Walkway

You just have to love home improvement. You make one thing better (deck) only to realize that you now need to do something else that you didn't see before (walkway). So now that the deck has a set of stairs that faces the driveway and we're coming and going that way much more often (at least in the summer months), a proper walkway was only a matter of time.

You've seen the deck before and deck after pics in the previous post (scroll down), so we'll just stick to the walkway here. We ordered pavers, gravel, sand, and more sand, which was delivered before the long end of summer weekend. Oh, in addition to the walkway, we also bought some stones (and a couple plants) to dress up the area between the walkway and the house. I'm very proud of this project, I think it looks better in person than the pics show. Here goes:

This one really shows the area in question that we're working on:

And once the materials showed, it was time to dig.


And dig. And fill, and tamp...


and level and tamp. And fill, and level and screed. Then place pavers. Then cut pavers. Then sweep sand on the pavers, hoping it fills the cracks (for the most part, it did).

And finish the edge pattern before tropical storm Hanna. Post-Hanna, prep and landscape the area inside of the walkway. Phew! Looks very good. Barkley loves it!

Deck expansion

Another project that we didn't do!

The deck in the back yard was all pressure treated lumber, 12 feet deep, 14 feet wide. This was fine for a smaller table but a standard 3 foot x 5 foot table with chairs just about took up the whole thing. You can squeeze 6 in one of those tables, but its a little tight, and if we're grilling and chilling outside, I'd rather not be on top of everyone. So we were thinking of 2 things - getting a bigger outdoor table and expanding the deck to accommodate it. Here is the deck v1.0:

So the original deck only had 1 set of stairs, heading out to the back yard. As the new deck is going along the house, we're going to be much closer to the driveway. A second set of stairs was installed to make it easy to get in the house via the back door. Here's a mid-process and an 'after' pic. We're lovin' it (and so is a very young Barkley)!

Spring cleaning

Alright, so summer is technically almost over. But there were some projects that were done here at G'mas house that we were a little late in posting. In the month of May we did two things...actually we didn't really do them. For a welcome change we paid someone real money to do home improvement projects. In both cases work was done that we would be ill equipped to fulfill, and we're delighted with the results:

Kitchen Backsplash:
Here is a quick refresher. Before:


Whoops! Okay, that was before in the extreme...ahh the good ole days!

Now here is what our kitchen looked like pre and post backsplash:


Tiles look great. Oh, and under cabinet halogen lighting was installed as well. I still have some trim to install so you won't be able to see the lights, but who's counting!

Tree Trimming
We (or more correctly, our neighbors) have a huge old oak tree in our backyard. While it does help give our house a more woodsy feel in the city, it nearly closes off all direct sunlight in the back yard. And the branches were getting so huge that before the end of the summer I'm pretty sure some branches would actually touch our house. So a friend of ours knows a tree guy, and next thing you know, they're here with all the heavy equipment. And in like 2 hours, Poof! all gone. Limbs cut, chipped and hauled out. Here is the big boy in all its pre-op glory:

Bucket operator making short work of some big limbs:
Carnage:
Post-Op tree:

The difference was immediate, and all we hoped. We get more sun in the back yard, so that means the house is a bit more bright. It also means that we don't have to limit our plant selections to the shade loving section. Next summer, I'm hoping to build a couple of raised beds to grow my own. That would have been pretty disappointing if my tomatoes/beans/etc only got 1 hr (or less) of direct sun a day. We'll see next summer!

Media Closet

The updates to Grandma's electronic house on the web haven't been all that frequent. But that isn't to say the progress to Grandma's house has ceased. Our latest project was the closet in the living room. Originally the room we now call our living room was the dining room; it had a built-in closet for china and grandma's nick naks (it also had one other closet, which is now part of the kitchen.) When we decided to make the dining room into the living room, we kicked around a few ideas for this closet. For a while, it was going to be a bar area where we would store wine, liquor, and assorted glasses (thanks to too many second and third place showings at the James Gate pub quiz night, we have a very respectable collection.) But there was one other idea that we really liked. What if we put all of the electronics in that closet? The TV was already on the wall, so the absence of a TV stand could maintain the spacious feel of the room. But then what do you do with all those cables when you wall mount your flatscreen TV? Well, the answer lies in that closet.

First, here is the starting material:
We like the glass door. Color selection of sunshine yellow wasn't great. The plaster walls weren't in very good shape, with an unhealthy amount of peeling/chipping paint for added effect. So we decided to just tear it all out and start fresh. Interestingly, that wall on the left was actually two 1x12's. The closet actually went deeper than that, but most of that space was occupied by an AC duct supplying the upstairs bedroom/office with centrally cooled air for those 3 weeks in July/August where it's actually needed. I decided that the ductwork wasn't reason enough to expand the closet, so that meant I had to frame a small wall there. Easy enough when its all coming down.

So the full media plan has a few moving parts. The TV on the wall already had an AC outlet run so it could be plugged in without seeing the power cord. What had to happen was a way to get the cable feed into the closet, then get the video out to the TV. Had to learn about HD signals a bit for this part. In the end, I chose Component cables rather than HDMI for reasons I won't get into here. So I needed to run 2 sets of component cables from the closet to the TV (1 for cable, 1 for DVD). At the last minute, I decided to also run 1 set of speaker wire out for the center mounted speaker on a standard surround sound system. Home Depot sells in wall-rated speaker wire, and I found a supplier of component cables that was properly rated and of a good enough quality that once installed I wouldn't have to worry about a weak signal. Here's how it looks at the TV end:
The outlets are right at the edge of the TV. I couldn't move the TV without it being off center on that wall, and another closet was in the way of me installing anything anywhere else. Looking at the TV straight on you really don't see the wires.

Now, back to the closet. I didn't take any photos with the plaster removed. Needless to say, the amount of dust throughout the entire first floor was simply astonishing. The side wall was framed pretty easily and sheet rock was hung on the walls. After applying joint compound, we got a second wave of dust from when I sanded it smooth. Note in the corner I have a three gang box, containing 2 cable feeds (from the basement), 2 Component video outputs to TV, and 1 speaker output to the TV. Not pictured is a 2 gang box with 4 power outlets:

Now a little paint:
One other little piece of handiwork was related to the remotes. How would the remotes work when in a closet? Maybe the signals would seep through? After a little online research, I found some hardware that basically repeats the signal. I installed the receiver end next to a power outlet (the one near the base of the wall near the door in the next pic). It works great. There isn't any obstacles to it so you just point your remote toward the TV and it picks it up and changes the channel, adjusts the volume etc. We do have too many remotes so a universal remote is probably in our future, but that'll wait til we get a DVR for this TV. Now that Comcast works with Tivo we might go for that.

Shelves for the equipment and DVDs went up after the paint. Now we just have to manage the cables, and we're done!

Check this one out

Our friends are in the middle of a serious kitchen reno. Check out the progress and some exceptional design skillz here.

We're busy on the house again, now that thanksgiving, christmas, hanukkah, new years, football season, and a round of birthdays are all over. Although some 'before' pics were tragically never shot, I think you'll get the idea.