Magnolia House

Remembering the Journey through Garbage

This weekend is Easter weekend. It's also dumpster weekend. I've lost count of the number of dumpsters we've had at our house over the last three years.

We have them in reduced frequency now... the latest is to send away a full year's worth of accumulation. 

I suppose we could hire someone to take all this stuff away, but there's something I like about personally disposing of the debris from our efforts; the memories.

Like the pile of mortar that Cynthia and Sascha chiseled off of the old bricks that became the studio patio. Or the chunks of concrete from the sidewalk we broke out to make way for the new back porch and patio. And then there was all the wood from tearing off the porch, scraps from the new arbor, branches from another large shrub that fell to the chain saw...

Some times we look at our house project and forget from where we have come.

Touching the cast-off's one last time serves as a nice reminder, an opportunity to celebrate our journey.

Here's what the back yard looks like at night now...

 

Cutting back on the grass, baby...

OK, when we tore our lawn out to redo it, our adult kids took exception. Our daughter Laura said "Daddy, it should be all native plantings and pebbles..."

Well, our plans stalled as we gave our front yard due consideration. And this weekend we began laying out a different approach to our big front lawn.

 

 We still have a big pile of rocks from the previous owner who was a rock hound. So we began laying out and creating a dry creek bed. The sourrounding landscape will be decomposed granite and native plantings.

We'll still have lawn, just a lot less, right in front of the house.

 

And I imagine the creek bed will have "pebbles."

A Few Before and After's

I've been neglegent in posting to our blog here, as I've been sharing more on Facebook this last year. Here are some before and afters of what's been going on the last 10 months...

Bed Room

Last summer we had our friends Matt and Carly Cross coming to stay with us for a few months, so we did a quick flip to one of the downstairs bedrooms. We painted the floor, repaired woodwork, painted walls, and added a chandelier. Boom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back Porch

We had a vision of steps cascading down onto a new patio, and we made that happen this last fall. The old porch was sitting on a brick foundation and after 100 years had its share of rot. Sitting on new concrete footings, the new porch has stairs to the side as well as steps off the back. The rails were fun, but the angles... well, in the end I was able to use some engineering skills to get the right angles!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Studio

This ended up being a year in the making, between resurrecting the old shed, laying a brick patio and adding a cover. It's a fully operational pottery studio now!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back Yard

This has been three years in the making, from the initial clean up of Mr. Allmen's rock collection, demo'ing old sidewalks, pulling out pipes set in 2 feet of concrete, acquiring a couple of mature pygmy palms and various other plantings, refinishing a used fountain, running sprinkler lines, and laying a paver patio. We recently added a Jacaranda tree as well. It's starting to feel like an oasis...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sun Room

This room is our absolute favorite in the house. The Allmen's were good to us in closing in this part of the porch. We  live in this room, and so does everyone who visits us. At a party we held, I counted eleven people jammed in here. We replaced the aluminum sliders with french doors, addded flooring and repainted the wood work. We refreshed the windows with lace curtains, and you'll find us here every morning having coffee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Furnace

When we were buying the house, our inspector told us the old furnace had plenty of life left in it since they get used so seldom here. I got excited to sand of the rust and repaint it this fall. We custom fit some shelves and now we have some cubby holes for our shoes and gloves, as well as a more presentable furnace in the back porch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back Door

I couldn't part with the back door, but we didn't need a cat door. I spent a Saturday rebuilding the bottom of the door to install a new panel, refiitted the window, some paint and new hinges and we kept one of our favorite old house features; the sound of an old screen door going "kerslam" when it closes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What's Next?

Well, we've been adding trees. 8 of them. 5 new Magnolias, a Crepe Myrtle, a Tulip Tree and a Jacaranda for the back yard. We tore out the front yard in November, and started to make plans for some water conserving plantings, some grass, and a picket fence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Special thanks to Curtis here, for helping dig all these big holes! Oh, and check out the irrigation tubes for deep watering. Yes, Oregonians, we have to water trees in California! More in another month or so!