Cooper Jackson

When I got some poison ivy on my hand last weekend I had to sit out Saturday yard activities while the medication healed my hand. I could however dream up what the patio is going to look like when I get done. So I spent some time with google sketchup. Luckily I spent some time in autocad class when I was in high school and now this is really paying off.

Patio design from roof perspective

The fireplace / bbq and pizza / bread oven I took from an existing model. Mainly as place holders because I will be using different materials mainly scraps to build mine. However I needed to get the spacing right. I am also planning on surrounding most of the patio with pergola and grape vine growing up it. That is really a fall project and the patio is this summer.

Patio from the kitchen window

The other important view is from the kitchen window. Melissa wants a view of the far back yard. This is probably going to mean that the pergola can run on the right and left side of this view. And the back will need to stay open. I have some ideas on how to make this cool. Also wanted the pergola to provide some amount of shade so it is more critical for the pergola to be on the left side than the right.

Any feedback?

Its been awhile since the last email update to family & friends on the progress of the restoration of the Leslie House.  I think what did us in was that we got the house to a livable, yet unfinished condition.  So now we are progressing a little more casually.  Our projects have no deadline now, and so we start them and don’t necessarily rush to finish them.

This for example is one such project:

Previously, this was our backyard.  Currently, it is a mudpit, soon to be patio and hopefully some grass, if it ever decides to grow  back.  Now, the project began in earnest in March – Lateef spent an entire cold day outside digging out the patio dimensions, and using the excess dirt to level the rest of the yard with.  Here it is July, and we still have the big hole that was soon to be patio.  We’ll work on it a little each weekend – getting the gravel, the sand, looking at bricks, etc – but we’ve also allocated our time to the myriad of other projects that need to get done – the front porch, finishing painting the inside, hanging up towel bars, installing closet shelves, etc.  So basically the patio project has gotten an average of 1 hours worth of attention per week since we have started.

There are so many things that have changed. Drywall is up and it is looking really good on the inside of the house. It is an amazing thing that the Leslie House is starting to actually look like a house. They made Victorians really strong and nice but man are they hard to renovate. Every time we say that is the last demolition, rot or thing that we have to replace we end up replacing something else. So yes I am sure there is more somewhere that we will replace. We are celebrating this massive success.

Latest and greatest Leslie House Newsletter 10-29-07 which documents a lot of work. We are currently working on the next one which should be coming soon after Thanksgiving.

Probably one of the main reasons we got suckered into this restoration project was the stained glass oval window at the front of the house. Well after 130 years, even the window was sagging a little. So we CAREFULLY took the window out, and brought it to Yolanda at Celestial Glassworks. She recognized the manufacturer of the original glass and they are still in business today, so she ordered some replacement pieces for some that were damaged, took it all apart and put it back together again. Take a look and click on the image for a larger size pic….

Lateef says we are infatuated with the insulation. Although I say we would have come out on top $$$-wise if we just took stacks of dollar bills, crumpled them up one by one, and stuck them in the walls for the insulation. We were going to do this, however, the inspector said something about the R-value, and well, we ended up with the Icynene aka melted marshmellow insulation.

I wish we had pictures of how they applied it, but we were both at work. Visualize the foam coming out of the gun and sticking to the walls, then within 8 seconds expanding into a massive marshmellow textured clump. Then after it has dried, the people come along with machete-looking swords and shave off the excess so it lines up perfectly with the studs.

What is our friend Latif doing here , holding up the walls of the attic?

Guess strangeness runs with the name sometimes:

You know that you are over 30 when the top of conversation that really interests you is kitchen cabinets. Cherry, Oak, Pine oh my! At the moment we are thinking cherry! Well couse it is cherry. We don’t have this much cabinet space but we liked the look of them.

Then there is the problem of the “style” of the cabinets.

Did I mention the hardware options:

Did I even get to the part about the counter tops? No well lets save that for later because that is the current wrestling match I think we have the cabinets pretty much close to settled. Cherry with a shaker style cabinets and then we are going to use glass .. or maybe a wine rack above the fridge no no we are going to put that in the island. Ahhhh.

The above title is what we want to use for our proposed pilot TV show, which would be a cross between ‘This Old House’ and one of those fix-up / carpentry shows which feature a muscle-bound, pretty guy who also happens to be a great carpenter.

Neil is a guy we met a few months ago at a house in the neighborhood, who fits the above description. He has been nice enough to help our progress at the Leslie house lately and has been the main driver behind getting the porch project done. Neil is sometimes joined by sidekick Chris (who would also fit well into the TV show) and Chris has also been valuable at ensuring this porch looks beautiful.

So, who’s up for watching This Old Neil?! All we need is a sponsor for the pilot.  Below is Chris and Neil rocking the porch project:

We have made some great progress over the last month….plumbing, electrical, hvac have all been roughed in. Today the in-wall sound system, telephone, and network cabling goes in. All but 9 windows in, more outside painting, porch floor down, brick stairs. Geez what more could even be left to do? Oh yeah, we bought almost all of the light fixtures, all of the bathroom vanity, the appliances, and even the kitchen sink.

Lateef has been working like a madman at work while I have been doing less formal work, but am the main pusher of the Leslie house project. I believe I lucked out in this, because I am really having alot of fun picking contractors, coordinating work, checking up on the daily progress.
Here are some pics:

It would seem slow progress but we are taking anything we can get. The goal was to get the house painted before we get married. It is defiantly going to be a challenge however looks to be possible. I don’t think we will be able to get the porch done by then I need a good 6 days working with a carpenter to finish that up and I only have one schedule before we get married. And that day is to finish up a sill replacement on the side of the house. Melissa has had a lot faster and better progress than me. She has gotten her college crew to prime almost the entire house. And they are now painting it. If I wasn’t so far behind on the carpentry then we would
defiantly get all the painting done before the wedding.

I created a photo album which has a number of pictures for this May. Some demo work that we did, painting and a little sun burn Melissa got. This week our mason will be redoing the foundation for the front porch and poring some new pillars for the repair work that I am doing on the side of the house.

This weekend we will start restoring the windows. Which will include taking them out cleaning them up, painting them, clean up the frames and installing them back into the frames. I think we will be lucky to get 2 done in a day. Still shaky on the trim colors for the house however Melissa seems very close to making a final decision.