Our Brick Shithouse -- In Progress

Ken is working on the garage this weekend. It has already been suspended, a trunch dug, forms made, a concrete foundation poured. Now Ken is in the process of lowering everything back down. I have no idea what I'm doing -- which is fine, because he does. I mean he really knows what he's doing. It is truly impressive.

Here are some pictures of the garage in progress:

1. Here is the poured concrete foundation, the old (dark) supports in the foreground that Ken is sistering with new 2x4's at the correct dimension (as determined from the distance from the top plate). Once the supports are in place, he will lower the structure back down onto the foundation. You can also see the sill plate (the horizontal 2x6) that he has bolted to the concrete foundation. Ken calls our garage a "brick shithouse" since it will be way overbuilt for its purpose. But it will be structurally sound -- and that's way better than it was before.

Here's another view of the sistered 2x4's and how they're attached to the sill plate. Those brackets are surprisingly heavy!


Ken inside the garage this morning. You can see the temporary supports holding the garage up, the temporary cross-bracing to keep it from racking (that's engineering speak for tilting; I just learned that), our old armoire from Tucson and all the sistered supports (lower left). And a cute Ken, of course, looking nice and construction-y.


A porch-eye view of the construction:


While Ken is slaving away inside the garage, I'm gardening. Seems a fair trade, right? This weekend I'm finishing the irrigation instillation in the front yard, propogating some plants, laying mulch and most importantly... installing edging. The grass in the backyard has started to creep into the path despite weed barrier underneath. That suggests to me that it also needs some vertical barrier between the two. Originally, we wanted metal edging but it was really expensive and just not quite feasible right now (see "brick shithouse" above, our desired fence and our soon to be waterproofed basement). So after much searching, I found some border barrier that worked well (see brown line around the left side of the border).



However, it just wasn't sturdy enough to hold in all the mulch and still look nice. It will be great around the grass/gravel. But not where there's mulch. Ken and I sat down to discuss our options and we decided on basalt boulders like we installed in the front... only use mini ones. I only had a few left, but here's an example of what it will look like:

Funny thing about the above picture is the concrete walkway is still there. It will be removed this summer when we waterproof the basement. The path will all be gravel lined in basalt boulders. It will be beautiful with crisp lines, yet easily flexible if I want to change paths/beds. It has irrigation already and in time I will install path lighting (read: after I learn about the mystery of electricity).

In the meantime, here's a picture of our two projects in progress. Ken's and mine. It's a nice memorial day weekend. We're both happy checking projects off our lists. Kinley and Hughes prefer to supervise from the porch while basking in the sun like they did all day yesterday (not shown).


Happy weekend!