View from directly in front.
View from down the street.
View of the back and side.
Here are some pictures of the new house we bought in January of 2004.
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View from directly in front. |
View from down the street. |
View of the back and side. |
Yeah, the pink basement doesn't go well with the beige siding. We will eventually fix that!
Since the builder was, we shall say, "frugal", our driveway was loose gravel, the bane of motorcyclists. Not only that, it wasn't the right kind of base for paving. So the paving contractor had to remove the gravel and prepare a bed of compacted clay and stone. All the old gravel was piled in the yard at the street end of the driveway. We, along with a neighbor or two, are slowly reducing the pile by using it in other areas.
We had the asphalt paving continued around the corner by the garage to make a parking space for out utility trailer. Since the trailer is quite heavy, we had the paver level the area by cutting into the slope. It takes some careful manouvering to roll the trailer into the tight space between the posts for the deck and stairway.
While Wil was away on a business trip, Melody constructed a retaining wall to keep the dirt from washing down onto the trailer parking area.
The original deck only extended about halfway across the front and about a third of the way around the side. The "back porch" was only six feet square. It's now all one deck that extends all the way across the front and wraps around the side and all the way to the back door.
Russ Daggett, director of our Gold Wing Road Riders Association chapter, constructed the first deck extension across the front of the house with help from his son, Seth, Melody also helped when she wasn't at work.
Several weeks later, Wil expected to be away from home during the second expansion. Wrong! His trip was postponed, so he and Russ completed the construction from the side of the house to the back door in just four days. Melody came home from work at lunchtime each day and cooked up some wonderful meals to keep us going.
With these two extensions completed, the deck floor space is increased from about 225 square feet to about 825 square feet.
The ground at the edge of the driveway sloped steeply downward. Not only was it lot of trouble to keep trimmed, it could be dangerous if one stepped over the edge. We added a retaining wall with a garden space and a fence to make it more eye-appealing and safe.
The retaining wall is two levels and is constructed of pressure-treated 6x6 lumber. The wall is curved along its entire length and the 6x6s are staggered so they create a basketweave effect.
I added the rail fence a few days after the wall was completed. The posts are firmly attached to the retaining wall for safety. The fence makes a great foundation for climbing plants.
The front of the house faces southwest, and deck was just about unusable during the hot summer months. That side of the house baked in the afternoon sun. The front door was painted red, and it had faded to an almost orange tint. Sometimes the door handle was just about too hot to touch. We talked for a couple of years about adding a roof over the front deck, and this summer we finally did it.
As you can see, the roof extends across the entire width of the house. This gives much-needed shade and keeps that side of the house much cooler. As a bonus, we replaced the front door and added a storm door. Before it was installed, we took the front door to an auto-repair place and had it painted bright red on the outside and white on the inside with automotive paint and clear coat. That and the shade provided by the roof and the roll-down shades should make the color last many years.
