Yardlicious

Now that tax season is over, the Queen has her weekends back. And when she has her weekends productivity at the rowhouse picks up tenfold. On Saturday we went and picked up some obnoxiously orange paint for the back door. While at the Despot we found an unfinished adirondack chair for $30 and also decided to paint it obnoxious orange.



The last month or so we've purchased more pots, a five sectional lounge, and a cantilever umbrella from Ikea, and had my parents snag some cushions for the lounger. We even finalized the beds and made a little litter box out of pea gravel for Wally. I was worried I had just wasted my time, but so far he uses the litter box area exclusively. The yard is really looking snazzy. So snazzy that the iPhone pics won't do it justice. Until I get out with my uber-cam all I'm going to show are pictures of the orangeness. :-)

Lounging Around

The Queen and I talked about the backyard and what kind of furniture we should get. Since most stores haven't come out with this year's line we are eagerly awaiting their unveiling. With that in mind, we are leaning toward a backyard lounge and away from a large table. I can imagine something like this.



It is all from cb2. While I like it, the costs would be at least $1500 for the chairs and cushions. That's not happening. Hopefully ikea has something similar to this or their arholma line (below) that is a bit more budget friendly.

Spring

The days are brighter and the temperatures are getting warmer. We deserve spring after this year's winter. While we deserve some warmth I am totally unprepared for it. Last year we enclosed the backyard and spruced things up a bit. It still needs work though. Here are a few things I'm currently thinking about.

1. Figure out what to do with the left wall



The left side of the yard is kind of blah - it is just a big hulking concrete wall. I want to spice it up. I am contemplating cutting out a 6" by 8' section out of the concrete and planting something like bamboo to help add some texture and height to the area. Another thought is to build a neato looking planter, like this:



I've even thought about using this vertical space for vegetable plantings, but the planters would have to be pretty thin and would probably require constant watering. A budget option is to use gutters, but I think this has a high probability of looking like crap.



2. Get new furniture

While we appreciate the donated furni from the Queen's parents, it doesn't really match our style. I kind of like something like this (which they say will also work outside).



It is modern, and the glass top while tough to keep clean will help keep the space feeling open and airy. We are also keeping out eye out on other outdoor furni - hopefully the stores start carrying this year's design soon. Since the cb2 table isn't a true outdoor table we'd still like an umbrella for shade.



I'm thinking something like this, and fabricate some custom clamp against the wall so we wouldn't need a hulking base for it.

3. Grow veggies & herbs

I want fresh veggies and herbs, especially basil, at my disposal. I also want the veggie garden to look pretty. I'm thinking I'll just do a bunch of pots. Is there a good source for inexpensive, modern looking pots? I've found cool looking rectangular mod pots that look great, but they are big $.

4. Finish the back of the raised bed

I need to get some sod, and redo the ivy that I planted to climb up the back wall. I planted english ivy last year, but after rethinking it is too invasive and just isn't climbing quickly. I think I'm going to go with boston ivy.



I'm also considering adding some plants with height to the back of the bed, but I don't want to take too much space from Wally's restroom.

5. Actually finish the plumbing for the outdoor spigots

Yeah, that has been on the to do list for almost forever. After checking out some new rehabbers I'm starting to get a small spark of motivation. Gotta get'r'done.

Backyard Landscaping Update

While I may not have blogged in a while, this doesn't mean we haven't been busy. We installed crown molding in the living room, had HGTV over for filming, and have been busy on the backyard. While I'm sure you want to hear dirt about HGTV's visit, I'm going to cover our progress in the backyard. :-)

The last post of the yard show the space as being a lot better than before the concrete work, but it still looking prison-esque. It was 342% better than the untouched version, but I think the place is now approaching 514% better. Here is the space as you last saw it.



The concrete work was done, but the gate and fence wasn't in and the planter bed is sufferring from a severe lack of dirt and plants. These problems have been remedied, and the Queen is now enjoying the space much better.



The horizontal fencing and gate is in place. I am quite pleased. This Saturday was spent creating a drainage system in the planting bed, and Sunday hauling 4,000 lbs of dirt to fill the bed. The low voltage landscape lighting is showing off our walls and new tree, and looking swanky while doing so. We even managed to get our fancy new Forest Pansy Redbud over the 2' tall planting bed. I wasn't sure how to get the tree in the bed, but after building a ramp it wasn't too bad.



The tree will have small pink flowers in the spring, with new leaves showing a purple color all through the season. I originally wanted a 'Bloodgood' Japanese Maple, but the redbud was only $115 and allowed instant coverage between our seating point at the table and our neighbor's back deck. The Japanese Maples were considerably more for the same initial size. Eventually the redbud will have a 18-20' diameter spread, which will help to canopy the area.



I still need to hook up the plumbing for the spigot in the back and plant the boxwoods and other plants, but all that will come in due time. And by due time, I mean this weekend.

Keep on the lookout for a guest poster to cover the first two topics I mentioned early in the post. :-)

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.

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.

The Queen is Amazing

After getting a few bids on the backyard, we finally signed a contract. The work starts Wednesday. The design is approaching something that resembles Design B.

Design B

There were pros and cons for either keeping the trash near the alley or near the house, but with bids coming in higher than we decided to go with the cheaper option and put it closer to the house. It's easier to get to in the winter and allowed us to delete the 4' block wall near the alley. Summer said Bmore may be switching one 64 gallon trash can pick up per week, so the enclosure is sized for 2 of my garbage cans, or 1 new larger can, and my recycle bin. Other cost cuts included removing the few steps up into the planting bed, and the counter top area. It pained me to remove the counter area from the design, but in a tough economy it's tough to add design details that may not return your investment. This renovation hasn't been about making money, but we don't want to throw it away.

I'm exicted for the work to begin on Wednesday. The contractor said he thinks he can be done by the weekend. I seriously doubt he'll complete the job of laying all the masonry walls, hammering half of the back pad out and re-pouring this section of the pad. That's ok though. He may not be done by this weekend, but I'm pretty confident by next weekend the backyard will be looking much better.

Courtyard Musings

Remember last year when I posted about the backyard? I decided getting the interior of the house done was a better use of time and funds. Now that Spring is here and interior is looking good we're thinking about the yard again. The design has changed a bit in a year, as we now have a dog so I modified the design to be able to accomodate him. We've even had a few contractors come by to give us bids.

Here is what the yard looks like today, as seen through my back window (I was lazy and didn't want to open the window or screen).



It is 34' deep, by 13' wide. It is mostly a concrete slab with a small dirt area. The dirt area is currently used as Wally's potty, and houses a few city kitties. I tried putting veggies and herbs back there one year but the city kitties ate most of the fruits of my labor. Not good. There is a alley behind the house, and you can see across the alley the houses I mentioned in my last post. In the front right corner of the pic is my AC unit, and beyond this are some concrete blocks the neighbors gave me. The concrete pad for the back half of the lot is pretty much shot, so it needs to be redone. So that is the tour of the place. It's not pretty. Now here is what I'm looking to do....

I'd like to enclose the space with a 6' tall cement block wall. Not the most glamarous of surfaces, but it's relatively inexpensive and it will keep the vermin out. It also provides a good mounting surface to mount lights on. I considered a wood fence, but the vermin could still get in. I'd also like to use some raised beds in the area for some plantings, create an area for a grill and a prep/serving area, and enclose the AC unit and garbage. So here is what I've come up with.



It has a 6' perimeter wall, a 2' planting bed, the garbage would be hidden behing a 4' concrete wall at the back of the property and the AC unit is enclosed with a wooden slate structure that I would build. The brown slats in the middle are a table and benches that I would also build. The donut looking thing near the middle is a fire pit that we'd put there when we aren't eating (the table would move up to the benches for chow time).

I also did a minor modification where I deleted the 4' concrete wall, and enclosed the garbage cans in with the AC unit. I think I like the first design a bit better, but this would be a bit cheaper.



We are really trying to keep costs down, and that for now we are focusing on getting the foundation work done with the finishing details coming later. Which option do you like better? What other suggestions do you have?

Our Response to the Economic Downturn

In response to my post last week about how the economic downturn has affected you, here is how the economy has affected us.

1. We have a 100% financed house on an interest only loan. On the surface, this makes us a pretty high risk, at least from the current lender's perspective. I either had money for a down payment or for renovations. I chose to save on the down payment and monthly payments and put the money into renovations instead. A lot of people did this. I knew the housing market was souring, but I didn’t plan on making money on the house. I've only planned on learning how to renovate a home and hopefully be able to get out what I've put into it. Thus far, the money used for renovations has come from our bank accounts without the use of any loans. The debt we are currently carrying is some credit card debt, but no loans from other sources.

2. I had enough money for the kitchen renovation, but was planning on refinancing after this was complete and pulling out equity in order to fund the rest of the renovations. The economy fallout had begun, so I am not sure I would have been able to pull out the amount of money I needed. While I had put a lot of money into the house, refinancing has a lot of fees associated with it and the banks were no longer offering 100% financing. While I had effectively put a 20% down payment back into the house with the kitchen and downstairs bathroom renovation, the banks were moving toward 90% loan to value ratios and with refi fees I feared I wouldn't get back enough money to complete the renovation. I decided to finish the upstairs and refinance when the house was mostly done. The timeframe I made this decision was about the time the blog began, early this year. I am not sure this was the best decision to proceed on without refinancing, and it has caused a considerable amount of stress on us, but it's the path we have chosen.

3. The houses on both sides of me are both in trouble. One is in foreclosure, and the other one was in foreclosure (though I am not sure what state it is now). They are both rehabbed, though both not done particularly well. I am not certain what effect this has on me yet. It can't be good. The renovations I have made vastly exceed the quality of work in these other houses, but I am acutely aware that I could be overbuilding for the market. I am hoping that by doing a lot of work ourselves we will get most of the money out that we've put into it, but since we've paid cash out of hand for renovations thus far we are already invested. This means if we do move, we may not make much money but at least we most likely won't need to come to the closing table with a large check in hand.

4. The Queen's name is not currently on the mortgage. I've been waiting to refinance to do this, but renovations always take longer than expected (especially for such a large project like ours). I can't refinance until the house is almost done, as we want to be SURE that we have at least 20% of the home value into the home to avoid PMI and looking like we are high risk lenders.

5. What brought home the credit crisis to me was when I applied for a loan for the foundation work in the basement. Since the Queen's name isn't on the mortgage, I had to be the one to take out the loan. The loan was only for $2k. I was shocked when I was denied. My credit score is good (greater than 750), but I suppose the credit card debt coupled with a 100% financed interest only ARM made me too much of a risk for the loan. Also, without her being on the mortgage, from a credit perspective they don't see her as officially contributing to the mortgage thereby making it look like I am really in a bind. We found the money for the foundation work, but we would have liked to have a bit more cash on hand to continue with other work.

6. We seriously consider what renovations will really provide a return on investment. This pattern of thought has led us to do much of the work ourselves. Another example of potential cost/scope cutting is for us to reconsider digging out the basement to increase the height. It currently is about 6.5' of height, below the minimum 7' height for a habitable space. While we'd like to dig it out, a preliminary estimate (which is probably high) quoted us $45 a square foot to dig the space out. We'd only like about half of the space dug out, but this would still cost around $13k just for the dig. Add framing, electrical and moving things like plumbing and gas lines and the price only goes up. Now we're looking at just making the basement into a nice space without digging out. While it may not be perfect, it could work for a man cave. Other places that we talked about to save money on is the backyard. While I'd love something I planned out previously, it may just be overbuilding.

Going forward money will always be on the mind. While we'd love to make the house perfect, there is a point where it just has to be good enough. Finding that happy medium is the difficult part. Hopefully the money issues will work out OK in the coming months, but we are still proceeding on to finish what we’ve started. We have accepted that we are taking on short term debt, but feel that we are most of the way there and need to finish the main and second floor completely from a livability and a refinance perspective.

The next post I write will have pictures. Lots of pictures, because looking at all these words is boring me to tears.

Courtyard Design

I have zero experience landscaping cement pads behind row houses, but figured I'd give it a whirl. I used ghetto AutoCAD; hopefully it gets the point across.



I think the entire slab needs to be replaced, so while doing this why not upgrade things a bit. Right? This includes adding a decent planter bed, a place for my garbage cans, a grill, and a 6' block wall all around the space to stop the Baltimore City rats from invading my zen garden and keep the local yokels out of my view.

With the slabtacular boringness of concrete, I'm thinking about a few slate tiles or shapes cut into the concrete (shown in cyan) to help spice up the floor.



I also want to hide my A/C unit. Using all cinder blocks is a bit cold, so I'm thinking about a wood fence around the A/C unit, on the gate, and for a neato bench in front of the japanese maple. I'm hoping to use cedar, but I'm only at Phase 1 so there is plenty of time to reduce cost and scope as I head forward. I will do the woodwork myself, and par for the course, I have zero experience building these aforementioned items. I'm not sure if the plants will survive in the places I've put them, so a bit more research is required. I'm worried about the roots going through the temperature extremes of an elevated planting bed. Also, lights hanging over the courtyard would be hot, so I threw a few in.



I need some height on the left side of my boring left wall, so why not add some bamboo. Not sure how it will hold up there, but I like the concept of it. The planting benches could hold herbs, a small fountain, some bonsai trees, and serve as a lovely bar in a pinch. Some planter boxes with sweet potato vine could help brighten up the place in the summer. I would think about painting the courtyard too, but I am at a loss for what color would look good. I have a general hatred toward beige/taupe, so that is out of the question.

If I have someone just do the concrete and block work, I think I can fill in the rest of the blanks. If the quotes come in too expensive for this work, the yard will stay an ugly broken up slab. All or nothing baby!