HGTV, Here We Come

A while ago Summer & Matt let us know that HGTV was looking for people in the Baltimore area who had recently renovated their space. The Queen contacted the show, we filled out the application, and over the past few weeks have been communicating with the Bang for your Buck folks. We found out yesterday that we were selected. :-)

The week of July 6th a film crew will descend on the rowhouse to film our great room, and a realtor and designer will critique the space while we look on. We are excited to be on the show, and are also really happy that Jon and Craig from Project Rowhouse will also be on the same episode.

While I'd love to spend every last minute fixing up the minor things before the film crew comes, we are off to Michigan for the week before July 4th and are out of town this weekend. Hopefully this will give the designer and realtor more items to critique. :-)

The Invasion of Grillasaurus Rex

We are back from Gallivanting across the pond and back at work in the backyard. The gate and garbage corral are built, and looking HAWT. We even got some inspiration from Jon & Craig's backyard and got some planters, plants and a fire pit for the backyard too. But the planters, plants and fire pit were minor additions. We also got Grillzilla.

We already have a charcoal Weber grill, but the Queen said she would cook more if we had a gas grill. We now have a gas grill. Now that I've blogged about it you are all witnesses, and as such this will allow me to guilt trip her into using it. Anyway...

We went to Home Depot hunting for a grill. I just wanted a small grill. Nothing too fancy. We didn't need anything with 43 feet of grilling surface, a 1/4 acre for a prep area, and side burners to keep my non-existent side dishes warm. But this is all Home Depot had. It was either a $100 piece of crap, or grills with saddle bags and sidecars. I liked a smaller Weber grill, but with half the heat output and double the price it was out of contention. At the end of the day we decided Grillzilla was coming home with us - the other options sucked beyond belief or required our first born child as down payment.

I got around to putting it together tonight and got about half way through it before it got too dark. I am damning it already. While it appears to be a fine machine I just wish it were half as big. I fear this grill will turn me into a meatatarian. I will try to resist it's urges. I may have to use the side burner to steam some broccoli. Oh hell, who am I kidding. I'm sure in another week I'll be using the sideburner to fry up some bacon to top my cheeseburger.

Ballooning Over Cappadocia

The day we arrived in Cappadocia there was a ballooning accident. One died, and eight to ten injured. Our flight was the next day. The Queen was worried, but I figured the day after an accident would be very safe, as people would be extra worried. The flight was beautiful. We floated over Goreme, dipping into Love Valley and touching down in a field to the west of town. We can now check hot air ballooning off of our bucket lists.

Turkish Adventure

We have now been on our Turkish Adventure for about a week. It has been amazing. So far we've been to Istanbul and Cappdoccia, and we still have Selcuk, Fethiye and Kas to come.

Istanbul is a wonderful clean city, with excellent public transport. I wish I could say the same about Bmore. :-) Haghia Sofia and the Blue Mosque were pretty, but the Egyptian spice bazaar and all of the street food is even better. I loves me some street food. We then headed to Capadoccia and have been doing activities that would frighten our mothers. Things like hot air ballooning one day after 1 died and 8 were injured, riding an ATV around to different sites, and renting a scooter to head to a winery the next town over. It has been a blast, and we are taking lots of pictures.

And now it is time to return to drinking my beer on a comfy patio and watching the peple walk past. Life is good.

P.S. The loud group of Croatians that were on yesterdays tour just sat down behind us. *sigh*. Looks like we have to find a new spot.

Fantastic Fencing!

I found the holy grail of fence materials. Well, at least I think it's the bees knees. I went with a pvc fence material made by timbertech. I'll use this material to build the gate and the garbage corral. Monica commented to the last post with a fence style suggestion. She has great taste, as I had the same style in mind.



I've seen some other horizontal fences with varying board size, but a lot of these required applying lumber to both sides of the fence so you wouldn't see though the slats. This would have increased my fence material costs. Since I am using a PVC fence, I also wanted to avoid ripping the boards, and this design lets me just hang the boards as is. I figured I can do this design with a minimal amount of labor.

So why did I choose PVC over a composite or lumber? One reason is weight. If the back gate were double faced with trex, it would have weighed over 200 lbs. I decided to single side it, but 100 lbs would still have made it susceptible to sagging. A PVC gate will be closer to 60 lbs. Also, the composite materials (like trex) still have wood fiber in them. Wood rots over time, and can mold/mildew over time. Not good. The reason I didn't go with lumber is I didn't want to deal with warping, or the maintenance over time. And the real kicker of why I went with PVC? The local lumber yard was selling it for at about 25% off. Score! It looks sexy too.



I'm hoping to also build some custom 4' planters to hang on the walls eventually, and maybe build a bench on top of the 2' planter bed. That is if the Queen approves my plans. :-)

Courtyard Foundation Complete

As you can tell by my elation in this pic, the concrete work in the back is done. I think the walls help to cozy up the space, and I'm glad to have some decent looking planting beds and a concrete pad that isn't buckling up. It looks 342% better.

Before


After


The yard feels much larger, and despite it being gray block I like the feel of it. Some folks have suggested painting the block, but I like it the way it is. Frank Lloyd Wright was able to use concrete as a main material, and by mixing in other materials and textures was able to bring warmth to the space. This is what I'm hoping to do. I like the industrial/modern look of the material so I'm hoping to embrace it rather than attempt to hide it.



The raised beds in the back and on the side help to break up the space, and once I get some plants in it will help to add texture to the space. Wally has even gotten used to hopping in the bed to do his business, so once we fill it with dirt he is going to be one happy pup. Seeing as I used to own a landscape design company through college I'm excited to be able to have plants again. The current plan for plants is to use a Bloodgood Japanese Maple, some boxwoods, and black mondo grass. I'm not showing you the details on this yet. You'll have to be patient. :-)



The area around the A/C unit has 4 pressure treated posts set into the concrete. I'll pick up some lumber within the next couple of weeks and create a fence around this area to hide the unit, garbage cans, and any other crap that would otherwise clutter up the space. I'm still pondering over the fence and back gate design. I want it to have a modern look, but I want it to be easy to build. I'm also still debating what material to make the gate corral area out of. While I love the look of cedar and redwood, costs can be high and they require maintenance. The other end of the spectrum is pressure treated lumber, but I'd still have to stain it and deal with maintenance. I'm leaning toward material like trex, as it will have better strength properties that will resist warping and there is zero maintenance on the product.

I'm sure most folks would look at the back yard and would want more greenery and the open space that a place like the suburbs would provide, but for a yard in the city I am very pleased. I feel as if we've created an extra 450 sq ft of living space out of nothing. When you've only got 1300 sq ft to start with this feels like a big deal.

If I Could Think Of a Clever Title It Would Go Here

It was nice to hear from other local bloggers that Apartment Therapy featured the blog. This was a pleasant surprise, seeing as AT randomly stumbled across the blog via their flickr pool and we had no idea they were writing about us.

Badass!