karinoyo

** those are the only plants I’ve identified as definites — they don’t like to be watered, they don’t like to be ‘managed’, they don’t like to be bothered at all, and they prefer hot sun, iffy drainage, mediocre soil. Give them all that, and they go bonkers big and bushy… and that is exactly my kind of plant.

and for the front garden/entryway, I want to increase the privacy — make it so you can’t see the front door from any angle as you drive up (not until you get out of the car and are standing on the driveway), improve the drainage across the property, and use either a permeable material (like cobbles/pavers + grass) or a raised, wooden walkway. What’d be really neat, I think, is a raised walkway that has a dry creekbed running underneath — then, when it rains, the water could overflow from a rainbarrel into the dry ‘creekbed’, following a specific, planned, path across the entry area and into a rain-garden at proper distance from house foundation.

Of the elements in there, my little stubble-headed minion could possibly:

• build up terraced area around front entry

• dig postholes for walkway
• dig postholes for fencing/visual block
• install fencing/wall around front garden (one idea, another idea)

Of all the tasks, this would — design-wise, effort-wise, engineering-wise — be one I could do easily myself:

• install angled, raised walkway (one idea, another idea)

I will have to hire a professional for some stuff, though:

• repair/replace (or remove?) brick facing by front door — water damage

• design/build porch overhang for front of house
• design/build lattice ‘roofs’ over south-facing windows (example)

I can rent a powerdriver, or hire someone to use a fancy saw for the job:

• remove brick ‘decor’ wall

• remove concrete sidewalk & front step
• remove back patio
• remove back step at garage door
• remove driveway

That concrete, then — especially if I get someone to cut it up in squares — would then be hefted out and used as part of the retaining walls in front & back. I’d use those larger (1×1 to 2×2) slabs as base to augment the terracing, and use the local stone already on the property as the caps. I dont plan to build more than 2′ high, doing gravity walls, since more than 2′ and I’d need to deal with drainage. More than 3′, and I’d definitely need a structural engineer. Ffffttt. My yard’s not that steep.

I suspect I would need to talk to a concrete expert to find out if I could just take out the driveway except for four 1.5′ strips that would follow the car’s wheelbases roughly — and then fill in around those with topsoil and put down buffalo grass sod. It’ll take, it won’t grow past 6″, it’ll love being in the front yard’s full sun, it’s native anyway, it won’t want to be watered more than rainfall would give it, and it’d be letting the ground soak up that rain instead of washing it across the driveway into the gully and into the creek. Plus, even with a concrete-drive (as opposed to tar), that’s still a huge amount of reflective heat bouncing up from the front of our house.

Besides, it’d look cool. I want it to be like: oh, suburbia, suburbia, wait, there’s a house here? It looks like… woods! and wildflowers! and small trees, but no, there’s a house tucked away back here! I like houses that are a surprise — outside, as well as in.

You can see, though, how I’m still a bit baffled about the order of things. Do I take out the concrete first, and then do the terracing — so I can re-use the materials? Or do I do the terracing only around the front, and have the sidewalk removed but driveway left, and get the front garden arranged and then start on the rest? Would that cost more, to have someone come out twice — or three times, if the back patio’s in there, too? It’s like project management, wait, it is project management: what are the dependencies? How many do I need on the team for this task, or that one? What’s the timeframe for each?

And, lest we forget, the side yard(s)… first, the western (non-creekside) path:

• mild terracing to increase slope away from house foundation

• use old fence boards + mulch to create 3′ path
• remove 1.5′ stone walls along property line
• slant ground into path, install upright borders (stone on end)
• mulch like crazy, plant shade-happy plants on both sides

I guess I’ll be asking the general contractor company — who should be calling me on Tuesday, I expect — about a bid on the cost to raise the A/C unit onto a higher platform, get it at least a little bit higher out of the floodplain. I doubt it’s possible to do 3′, but at least another 1′ is better than flat on the ground…

On the eastern side of the house, the shade is dappled, at most — but there are three large, old crape myrtles alongside the house, and I have no intention of digging those up. That means, though, that I can’t terrace the ground there, raise it up any, or I’d be dumping roughly 3′ deep of fill & topsoil around the tree roots. Damn it! So the most I’ve come up with is…

• remove stretch of old wood fence (from no-longer-there house’s yard)

• mild terracing to slope ground away from house
• raised beds between trees, for shade-preferring bushes or plants?*
• terrace up 2′, facing house
• dump rubble & fill on creekside of terrace wall (to create a semi-berm)
• throw down a pound or two of wildflower seed
• cover with lots of straw
• use old fence boards & mulch to put in 3′ wide path

* If only Cooper Canyon Daisies liked dappled shade… the one I planted last year, all of 6″ in diameter, is now about four feet across. Wah! Now, if only someone could tell me the proper time to dig up & divide plants, when you’re in Zone 8. Uhm, July? They’ll all be dormant then, from the heat…

And, finally, the backyard.

• terrace an oval around the house

• rototill over septic area, steam out bermuda grass
• lay down buffalo grass (sod, seed?)
• throw down plenty of straw
• remove (most of) patio
• build up 2′ deep curve along house
• put down slate/brick/pavers? for center area
• build low (6′ high) platform/deck
• install waterless pond at western end
• run dry creek through patio area, and over to gully
• berm land, mild terracing on opposite side
• build out stone walls along neighbor’s fence
• plant shade-happy bushes (or gamas grass? hahaha) to fill in line-of-sight
• install lattice block between patio & master bedroom window
• put up pergola over patio (echo front-of-house treatment?)

Things I can do outside, some of which I’m halfway there…

• put up string lights for fun lighting

• hang new candle-lamps
• get those nifty citronella hangers like JH&JF have

Inside, long-term structural things — which are really just dining room & the planned W/D replacement/move:

• install bathroom vents to attic

• install solar tubes — 2 or 3 in hallway, 1 or 2 in guest bath
• install dryer vent-line
• remove coat closet & bathroom pantry
• frame & enclose new W/D closet

Oh, and as a note as long as I’m listing, need to also remember Things For Awesome Electrical Guy to do:

• move hall track lights to library

• install second switch in library (plus dimmer) for track lights
• install much better, not-so-bright hall lighting system
• install automatic sensor on hall light switch
• check GFIs in kitchen (fuse blows when you push on the faceplate)
• install hard-wired light by bed
• add GFI outlets to guest bath
• add two GFI outlets to master bath*
• replace light fixture in guest bath
• install exterior light over garage doors, with sensor
• remove/replace front light
• add outlet outside at lamp-height (for light strings)
• add 2nd switch to inside plate
• add circuit to kitchen for soffit/task lighting
• add 2 outlets in garage along west wall
• add dedicated outlet for power tools
• move, possibly rewire, kitchen switches: pantry, garage, ceiling fan into a line by pantry door

* although this will require removing the overlarge mirror, since there’s nowhere else to put any outlets, unless we have them installed directly over the toilet…

That should keep A.E.G. busy for a while, I expect.

Tagged: bath, construction, electrical, garden, kitchen, landscape, living room, organization, workshop