Are we there yet?

Backyard, Exterior, Planning

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

Backyard, Exterior, Planning

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

Mid-way budget update

Backyard, Budget, Planning

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

A clean slate

Backyard, Planning

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!

Hurry up and wait

Backyard, Exterior, Planning

Well we’re in a bit of a holding pattern while we wait for bids to come back. I’ve now talked to 4 contractors about the project this week and waiting to get bids back from them. For a refresher – you can see the plan for the backyard here.

To understand the various moving pieces, I’ve been imagining the work in the backyard in 4 “quadrants” – 1 & 2) current deck over level concrete pad, 3) current asphalt paving and 4) current garage (below grade)

I talked to each of the contractors for different reasons and asked each about slightly different variations on the project scope:

Doug – I found him by calling around to a concrete recycler who recommended I talk to him. I haven’t yet asked for any customer recommendations but seemed no-nonsense but like he may be the most affordable. I talked to him about demo-ing quadrants 3 & 4 and using the asphalt bits & other fill to re-grade. I didn’t mention the deck area at all him.
Daniel – he built the deck for my old landlord and she recommended him. I talked to him about the work in all 4 quadrants, but not about planting grass, building any temporary fencing or doing any irrigation.
Matt – I found him through recommendations on NextDoor.com. I talked with him about the same scope as Daniel, but also about a temporary fence, adding grass and irrigation. He seemed the busiest and likely the most expensive.
We also briefly chatted with Victor, a painter who will be doing a bit of touch-up work on the exterior, about the project. He may also give us a bid for demo for the garage and deck and maybe the asphalt, but I’m not sure what he’ll come back with.

I realize as I’m writing this that I didn’t talk with any of them about any electrical things like deck lights, etc…whoops! 😁

I’m hoping to hear back mid-next week on all of this so we can figure out if / when we will be doing any of this work ourselves!

-H

The sort-of grand plan

Backyard, Exterior, Planning

Well I figured It’s time to visualize the backyard plan! The existing backyard (which you’ve seen pictures of here) is laid out like this:

Unfortunately, visuals can have limits. The concrete area actually goes underneath the existing deck and is pretty level and in decent shape. The asphalt area slopes toward the garage(!) though, which has a sump pump that flushes everything into the alley.

The goal is to make it more usable with some deck and patio areas as well as a bit more room for plants and maybe some grass. We’re thinking something like this😀:

Since I haven’t made my mind up about the plans for the future garage, we’re going to create a gravel area for parking off of the alley so that we have some off-street parking. The rest of the yard is fenced in, but because the garage is coming down, we’ll need to put up a temporary fence around the gravel area to keep the dogs in. We also haven’t yet gotten rid of the exterior basement stairs (and yes – they’re actually that narrow), so we’ll have to temporarily fence that off as well so we don’t have any people or dogs accidentally falling 8 ft down!

The main thing we’re actually planning to construct is a replacement deck. Here’s a 3D version of the deck plan to help visualize it:

I would also love to have a bluestone patio instead of using the existing concrete slab – but I haven’t really considered it because I think just what I’ve outlined here may break the bank!

Because we’re mostly just taking things out and not adding a lot, you’d think this could be relatively inexpensive – but I’m doubting it more and more as we talk to contractors and subs this week. We’ll see though! I’m hoping to start to get bids back in the next couple of days!

-H

And so it begins…

Backyard, Exterior, Planning

Well, the big plan for this summer is to try to get the backyard in some sort of shape! As we’ve lived and used the backyard, we found that it’s actually quite pleasant out there. It’s just not…living up to its potential.

The deck is a monstrosity! It’s old and splintery, the lattice panels are falling out and the nailheads are popping up – meaning you catch your feet on them every time you walk out there. There’s also a hot tub in the middle of half of the deck, which according to the neighbors has not been used in 10+ years, so that whole half is not really that usable.

There is a garage, but it’s oriented the wrong way.

To park your car in it you have to get out of your car open the gate, then drive in, then get back out of the car to close the gate and open the garage door, then drive in to the garage.

That is just not very efficient or appealing to do all that in the pouring rain all while looking out to make sure you don’t run over a small black dog. Not only is it inconvenient, but the garage is 18 also inches below grade, so all the rainwater funnels in there. Over time the bottom portion of the wood in the garage has started rotting away.

The remaining yard that’s not covered by unusable deck or worn out garage, is concrete! Which means it’s super low maintenance, but not very visually appealing.

But all that sounds like I’m complaining and I don’t mean to. It’s lovely to have a little space in the back where you can BBQ, or just hang out and read a book.

I’ve been going back-and-forth a lot on what to do back here. The options have ranged from rebuilding the garage (with or without a second story on the garage for a mother-in-law apartment) to adding on to the main house and forgoing a garage entirely.

So…In the interest of getting something done and improving the livability of the space, we decided to go with the relatively minimal option of tearing down the deck and garage. re-grading the backyard and re-building a version of a deck.

So that’s the plan for the summer! All of this meanwhile, Alex is going to be starting a new job, and I’m going to need to re-rent my rental house for the first time in four years. It’s gonna be a busy couple of months! Hopefully we can tackle this with level heads and have a great place to hang out by the end of the summer.

So here all the things that were going to need to do to make this happen: