I have crackle glass, like Menlopark. I’m quite happy to have no curtains in the MB
My bathroom floor is going down today. I honestly cried tears of joy. It’s soooo nice to be seeing significant progress! Kitchen counters come tomorrow and the bathroom cabinets. Yippee!!!
Gas into house and water heater installed. Big check to painters.
For me, this has been a summer of things needing my brain. Tmrw, gas gets turned on to house and water heater pilot lit. Alot of organizing and shedding upstaiirs. More to go.
I’d like opinions on re-doing our driveway. I’ll do my best to paint a picture of what we have: Our house is set back about 200 feet from the road, and the driveway slopes downhill. Currently the driveway is gravel and suffers from a couple problems, 1) there’s no defined border between the gravel and the surrounding landscaping (irregular and unattractive) and 2) the gravel is relatively unstable, resulting in bad traction as we drive up onto the public street, and a continually shifting driveway/landscaping interface and 3) the driveway needs to be re-graded and more gravel added every few years.
Replacing the entire thing in concrete is out of the question. It would be very expensive but, more importantly, doing so would violate our county’s restriction on the allowable amount of impermeable hard surface.
We considering a couple options: 1) Removing all of the gravel and installing a concrete “ribbon” driveway, essentially two 2 foot wide tire tracks from the road to near the house, where it would flare out into a wider approach into the garages. We would then install a stabilizing grid between and outside the concrete ribbons, which would be filled with topsoil and then hydroseeded with grass.
Option 2 would be to remove the existing gravel driveway, install a stabilizing grid, and then re-install a full width gravel driveway within the grid. In this case too we would also install extra grid and add grass around the driveway.
Option 3 is a hybrid between the two: a ribbon driveway filled with gravel instead of concrete, which would be cheaper, more environmentally friendly, and a little messier.
Of course we’re open to any other suggestions.
You could do it with permiable concrete. Google it, it’s pretty cool.
Or maybe a product called Turfstone, which is a concrete paver that only covers about 30% or so of the ground, or other permiable pavers which let the water drain out between the blocks: http://www.idealconcreteblock.com/product-details/items/turfstone.html
Tiling is under way:
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/32532343@N00/42288396990/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/32532343@N00/43378962504/in/dateposted-public/
And the reason you can see this is that the sun tunnels have been installed! Holy cow, what a difference. These things are great.
@notrichenough - I’d be a little uncomfortable about a contractor’s ability to lay a 12’ x 200’ driveway using pavers. I’ve seen too many paver based patios, etc., move over time. Now permeable concrete than can be formed and poured, that’s worth looking into.
Yes, solatubes are amazing!
@sherpa - is your driveway a straight run? I would worry about backing out and the tires running off the ribbons, or what might happen if you couldn’t see them under snow, or if the surrounding turf got really muddy.
In that case, I’d rather go with permeable concrete, or if that is too expensive, with the stabilizing grid and all gravel. But I hate to back out of curving driveways, so that’s me.
@sherpa - 2400 square feet, that’s a lot of pavers.$$$$
The Turfstone might be a good solution, do two paths for tires maybe 2’ wide each, and you fill the surrounding area with dirt to the top of the pavers, and I don’t think they are going anywhere.
@greenwitch for a 200’ driveway I would hope there’s a turnaraound so you don’t have to back out. I think most people would have trouble backing up that far in a straight line.
@greenwitch - The driveway is a straight run for 200 feet, but when it gets to the house we need to make a 90 degree turn to enter the side entry garages. We’ve already installed a concrete pad there, and it includes a turn around area.
The stabilizing grid we’re installing under the grass provides support and stability to the sod, such that the grass can be driven on. The product is commonly used for grass driveways and grass parking lots. I’ve considered using a “grass driveway” for the entire 200 foot driveway, but DW thinks it would look too weird.
^^I think it would be fine, @sherpa!
A grass driveway would make for good people watching as they try to figure out how to get from the road to your garage. I love the Idea of all grass but you might end up with ruts in your yard from cars that miss the driveway if it’s not clearly marked.
I will recommend this solution to neighbors who have a tiny two car driveway with wandering gravel.
FWIW we used to have sort of a lace curtain made of some plasticlike material in our street facing bathroom window. I wasn’t thrilled with it and when we remodelled I replaced it with frosted glass. It turns out I really don’t like not looking out the window, though I don’t think anyone else is bothered. It definitely provides enough privacy.
We have a 1920s sized garage in our backyard that we have never used for a car, so we ripped out the driveway in the backyard and put the plastic grid in. It makes the building department happy that we haven’t lost our garage and it makes us happy. It looks just like the rest of our yard, but if we have extra guests or a party we can pull our cars all the way back.
Some of the older driveways around here are just paved where the tires go. It’s not a bad look and you can put grass grid elsewhere.
Some green driveway examples:
https://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/22060754/list/how-to-build-a-greener-driveway
@rhododendron - I really like your term “wandering gravel”.
Regardless of whether we install a grass, “ribbon”, or conventional driveway, people driving of the grass will be a fact of life here, hence the decision to put the stabilizing grid under the turf. I’m always doing home improvement projects, which necessitates a flatbed trailer, and of course there’s the boat (you gotta love pulling 10-20 dungeness crab/week out of the water). Backing and parking trailers takes more space than we’re willing to dedicate to hard surface, so we’ve always known that we’d need to have a lot of our grass “drive-able”.
Oh @sherpa, you are making me homesick. I do love fresh crab. Maybe you need a CC work party/crab fest to lay all those pavers?
Our home improvement project has been a major undertaking. Three years ago we purchased a bank owned foreclosed house. It had been a 2000 sf house that had been built in the 80’s, but the prior owners embarked a a major remodeling project and bit off more than they could chew.
First they built an outbuilding consisting of about 2000 sf of garage/workshop area with an apartment above. Then they moved into the apartment and commenced the main home “remodel”, which was essentially the demolition of the home down to the subfloor, leaving only the attached three car garage and the laundry room (yes, there was a three car garage plus the 2000 sf RV/boat/multi-car garage/workshop).
Then they expanded the main house footprint to 2500 sf and added a full second story, for a total of 5000 sf, completed the framing, put on the roof, finished 3/4 of the exterior siding, and stopped making payments.
The home is on a bluff overlooking the Puget Sound. When we first visited it there were probably 100 Realtor’s business cards on a table; the place had been shown countless times; everyone could see the potential, but it was a disaster, with horrible windows, a ridiculous interior floor plan, and bird poop all over the place. To top things off the bank that owned it refused to offer financing and had “sold” it a couple times to buyers with financing contingencies, which transactions had failed when they had been unable to obtain conventional or construction financing.
We made the bank a low ball non-contingent cash offer, which was accepted. We spent several months re-drawing the architectural plans and re-submitting for a permit, and then moved into the apartment. We spent about a year splitting our time between of our prior home in Utah and the apartment overlooking our project. Every time we drove from Park City to Camano we’d haul a cargo trailer full of our belongings with us, which the mega-garage easily swallowed.
We replaced almost all of the windows, which was a shame since they were all new, but were an architectural nightmare (grids in inappropriate places, 8’ windows next to 6’8" doors, eyebrow windows which obscured fantastic view, etc.), re-worked the floor plan (not the worst of which was the his and her vanities laid out in an “L” shape, such that the parties’ butts would bump if simultaneously brushing their teeth), and took about a year to complete the remodel.
Aside from the IKEA cabinets, which DW assembled and we installed together, we didn’t do a lot of the labor. But we acted as our own general contractors, and made and implemented every decision. At times it was stressful, but well worth it.
We’ve been in over a year, but the projects continue. Last summer it was fences and retaining walls, and this spring and summer our focus was the garden shed, planter boxes, and gardens.
We’re very happy here. One of the best parts is being closer to our food source. We regularly harvest mussels off the rocks, we’re farming oysters on our beach, we are growing more than sufficient amounts of greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, beans, strawberries, and more, and this time of year I can easily pick a couple pints of wild blackberries every day. And the fresh crab…
In the post above I wrote “we didn’t do a lot of the labor” but, in retrospect that isn’t accurate. If digging post holes, cutting lumber, and using a jackhammer don’t count as labor, I don’t know what would. As a result of doing this project I’ve come to learn that with the internet, Home Depot, and a little patience, I can build a lot of things better, and much less expensively, than what a contractor would charge.
Funny story: I was in Lowe’s buying fencing materials and a woman started asking for all kinds of advice about building a fence. I was flattered to be consulted and, as she explained what she was trying to accomplish I listened intently, helped her figure out all the details, and developed a materials list for her. Finally, she asked if I’d be willing to come out to her place to give her a bid to build the fence. Confused, I told her I was just a homeowner like her and didn’t do that kind of thing, at which point she pointed to my t-shirt. Then it began to make more sense. I was wearing a “Duke Fencing” t-shirt that DD, the team captain, had given me.
Don’t have an opinion on the driveway, but the permeable stuff looks expensive 
For privacy on clear windows I am a big fan of top down shades or blinds. You can set them at the perfect height for privacy and still get decent natural light. In hindsight, I have no idea why we all have the total window blinds or shades, it cannot cost that much more to sell us the top down
@sherpa, that sounds like a huge project but an excellent investment to get the home exactly the way you want