll have our work cut out for us this weekend!
P.S. Does this look like a raised planter on its side to anyone else?  🙂 Maybe we’ll get a free-cycled planter out of this old deck!