A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build: Exterior Week 1

After 13 years of enjoying our 35-year old house, it's time for a little face lift.  The seed of the idea started with peeling linoleum and impossible to clean counters, compounded by the imminent retirement of our favorite contractor, neighbor Randy Hickman.  From there, the idea grew that we could possibly address an aging greenhouse and dark, divided kitchen area.

We liked the way the greenhouse keeps the house warm in the winter, and it was a fun place to play outdoor messy games on a cold winter afternoon, but we haven't used the space for planting, and it has a few broken panes and leaks when it rains. It also needed some serious shade or venting solutions in the summertime.

The first step to become a reality was to empty out all the dirt from the greenhouse.  It found new homes in our planting areas.

 The next step was to advertise the greenhouse on KSL classifieds.  A nice couple with 4.5 kids came and disassembled the greenhouse on two chilly Saturdays, hauled away all the parts, and paid us $500 for the privilege of doing so.   They are serious gardeners and also hope to insulate their house with it.

Before, during, and after pictures:

 Just after the last of the greenhouse was gone, we had a snowstorm.  It was odd to have to shovel out the greenhouse patio!

Once the weather cleared up a bit, Frank went all gangster on the knee-high brick wall out back.  The wall put up a valiant fight that lasted two days, but in the end, Frank won.   

 Robert Frost had a few things to say about walls coming down in the poem, "Mending Wall."

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.'

The next step required some professional help.  A crew came in with a concrete saw and sliced up the outer wall into pieces small enough for a small front loader to cart off.

With all the moisture, our waterlogged lawn was no match for the power tools.

But it was worth a little lawn patching to have things moving along quickly.  

Frank finished off the brick and leveled out the dirt to prepare for a 4 inch reinforced concrete pad in the patio area and also the planting area to the west.

And the concrete went in just in time to set before another few days of rain.

So now we have a nice outdoor area for a little backyard recreation!  The next step is to built a roof over the patio area, hopefully with a little cooperation from the city, who is insisting on having 25 feet of set back from the fence, which would cover only half of the patio...