Yard update

Between rain and holidays our yard took us a while to get done. It's now pretty much done with the exception of the shed that we still need to install.



The deck with the super cheap patio set we got from Home Depot and lounge set from Canadian Tire. We really enjoy having dinner/cocktails out here when it's not 40 degrees C. :D

View of the yard from the deck. To the left is grass for our dog. To the right is our "car-shaped patio". It'll be useful for parking on and will be good entertaining space for parties etc. One thing we figured out after removing our shed that our lot is 20' wide and we have a pretty ridiculously huge yard (for inner city Toronto anyways ... ;)

We made paths to go around the front of the deck and walkup....

...which lead us to build a funky modern shaped planter bed.

So that's the yard for now. Up next.. waterproofing (we're hiring that one out.. we've had enough digging for one life time) then the basement.

shed --;

With summer on the horizon we're working to finish up our yard. Last year we built a deck. This year we're tearing down the "garage", redoing some fencing and making a parking pad. You can see a rough plan here.

Today we tore down the shack er.. garage. We managed to get most of it into our dumpster but a sizable chunk of it is still sitting in our yard waiting for the next dumpster to come tomorrow. *woo*.

Deck-ed out

Despite the silence progress has not completely stalled on our place. We got the bulk of the deck done very fast but one of us wanted to spend time getting the lattice work and finish details just right before the big reveal. The deck design was mostly inspired by the deck at 247 Reno . We're pretty happy with how it came out. The deck is 10'x~16' which seemed really big when we were planning it, but upon seeing it done I don't think we would have been happy having it much smaller. It does take up quite a bit of space in our yard but once the garage/shack is torn down next summer it should be an appropriate size relative to the yard.

Without further adieu glorious "after" pictures:

This is Trinity next to the outer corner of what was going to be our BBQ "shrine". It seemed weird to be standing peering into our neighbors' yard while BBQing though so we opted to move the BBQ closer to the house.

Trinity with the stairs to the yard.

Outside of the "BBQ Shrine". Next summer we will probably replant the tree in the barrel into the ground. My step-dad horticulturalist says it's an elm (quite common in Central Alberta our homeland)

A lot of attention went into the lattice work and cladding the pressure treated 4x4s because they didn't look as nice as the rest of the pressure treated wood. I'm really happy with how it came out even though I argued that doing this was madness when it was suggested.

What the BBQ Shrine is used for now. It's so nice to look out on this from the kitchen. It makes it feel like our backyard is some tropical place. Unfortunately we didn't finish the deck in time for tropical weather :P.

Stairs down to the garden. Yeah no rail. We live dangerously. Or rather we value prettyness over safety. Get over it, its 2'.

Backyard update

So after giving up on hiring out the siding we ended up doing it ourselves over labor day long weekend. Since then we've been super busy with building the deck and craziness at work. Here are some pictures of the progress. We'll write more later when things are a bit less hectic.





The beginning of the BBQ alcove:

All Wrapped up

So, we got a quote for siding. It wasn't outrageous but it didn't seem like they would do the job to the level we wanted it done. Their proposed solution around the window was J-mold and with no mention of building wrap.

When we installed the kitchen window, we caulked around it but it was basically sitting there with caulk around it and a piece of plywood below it. Given that water can pass onto the underside of the siding we wanted to ensure that the edge around the window was really weather tight. By this point we realized that if we wanted this job done how we wanted it it was probably just easier to do it ourselves. So this weekend we prepped the kitchen for siding, we flashed around the window (using a home made bending solution):

Filled in the gaps around the door and added brick mold

and of course wrapped everything in building wrap. Hopefully we will get to side it this week/weekend and then we can move on to the deck!

In other news we used the money we saved on hiring out siding to hire our contractor neighbor to arrange and install a custom size door from the Habitat for Humanity Re-store in the basement walkup. Things are moving along again!

Yard Plan

There hasn't been much in the way of progress made on the outside of our house since the last post. We're mainly being held up since we're hiring out the siding and we tend to procrastinate more when working with pros than when doing things ourselves :P. With the help of Homestars, we got our butts in gear today and contacted a bunch of local companies with the hopes that we can get it set up soon. We would do it ourselves, but we want to make sure the flashing around the new window and door from the kitchen are done right which requires people with equipment + know-how for working with aluminum.

In the mean time we've been thinking about the final design for the deck/yard. Bear in mind this project is still in the realm of "pipe dream" and won't get finished until next summer, but this is the plan:


We're contemplating taking a free table from our neighbour (hence the over-sized table on the deck) but looking at it in the diagram it may not be meant to be... unless we convert our whole yard into a deck... This is also based on estimated measurements of our yard. Depending on the actual length we may need to lose a boxwood or 2 (or shorten the deck).

Our goal for this summer is to get the deck done. Next summer we will tear down the garage/shack, build a new fence and parking pad. And to think when we moved in we thought we'd be parking in the back within 4 months... we were so naive :P.

Almost out of the hole..

So its been a busy few weeks but we have almost finished up the bulk of the walkup. Since last time we have finished the walls, poured the floor and installed a nice new trench drain with a 3 inch drain attached, so hopefully this should prevent any more flooding.

The concrete needed some minor re-contouring after it was poured to fill some low points but now its all gently sloped towards the drain. We still need to call around to find someone to custom make us a door for opening that is smaller than any standard exterior door. The door that was there seems like was a converted screen door that let wind blow right through it in the winter:

Then its on to re- siding the kitchen add on and then a back deck!

Rebuilding the basement walk up

Before we moved in, the back of our house looked like this:

the white structure poking out the side of the kitchen is the basement walk up. The home inspector noted that it was a DIY job and that it might need repair at some point. We found out the extent of its problems about 8 months after we moved in and a torrential rainstorm unleashed streams of water through cracks in the side of the walk up. It leaked *really* bad given the right type of rain storm. We went from bone dry basement to 2 inches in some spots, being from Alberta where basements are usually dry it was a bit of a shock.

Our master plan for fixing the walk up had 2 phases. In the first, we ran a 4" drain line to the door leading to the walk up (originally it was a drain hooked to a garden hose type thing that tied into an existing drain in the main part of the house).

We are now embarking on the second phase of this project, tearing off the old walk up enclosure and building a new concrete base (with a drain *outside* of the house). First we tore off the structure. This took all of 10 minutes.


We then dug a 5'x8'x5.5' hole with the help of our contractor neighbor's laborers.

Around the edge of the hole was a trench that our contractor neighbor poured footings into for us last week. Last weekend and this week we've been working on building the walls for the new walk up out of concrete blocks.


Today we were chatting with our contractor neighbor and I guess he showed another contractor in the neighborhood our block work and he had a hard time believing we were doing it ourselves. After slaving away on a project it's always nice to get feedback like that :o).

This project is a part of a larger vision to make the back of the house less ghetto. The next steps are to side the kitchen, build the deck, tear down the shack/garage and build a fence; but all things in time.