Landscape Details

Bob and his crew have nearly finished the landscape.  Everything has come together very nicely so far.  The one unfortunate item is the lack of availability of some plant materials this late in the season, so we'll have to wait until next spring for the remainder.

The StepStone pavers went in nicely, and the fine granite rock that R-Design specified for the beds blends nicely with the rest of our exterior colors and textures. 

The guys at No Hassle Fence put on a nice horizontal fence that has a very understated but subtle design to it - we just alternated 1x6 and 1x4 rough sawn cedar to give it a bit of character and stained it a solid silver gray.

Next up is the steel trellis over the back patio and the steel frame for the kid's swing, and we are done!!

Plants Arrive

All of our trees and plants arrived yesterday on one truck.  It looked like a nursery around here for a while!  Since we could not find any Buckthorn for the tall "screening" trees in the back, we substituted Hornbeam which R-Design suggested as a good alternative.  Tomorrow the plants should start going in... 

Stepstone Pavers

It felt like xmas time again last Friday - new presents arrived on a big truck!  We got beautiful pre-cast concrete pavers from Stepstone for our landscape edging.  R-Design suggested these as part of the landscape design scheme, and we are happy to have found such well crafted quality planks.  Concrete always looks so good when it’s formed in a controlled environment.  In the field it’s always kind of a crap-shoot to be honest.

This edging will go around beds and at the edge of grass areas.  We also plan to make a little hardscape area out of them for a spot for the kids to play on.

If the weather holds out, we should finally see some plant materials being installed mid-week!

Landscape has begun!

It’s taken us a few months, but we now have found a good landscaper with an acceptable bid.  Bob of RES and his crew started on Thursday with cleaning the site and tilling/mixing the soil.  Today they are working on the sprinkler install. 

For cost reasons we’ve eliminated a few items from the original design, but feel that we will still be achieving a similar feel with the overall result.  The steel trellis/solar shade at the rear patio is also being fabricated as we speak. 

Before the landscape is finished it would also be good to get the fence in.  We’ve got a look we are happy with, now it’s just getting it all started and installed in the optimal sequence.

Upstairs

Here are a few shots of the stairs and second level spaces - we still need to hang some artwork!

Shades

Our house isn’t a fish bowl anymore!  Nancy tracked down a great modern shade store online and we installed them over the past weekend.  It’s so nice to have some privacy and also cut out the sun glare early in the morning and late in the afternoon.

Most of our openings had plenty of space at the heads, however, the big sliding doors were tight with about 1-1/2” in depth.  We had thought about trying to recess the shades into a slot over the doors at one point, but it just wasn’t feasible price-wise.  In the end, they are still fairly non-obtrusive.

Here is the source:  http://www.theshadestore.com/

Getting Close

We are still working out the details on what we can afford on the landscape, so in the mean time, here are some “nearly finished photos” to tide you over.

Click on the image above to see a cool pop up sequence of large images.

Rain

After the summer with virtually no moisture to speak of, the fall rains have come.  A huge storm hit on the 8th, bending over trees, hailing, and coming down at over an inch an hour.

Our little wood box made it - no water seems to be making it’s way in anywhere!

The open face downspouts make quite a racket when the water just drips, so we are going to put something at the bottom to try and silence the noise...

For the Little Ones

The girls are getting set up with the tables and the supplies to work their craft as often as their hearts desire...

We received some simple little IKEA tables yesterday, and they will be covered in markers and paint soon.

The dining table can get a break after being bombarded with markers and permanent pens for years now.  I think it will need a full-on refinishing.

Sliding Door

The big sliding door to the Office/Art Room is one step closer to being complete.  I picked up the polycarbonate infill panels from Boulder Plastics a few days ago, and we’ve got them temporarily installed in the door. 

It does glow nicely at night as we had anticipated, however, we still haven’t figured out a good stop mechanism.  It would be nice to have the flexibility to take the panels out at a future date...