Driveway Gate Inspiration

One goal for us this summer is to enclose part of our driveway.  We want to have an area that Ben (who finally, at almost 11 months, had his first tooth pop through today!) can ride a little bike or play ball outside without having to worry about him running into the street.  We watched our neighbors (whom we reference below) chase after their little ones when they played in the driveway because they did not have a fence and they report that they still worry about them outside even though they are 5, 8 and 11 now.

We hope to put the fence somewhere between the bump out and chimney

We have a long, long driveway as you can see....one car will fit behind the gate and two in front as we don't plan to park cars behind it often...we only have one car now so their will be parking for visitors

This entails many steps, including figuring out our property line.  We practically share a driveway with our neighbors, except a 2-3' garden/grass strip that divides it.  The problem is that we do not know where the divide is and want to make sure we do the right thing if we are putting in something permanent like a gate.  Luckily, we get along with our neighbors and are friends.  We have decided that instead of spending a bunch of money to get a survey done,  we discuss and decide where it should go together.  We feel so lucky to have such great neighbors.

Here are some fence designs we really enjoy.  I hope to track down the pictures I have torn out over the years and also saved on our old computer eons ago and post them later as well as take some pictures of inspiring gates around the neighborhood. 

I love the simplicity of this gate, that it gives privacy while allowing light through and the  Greene and Greene influences with the swooping lines at the bottom-this just might be the winner, found here

This is also really really pretty, airy and delicate yet hardy and sturdy all at the same time, found here

simple, basic craftsman inspired design found here

Not in love with this but it is simple with a nice sweeping detail design at top found here

Really like this design as well, not only the little horizontal chunks on the lower portion of the fence, but the upper detail, found here

Simple and straightforward, found here

I like this, super cute but probably not airy and open enough for us, found here

It's snowing...no, it's insulation

When re-siding our house in summer 2007, Steve and I decided that we should have the house insulated as well being that it was well, drafty.  We wanted to be able to cover all of the little 1.5" holes that would need to be bored through the siding in order to blow in insulation before we got the house painted and while the paint was all stripped.

don't think you can see where the holes were bored as we had already patched and sanded

We had already insulated the living room ourselves from the inside as we had removed all of those walls in order to wire, fix some water damage near the chimney and re-frame some things so this saved us a little on cost.

Winter 2006/2007-a great project for newlyweds!

I got a number of bids and went for the cheapest as I figured, how hard could it be?  The company seemed just fine and they were punctual in their estimate and arrival.  We were also super house poor (we are always house poor but we were really house poor then).  We were newlyweds, I was newly employed, started paying the student loans and house loan and oh yea, in SHOCK!!!!! by how much an old house costs to restore. 

Anyways, back to insulation.  Boy, was I in denial about how hard insulated really could be.  Our contractors were terrible.  Not only did they blow insulation all over the freakin' house (it truly looked like middle of the summer snow storm)

but they broke holes in our interior plaster in several places.  I was shocked and so sad to see this as it is not only costly to repair plaster but so hard to match textures, and well, I love the texture of our plaster. 

this was the largest hole at over a foot in width, luckily it was in the closet and while not a perfect patch, I was able to repair myself

They also did not figure out that the floor below part of the wall was not closed to the basement, nor did they think "gosh, that is a lot of insulation for one little area, maybe we should stop and see where it is all going"  So, later in the day, I found this:

Now, if we had had a kid at that point, they would have been in heaven but it was no bueno for me.  I brought them the shop vac and they did a half-a** job of cleaning and finished up work.  At 5:01pm, they were finished with insulation but the house was a hot mess with snow.  Instead of cleaning up, they just said good-bye and drove off.  Well, I contacted the company that evening and told them the whole story, then Steve and I spent about 4-5 house that evening and the following day cleaning the "snow".  It ended up that we charged them what we would need to pay to have the plaster repaired plus an hourly charge for the time we spent cleaning and they took it off our bill, making the insulation only costing several hundred.  It saved us house poor people a ton of money but it would have been much better if it hadn't happened at all.

  Oh, the perils of home ownership and restoration!

A little insulation project I took on myself over the past month was insulating all the light and electrical sockets on the exterior walls of the house.  They were downright drafty and cold before.  I found the little insulator sheets (foam) at home depot for a couple bucks total.  I had to measure and cut out specially for our super old light switches but it was a quick and gratifying project overall.

Snow-mageddon

"The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? "
J. B. Priestley

Apparently it's a snow-mageddon here in Portland (which I am sure makes the mid-westerners and easterners chuckle out loud-heck, it makes me chuckle).  My work was canceled today and every news channel has been nothing except snow "storm" coverage since I woke up this morning.  Anyways, it is gorgeous and quiet out.  Hoping to get out for a walk later on today but thought I would share a few pix.  Love how the snow falls on our plants and the front walkway.

Monkey Puzzle Tree

Little did we know what a prize we had when we moved into our house.  Towering over our front yard and roof (and sidewalk to boot) was a 50+ foot monkey puzzle tree.
While we did not love the tree, we figured it was sorta cool being that it had some history behind it.  The Monkey Puzzle Tree comes from Chili originally and was brought to Portland for the 1905 Lewis and Clark World Fair.  Pretty cool, eh?  Now these trees are gorgeous in the wild as seen below (image from here)

and are also really pretty when they are young trees or well-maintained.  valuable too; I have seen 12" starts at local nurseries for around $40.

this image from here

But ours was well, old and well, not pretty.  Kinda the sore thumb sticking out. Not that our landscape was well, landscape.  More just some concrete, shrubs and dead grass

The old monkey just engulfed the house.  So we were wondering what to do about it.  Cool tree but not looking so hot anymore.  Well, after a wind storm knocked a branch off onto the sidewalk, we knew we had to do something.  This was winter '07/'08.  The branch easily weighed several hundred pounds and would have killed anyone in its path.   The branches are spiny and sharp and can cut someone as well.
After having about 10 arborists out to give there verdict, we decided that it was time to cut the beast down.  Many arborists' said it was not healthy and had probably 5-10 years of life left as it was nearly 100 years old (after we cut it down we counted 96 rings, meaning 96 years old-just after the lewis and clark exposition) which probably meant that it was planted right when the house was built.  If we kept it, it would need a dead heading right away so that it was safe and dead branches would not continue to fall and possibly kill people.  Well, being that it was as much to dead head as cut the beast down, we decided that it was best to bring the king down.  We also were planning a full re-landscape in summer 2009 and the beast was not part of the plan.
However, we are eco-friendly people and the thought of just grinding and dumping the beast (gorgeous wood) was gnawing at our conscious-es.   So, I was able to find a company that came and harvested most of the trunk once we cut it down and even paid us a couple hundred as well!
Here are pictures of the beast coming down in Fall 2008.  It took a crew of four all day, and don't worry, all the wood that was ground (branches) were taken to the local wood recycler for re-use.

 

After it was all gone, the yard looked bare, but we were breathing a sigh of relief, and well, in my style, dreaming and talking of the next project...landscape (see here, here and here).
And my dad stole a little piece of stump (thanks for being sneaky) to make us this cool picture frame for Christmas 2009

 We even saved a couple pieces of the stump that we think will be cool to make something with someday-end tables???   Of course, they have now been outside for about 2 1/2 years so will need a good sanding, leveling and maybe some shellac on the top?  Luckily, they have been kept pretty dry so may even be pretty dry by the time we are ready to do a project with them.  Maybe put them in the retro 40s-50s basement when we remodel...that could be pretty dreamy :)

for now they make great old bike tire and rake storage

super cool lines where the branches grew out of the trunk

Did I mention that we are still reaping the "rewards????" of the beast?  When digging the hole for the japanese maple we planted in place of the beast or reigning king, we came across a 8-10" diameter root.  Digging that up was a bi-atch-pretty much broke a chain saw in the process. Also, we really fun to go around it when laying pipe for the sprinkler system.