Our Next Project

Our project for 2011 is going to be adding a "mother-in-law" apartment to our house.  At some point, Carolyn's mother, Char (Charlotte) may be unable to live alone in her house, and we want to be able to have her com live with us if she chooses to do so at that point in her life.  There is no way we could configure our house as it is to accomodate someone who may have difficulty climbing stairs.  We want to make sure that Char can have access to our living areas (family room, kitchen, dining room, and living room), and still have privacy in her own apartment.

The project will involve building a 450 sq. ft. addition to the west of the existing house.  The addition will have a full basement underneath it.  The following drawing shows the house as it will appear from the north (NNW, actually), when the addition is complete.

The picture below shows the apartment .  The entrance from inside our house will be a hallway through what is now the laundry room and the downstairs guest bathroom.  The bathroom will be reconfigured; and the laundry room will be moved upstairs (where all the laundry is).  The addition will include a kitchenette with a refrigerator, sink, dishwasher, microwave, but no stove.  There will be a small washer and dryer.  The bathroom will be amply sized with a large walk-in shower.  The sleeping area will be screened off from the living area.  The ceiling over the living area will be vaulted.

Several improvements will also be made to the second floor.  We will be turning the two, somewhat small guest bedrooms into one large guest bedroom.  The existing guest bathroom will be changed into the laundry room.  The second floor behind the bathroom will be extended by 4 feet, and the new guest bathroom will be built there.  There will be an entry from the guest bedroom into the guest bathroom. 

I hope to keep posting progress on this blog.

The next steps are to get the drawings completed, get the building permit, get a quote on getting the foundation poured, and taking down the large cottonwood, which while not strictly in the way, will be killed when we excavate for the cellar.

Adjustments were made…

We had intended to extent the wall across the entire back fence, but it became obvious that it would overwhelm the flower garden to the west of the maple tree.  So I re-engineered the wall, and ended it at the maple tree.

I built a wall around the spruce tree at the west to bookend the flower garden…

and also built a wall around the other maple tree…

Today, the winds have picked up, and a big storm is coming… we will have rain, snow, and freezing temperatures over the next 4 days.

Weekend Projects

The cool and rainy weather at the end of last week forced me inside, and was a demonstration to me of how little I have to do right now if I cannot get outside.  It is a good thing that I had Char’s basement to work on during the winter months, but that is now a done thing (except for putting up the closet doors).  Right now, if the weather keeps me inside, I don’t seem able to keep myself productively preoccupied.

So the sunny (and almost warm) weather this weekend was very welcome. 

First project (which really could have been a rainy weather project) was the building of the tomato cages.  I have built cages over the last three years, and now think that I have found a formula that will work to produce sturdy cages that will last several seasons.  They are now made out of redwood and with much more substantial dimensions than in years past.  And I double staple (with one inch staples) all of the joints.  The raw material for the cages were 12, 8 foot 2 x 6 pieces of redwood.  Josh helped me make quick work of cutting these into the pieces to make the 24 tomato cages which will support this years tomato crop.  We cut them on Friday afternoon (rainy day) and on Saturday I put them all together.  Since I have no other place to put them, I put them in the garden, where they await their client tomato plants.  The tomato plants are doing very well in Josh’s greenhouse.

The second project involved extending the wall I had built around the extended garden.  Carolyn liked the looks of the wall so much that she asked me to extend it around the rest of the garden beds.  I got about another 50 feet done on Saturday afternoon, and Sunday.  It is no small matter to haul all of those stone home from Home Depot.

I also cut all the capstones, so there are no more ugly gaps.

So that was my weekend.