With the outside projects soon drawing to a close (fingers crossed), it’s time to bring the momentum indoors. This morning we met with Markus Berger, our architect, to get things rolling again. There was coffee. And tea. And baked goods… and pencil gnawing.
Hopefully construction begins in October.
Our house, before it was born. This is what the architect, Irving Haynes, envisioned before the house was built. Pretty cool to have the original rendering from 1970. Click to biggify for full vintagey glory.
It turned out pretty much as drawn. Except no sidewalk down to the street. Here’s a finished shot from ’72 — if you saw the construction photos from my second post ever, you’ve seen this one before…
Sweet ride in the driveway.
They obviously had to cheap out on the retaining wall along the driveway as the one in the drawing is much, much cooler. They went with railroad ties… which eventually rotted, go figure. The new wall designed by architect Markus Berger is more along the lines of what Haynes was picturing…
Want to see the lot before there was a house on it? Yeah, we got that. Here’s the same corner view…
Looking up from across the street from the house, here’s the backyard we’ve been reworking when it was completely untouched and there were plenty of trees to keep the slope from washing away…
My my, aren’t we looking natty, Mr. Architect.
Here’s the view looking back down to the street from the future yard…
And here’s the view of what will become our veggie garden at the end of our neighbor’s brick retaining wall…
Yeesh. A whole lotta trees died to build this house…
Okay, trip down memory lane is over. Get back to work!
Retaining wall construction wrapped about two weeks ago. Let’s get right to the final results… As always, click to biggify.
Very happy with how the walls look like they belong to the house — the mark of an architect. Irving would be thrilled. Thanks Markus Berger and Naomi Clare at Inside Out Design! Once the paint comes off the foundation, it should look even more seamless. Doors still need to be built on the storage bays of the back wall. And when spring rolls around, plantings will soften the edges and add privacy.
The construction, chronicled
Want the nitty gritty? Read on…
The retaining wall plans got done in November. The next step was getting bids from cement contractors. And tick tick tick tick tick, suddenly it’s December. Impending winter. This is Rhode Island, after all. Is building now really a good idea?
The contractor we settled on seemed to think it was. “Adjust the concrete mix to deal with the cold,” they said confidently in their thick Rhody accents. We were dubious. But our engineer, Erik Anders Nelson, was down with that. The city inspector was, too. So fine, then.
To start, we had to take out two trees in back that happened to fall directly in line with the placement of the retaining wall…
Sorry trees. I know it’s not much consolation but digging would have killed you. You’ll be replaced by something exquisite, I assure you.
Digging started on December 15th. My Facebook friends weathered six weeks worth of almost daily posts on the progress. Highlights below. If you really want to get your geek on, you’re welcome to check out the full project from beginning to end, complete with angst and commentary.
Back wall:
Front wall:
Goodbye, rocky menace:
Four dumptruck’s worth of crappy stone, gone! Some of it…
ended up right across the street, in our neighbor’s yard! Glad someone can use it. We tried to give it away to any contractor who’d take it. No takers.
The ugly and unresolved:
Drama with the stairs. The concrete crew couldn’t seem to make the detail consistent from step to step (5th photo down, after the jump). David had them rip it out… three times. Oy. Says he’ll be pouring the detail himself. Hallelujah.
There’s also some debate about the stucco-ish finish. David thought he’d prefer it over the patchwork look of the concrete that resulted from multiple pours. Now he hates it. I could have lived with the bare concrete. Oh well.
Consider yourself caught up. Next step: adding skin to the garden bones. Epic look at ideas tomorrow!
Our yard yearns to be a garden. Sadly, it’s more like a ski jump. Without walls to tame the slope, nothing can get planted and the yard is basically unusable. The hardscaping really is the skeleton for any landscaping to come. Here’s the down-and-dirty decision-making for retaining walls.
What to build them out of?
We briefly entertained the idea of replacing our rotting timber retaining walls with stone. True to New England, yes…
traditional stone wall | earthandstonecapecod.com
But not in keeping with the style of the house. And because of the height we need, we’d still require concrete and rebar and whatnot to keep them from toppling over.
We talked to contractors about keyed block…
keyed block retaining wall | allanblock.com
Absolutely the fastest, easiest, cheapest alternative. You see keyed block used in Lowe’s and Home Depot parking lots — a lot. Maybe that’s why it’s just not for us.
Those two choices eliminated, we took a closer look at what we have to work with. Both retaining walls actually touch the house’s concrete foundation… they’re kind of an extension of the house out into the landscape. When you think of it that way, it just makes sense to go with concrete as the wall material. Easy choice.
How should they look?
We want to echo a few design details from the house to tie the walls in visually…
Angle. We want the driveway wall to pick up on the walls of our front steps.
Beveled edges. We want this detail everywhere.
We want to build some function into the concrete walls — why not, right? In front, that means wood storage. Out back, small tool storage. We also wanted easy access to the yard from the front, which means adding steps…
Any new concrete steps need to look like the original ones.
Who’s perfect to help?
In the hunt for help on the interior remodel, I was lucky to come across Markus Berger, president of Inside Out Design and assistant professor of interior architecture at RISD. He’s daring. Talented. Loves our funky house. Understands our passion for modern. Great reasons for him to work with us on plans for the inside — and outside, on the retaining walls. Naomi Clare is his able assistant. Love her.
Both walls are well over 4′ tall. In Providence, that means you need an engineer to cover structural requirements and get your project approved by the city. Markus hooked us up with Erik Anders Nelson — an extremely clever engineer working at Structures Workshop, also an adjunct professor at RISD.
Got plans?
Heck yeah, we got plans! I’ll cut to the chase, since we’re playing catch-up anyway… Click the images to biggify.
Design for the back wall:
Engineering plans:
Actual walls up next! Bear with me, we’re almost caught up.
