2020 Retrospective

 

Well, if you look hard enough you can find beauty in this year.  This was our first full year in our 1914 craftsman bungalow.  Our first two months were spent creating plans for the property and our improvement wish list.  Little did we know that we'd make so much progress towards that list in 2020.  Amazing how much more time a person has at home during a pandemic!

Starting off the list was our studio makeover.  The property contained a building that's 12'x32' and a complete mess.  Originally it was a carriage house, but it had gone through a number of conversions through the years that left it in pretty bad shape.  We carved the building into two sections - a studio and a workshop.  We stripped the building down to the studs and began remaking it into something usable.  In March of 2020, we finished the studio.  The studio serves as a workout space and a home office.  Little did we know that we'd get so much use out of it in 2020!  We have planned the back workshop portion and expect to start work on that project in the coming weeks.  Stay tuned for further updates on that.

In parallel to completing the studio, we started planning out the landscape makeover.  We had a particularly rainy spring in 2020 and experienced some localized flooding.  From that we learned the drainage around our 1914 home was terrible.  Water is the enemy of an old house, so we began the effort of laying over 100 feet of drainage pipe.  Come May 2020, we had gutters installed on all three buildings and tied it into our new drainage system.  It wasn't a romantic project, but will help prevent damage to the old foundation.  It took months to complete, but had to be finished before breaking ground on the landscape hardscaping.

From there, we decided to remove 400+ feet of concrete from the property.  From past experience, we knew this was something we wanted to hire out.  Sure glad we made that decision.  The crew was here for a week removing concrete, and making a long cut down the remaining concrete driveway to install drains.  2020 was the year of drainage.  Glad that portion is over!

Once the concrete was removed, we had a blank slate and could finally start laying in the hardscaping.  We built a paver patio made from recycled rubber tiles, and a concrete paver patio area and pergola.  For this project, we moved approximately 9 tons of gravel and sand using an old dilapidated wheel barrow.  This is one of those projects you reflect back on and swear you'd never do by hand again.  Whew, we are very glad that this project is done and we reap the benefits of our labor on a regular basis.

We are finally at the stage of planting and layering in the softscaping.  We have started this effort and hope to finish it up before the end of the winter.  In the meantime, we've moved our efforts inside and have started stripping the painted woodwork in our living and dining rooms.  

This was a very big year for us.  It was a difficult year, but I can't imagine how we would've gotten through it without all the projects we accomplished.  When I reflect back on 2020 in the future, I will remember it as the year of the pandemic and the year we got so much done at our new house.  Hopefully I'll be doing that reflection while sitting in our beautiful landscape enjoying wine :)

Potager Nook

Sometimes procrastination leads to the best decisions.  We'd been trying to figure out since this spring what to do with the northeast corner of our house.  This area is part of our kitchen potager garden, and is the utility corner for cable, telephone and electricity.  We tried planting this area with veg, but nothing grew well in the mostly shady area.  It gets flooded with morning sun, and then remains shaded most of the day.

 

This weekend we built a small brick S curve patio with recycled bricks we had laying around.  Instantly, the area was transformed and now has a purpose.  We tested the nook today with our morning coffee and we love the area!  It is a great spot to enjoy morning coffee and to admire the garden.  Finally, a solution for an otherwise dead and difficult spot.

Potted Plants for Interest

 

We have a decent amount of concrete hardscape up the South side of the house that we decided to keep for our patio area.  However, we knew we needed to soften this with plants and with the help of Tree of Life nursery, we identified a number of natives that would be good candidates.

Today we got this Burroughsia Fastigiata planted and absolutely love the outcome.  The pot matches the scale, and we are very pleased with the free flow feel and growth pattern of this bush.  It is amazing how a plant in the right spot can change everything.  This pot is along the approach of the back yard landscape, and is serving as great visual interest.

The Big Day

 Well, we got our first rain for the season and we just couldn't wait any longer to start getting the landscape in.  We made our first big trip to Tree of Life nursery with a focus on getting all of the trees and the plants for one of the main garden beds.  Earlier in the week we received the water feature and got that installed.  The following is a preview of the finished product:

We're happy with the area, and especially like our new water feature.  We think it will add a lot of life to the landscape by drawing in birds, bees, dragon flies, and all the wonderful forms of life that water attracts.  Here is an overview of the plantings in this bed from left to right:

• Byrd Hill Manzanita (back left)
• Euphorbia Misera (front left)
• La Cruz Manzanita (mid left)
• White Sage (behind water feature)
• Eriogonum Dana Point (right side) x 2

Here's the original design we're working from and the expected scale when grown in.

We are looking to put one or two Salvia Cedrosensis in the bed, but the nursery was out.

We also got the California Bay, Toyon and the Ray Hartman planted.  It has already completely transformed the feel of the landscape.  All of the hardscaping took a tremendous amount of work, but seeing the plants go in is a real treat.  We are still looking to add some larger landscape rocks to soften it and add a more natural feel.  

More about the plants can be found on this list.

 

Native Plant Palette Set

 The native California plant palette has been set with the help and direction of Randi Gunder at Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano.  Randi is a Landscape Designer and a tremendous help to us as we evaluate and plan the next steps of our native landscape.

So, why native?  There are many reasons that we chose to go with a more native landscape.  First, I have always enjoyed the great outdoors and am most impressed with mother natures ability to create grand gardens.  These eco-systems always seem to strike a balance and plants flourish.  Second, the native plants of the region are well adapted to the climate, and therefore require much less water and are less susceptible to disease.  Third, I appreciate the small and proportional flowers and showmanship of native plants.  Far to often I see plants that have been bred to produce flowers they can barely hold up.  To me this looks like a Frankenstein anomaly, and I struggle to find the beauty in it.  I am convinced that many of the natives produce better looking foliage with striking colors and textures.  These plants have evolved to protect themselves for survival and the armor that they've built is beautiful and purposeful.  And finally, native plants draw wildlife and insects while maintaining a natural balance.  These are just some of the reasons why we're committed to an 80% native plant garden.

We arrived at the Tree of Life Nursery at around 11am.  From there, we sat with Randi and shared the work that we'd done to date.  She had prepared a base drawing using photos I had sent her earlier.  Fifteen minutes into the design consultation and we were browsing the Nursery grounds discussing plants, textures, insects and fragrance.  This was a really wonderful way to develop the conversation and learn about each others tastes and interests.  In fact, we learned a lot about what native plants make great cocktail infusions.  What a fun idea!

After an hour of discussing plants and looking at all different shapes and sizes, Randi was off to the races heads down building out a conceptual landscape plan based on our likes, the space we have and all the considerations that we discussed.  There was some discussion during the design/drawing phase to clarify and work towards the final product.  This took her approximately 45 minutes, and the final product was this:

To better visualize this, I loaded the plants into a spreadsheet and attached photos.  The IDs in the document correspond to the numbers on the design.  This document makes up the palette that we plan to work with.  We are making a few adjustments and will continue to look at this for the next couple of months as we plan the planting project in phases.

Overall, our experience working with Randi and the Tree of Life nursery was exceptional.  It was exactly what we were looking for.  We had spent months looking at books, but were overwhelmed with the choices and needed direction.  Her help to build the palette was what we needed and we would recommend it to anyone taking on this type of project.

Then and Now

 When living in an old house I like to imagine what it would've been like to live there at the time the house was built.  What is the story that the home tells?  In Tacoma, I lived on D street and discovered that it was  where the street car travelled from Puyallup into downtown Tacoma.  That street was a flag-stop area -- there were no dedicated stations, you would just flag the street car down and jump on.  In Long Beach, the Red Line street car system would've been in operation for 12 years at the time this house was built.  From what I can tell, it would've travelled down Broadway which would've been the nearest stop from our house.

It is crazy to think how things have changed 106 years later in 2020.  First, Los Angeles county became an area completely reliant on the car where as before it had one of the nations most extensive street car systems.  How would've daily life been different without the tremendous reliance on the car?  What about design, would houses, building and retail coridors look different?  Would the area have sprawled like it did, or would it have grown upwards like New York and Chicago?  Would we see urban development more centered around street car lines?

Turns out the last trip on the red line was sometime in the early 1960s.  Just 9 short days before it was completely shuttered, the following video was shot from the front of the red line street car as it departed downtown LA towards Long Beach.  

It is a pretty amazing experience to watch this and to consider how things have changed.  How will they change again and where will they go?

At some point in the future I would like to research this further and learn more about what it was like to live in this home in 1914.  For now, this is a pretty good glimpse into what was and the extent by which it all has changed.

Paint Stripping

 We have started the long process of stripping and restoring the wood work in our 1914 craftsman bungalow.  From what we can tell so far, it appears that the woodwork has been painted at least 40 years which means several layers of oil based paint.

From past experience, I know this is a long arduous process.  Our goal is to strip most of the woodwork in the living room and dining room areas.

We purchased the Speedheater 1100 kit to start the process.  It is a hefty $500 device to strip paint, but if it helps, it will be well worth the investment.

We have been at it for around 30 minutes, and we've already made noticeable progress.  Having used chemical strippers, I can tell you that this is much faster and less messy.  In the next couple of months we will be posting a more detailed review of the paint stripping device as well as more progress photos.