Concrete 1; Us 0

July 2012

We were so impressed with how quick and easy the back porch cover went up that we didn't fully estimate how much work we still had to do.  We were really only about 1/5th of the way into the project.  Our next step was to remove the remaining concrete that surrounded the porch that we longer wanted or needed.  

We had cut the concrete back in May when we depaved the driveway, but due to the unexpected depth, we realized we would not be able to remove the pieces in slab form and would instead need to break them up further with a jack hammer.  I was honestly dreading this part more than anything.  We had spent three weekends already jack hammering and moving large concrete pieces around.  I had breathed a sigh of relief when they removed the dumpster a month earlier.  Now here I was again.

 The good news was that the weather was much better.  Also, our friend let us borrow a jack hammer so we did not have any additional costs.  Since Josh was a pro at it we devised a system where he jack hammered a section for about 5 minutes and then took a ten minute break while I picked up the pieces and carried them to a tarp in our backyard.  This would be the THIRD tarp in our backyard filled with debris.  Urgh. 

This system worked great and most of the concrete came up pretty easy.  Within one morning session we had successfully removed all the remaining concrete. Hurray.  Unfortunately, we were now left with a dirt wasteland from our car to the porch and a very intimidating concrete pile.  Honestly, I cannot imagine how much our neighbors hated our Saturday concrete removal.

 

With the big equipment spent, we ordered more Western Red Cedar from the same guy who got us the wood for the front yard raised beds.  Our goal was for them to look as identical as possible.  We also had a bunch of left over wood we were excited to use up and get out of our garage.  While we waited for the wood to be delivered.  Josh leveled the area where they new raised beds would go.   He used some of our broken concrete pieces to act as a sturdy foundation and we spread pea gravel over the area to help make sure the wood would not be sitting directly on the wet earth.

This picture makes it look like we are building a fortification structure around our patio. Apparently we needed to ward off a Garden Gnome attack.

 

 

By the end of the weekend there was not much to show for our hard work except more piles.  But freeing up all that soil for more planting space felt great and we were excited to move forward with the raised beds. 

Depaving the Castle

May 2012

Some of you may know that Josh and I have been involved in an organization called Depave for the last three years.  We like to take a few summer weekends and give back to our community that has been so welcoming.  We volunteer to help rip up asphalt and concrete at schools, churches and small businesses to allow for green space, water infiltration, and general place making.  After doing this for over 10 locations we have really seen the benefits.  The transformation of black top to gardens, playgrounds, and bio swales have been truly inspiring.  One of the things Depave wanted to try was to have a workshop to show how homeowners can depave their own properties.  In Portland,  many of our small yards are filled with driveways and parking areas that we don't use. These spaces could be growing plants, absorbing water and providing habitats for animals and birds. 

 We offered up our house as a good candidate for the workshop.  We actually share our driveway with our neighbor Mary.  In the backyard we have a confusing, code breaking triple garage that we share with a huge parking pad in front.  I mean huge.  The pad actually is one continuous concrete area that is our patio, parking spot, two other parking spots and her own patio.  It was a crazy 100' x 20' area which frequently flooded due to a capped storm sewer line.  We decided we would be willing to remove huge areas to become flower beds, gravel parking, and a center planting strip to improve our drainage and allow rain to sink into the ground and refresh the water shed instead of running back into the street and sewer.

All in all, it was about 1,500 square feet to remove.  We designed a landscape plan, ordered tons of gravel, rented a concrete saw and bought plants in preparation for 30 workshoppers, 10 depavers, and one videographer to document our progress.  This was a big project, which in many ways will not improve the value of our home, or even make a huge difference in curb appeal.  However, we felt it was the right thing to do for our planet and for the organization.

The weekend before in the relentless rain that is May in Portland we worked to get the space ready for the workshop.  We look down our fence which divided the patio from our parking spot, pre-cut the concrete, selected the materials, and made numerous trips to get supplies ready.  Plants in hand, on soggy and cool Saturday we started to work....

Installing French Doors... Creatively

 May 2011

Back in December, we had purchased a beautiful french door to replace our horrible 1970's sliding doors to the backyard. The installation of these doors was sure to be life changing, not only because they were gorgeous solid wood with divided lights and shiny oil-rub bronze handles, but, also because our current sliding door did not operate properly and required you to pick the door up and slide it. I really can't write enough bad things about the old door.  It didn't have a lock, so that meant the front door was the only exterior entrance to the house, and it didn't always lock in general.  Thus, it was often 'open' to any robber or raccoon who was willing to lift a 80 pound door and slide it (luckily this appeared to be no one).

 

Before I start, I also want to say... we knew this was going to be a big project.  The current door was eight feet long, our new door was only 6 feet wide.  This meant we would need to frame in a 2' stud wall, and we were a little nervous about how the current door was installed since nothing in our house from the 1970's appeared to have been done right.   Josh and I decided this was probably a little too big to be an only-us-project.  We decided to hire a guy from his work to come and help out.  Jeff showed up early on Saturday morning and quickly removed the glass door panels exposing the frame. He then removed the exterior trim so we could see how it was installed.

It was a mess. They had cut the foundation back to install the new door, they had also installed a 4"x4" post as the header (to those not in construction, an 8 foot span should have at least a 2"x8" or 4"x"8 header).  But perhaps the most disturbing was that the header was not supported by anything on one side (see left hand side in picture).  The sliding glass door was literally hold up all of our house above.  A quick trip to Lowes was in order, Josh rushed off to buy some additional lumber.  Jeff and I talked about what we wanted to do.  The good news is that we were making the hole smaller.  We decided that to take the 4"x4" header out (which had to it's credit been holding everything up and was level) was not a good idea.  We figured it we supported each end of it with a king stud (this is two studs doubled up) and but another king stud on the side of the door we would have enough transfer points to not replace the header.  Now that structure was figured out we looked at the sill for the door.  Urgh

 

The last owners had  set the door frame into concrete.  Who does that? How do you remove a steel track embedded in concrete? At this point I need to tell you a little more about Jeff.  Jeff's real name is Jeff Ditch (honest to goodness) he is a beast of a man about 6'-4" easily 240lbs and sports one hell of a mustache.  Jeff was definitely not going to admit that this door had him stumped. I went in the kitchen, which is 3 feet away, to make some coffee and ponder what to do about the huge hole in our house when the entire house started shuddering... I rush to the stairs to see Jeff bare handed ripping the steel door track from my house.  I think I just stood there with my jaw open.  As my house cried uncle, he yanked and yanked until the darn thing had corkscrewed and pulled completely off. Jeff Ditch: 1.... House: 0

At this point, Josh returned and we just started framing everything back as if nothing insane had just happened. We installed both the dog door and the french door in (a perfect fit!).  Jeff told us that since the original door had not been installed on a wood sill, we would have to install the new door the same way, ie. imbed the doorplate in concrete. It was getting close to 4pm in the afternoon.  Jeff promised to come back the next day and add the concrete.  I was so tickled with our new door, but the entire process was a little blurry... did we just rip a huge hole in our house? Did we just discover a structural death trap?  Did that man just rip steel out of concrete with his bare hands? Is it okay that I can see daylight around the door when I am in my kitchen?  They don't show these moments on TV.