Gallery
Six - Exterior Renovations Year Two
Our first full summer in the house we turned our attention to the
section of yard immediately outside the kitchen. Aside from a concrete
slab that formed a small patio and a set of shallow stairs that led
to the door of the laundry room, there was not a lot in the space.
In addition the grade sloped fairly steeply towards the back and two
large pine trees blocked out large amount of the sun from the yard
and prevented the grass from growing properly. Judging by the plans,
originally the patio beside the living room on the other side of the
house was meant to be the main outdoor entertaining space, but the
noise from Elbow Drive now made the patio off of the kitchen a much
better space to live in. So we decided to turn the space into an extended
patio by removing the grass, and building a larger deck and planters. In keeping with the intent of the original house, everything was made using Western Red Cedar.
[ click an image to enlarge it ]
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To help define the shape of the yard
and give some way to display some foliage we created two planter
boxes underneath the pine trees growing along the fence. Because
the shape of the yard was trapezoidal we decided to emphasise
it rather than to try and somehow disguise it by creating two
rectalinear boxes that followed the fence line and varying their
height. |
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The shape of the deck
was inspired by the unusual shape of the yard as well, leaving
a regular corridor running through the yard from the garage
to the gate by the master bedroom. |
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Over the years the concrete
slabs had settled quite a bit in relation to the house so we
had a concrete specialist come in and mud-jack the slabs back
up. You can see in the pictures that the slab outside the kitchen
was raised almost 14 inches in some places! We were unable to
raise the slab that ran between the house and the garage as
we found out that it was in fact the slab that the garage was
built on. This slabe has sunk approximately 8 inches along with
the garage which is what has caused the kink in the roof line
when looking at the front of the house. Unfortunately the only
real fix seems to be to remove and rebuild the garage and slab. |
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Instead of adding a railing or some other protective
barrier around the stairwell we decided to fabricate a planter
made by recycling some of the cedar panelling from the inside
of the house. |
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To finish off the kitchen yard we
wanted to use a surface material that required little maintenance
and wouldn't let the dogs track in all kinds of mud and other
debris. We decided on using stone and concrete slabs as they
would lend themselves well to the uneven surface in the yard.
After laying down some landscaping fabric we covered it with
pebbles and circular steps. |
| The original fencing that still surrounds
the house is in pretty bad shape and the dogs jumping up on
it just made it that much worse so we decided to replace the
fence along the alley with a new cedar version. In year 3 we
will be extending this fence around the entire property replacing
the sagging original. |
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For more information contact Michael
Kurtz |
