Last weekend again fell victim to the weather. Beth and I got some more plants for the patio and picked out paint for the steps and doors. I seem to have a habit of picking out obnoxious fire-engine red, but I guess I like it because its bold and not boring. It always seems like the paint swatch appears darker and less intense then it does when it gets on the door. The good news is, some how I picked out a shade that is not too far off what the garage door was painted already. All in all I am happy with how it looks so far after two coats:
As you can see here the steps are primed and ready for the gray paint that was picked out Sunday morning. It keeps raining so I haven’t had a chance to wipe down the steps, let them dry, and start putting paint on them. The door atleast is set back a bit and really doesn’t get rained on. With any luck I can put a 3rd and final coat on before the weekend. On the right in the dead area between the stairs and the neighbor’s wall, I picked up some 12″ block and made a step like structure to support some more plants. At the top of the picture you will notice the bottom of the old sanitary pipe on the outside of the house. If you’ve been reading for a while you’ll remember what a struggle it was for my Dad and I to cut down the 8′ section we did. Maybe this summer I will get bored/brave enough to try and cut some more of it down.
Appearing again on the list of unfinished items is the area around the stained glass above the door. It needs a coupe more pieces of trim and some paint. I hope to take care of that in the near future as I am actually wrapping things up on the patio quicker then expected.
As I have found with almost every project I have gotten into with this house, there is really no clear cut, blanket explanation about how to do things. When we built the fence, the downspout had to be moved. It was originally sitting on what was basically the property line.
Problem solved right? Well its tough to explain… I know this is not in any way exciting, but I guess on the off chance someone else is dealing with a similar situation, maybe this series of pictures will help in some way. From here, the water goes into a piece of drain pipe and dumps out into a trough in the front of the garage wall:
That trough runs along the garage wall until it gets to the garage door. At which point we arrive at my next project:
At some point someone decided the garage door wouldn’t close because of the concrete curb. They broke some of it off. Now the door closes, but the garage gets wet during a heavy downpour.
Previously I had run pieces of downspout like a game of snake all the way from the wall of the house, down the patio, down the front of the garage wall, under the door and out the back of the garage into the alley. This all seemed good in theory, but that only got all of the roof water to the alley. The rest of the water would get trapped either at the door or overflow the trough somewhere in the garage.
Look its even still damp! What a mess. You may recall when this area was filled with trash it would over flow. You may also recall when the house had no working bathroom…well anyways…
The garage is clearer now. There is one solitary pile of trash and a rusty old hot water heater begging to be taken to the dump sitting in the middle. A wooden ramp that my brother some how snuck in there occupies some more space. Some top secret tools take up some other space. All in all, a marked improvement of months past.
To quote my friend Chris, “you’ll never get your car in there.” At this point, hes kind of right. It looks more like I’m trying to start a BMX shop. I’ll get to my whole plan for getting a roll up door and building a demising wall, but that’s on the back burner for now. A cleaner garage for now means that I can do some concrete work to stop the water from getting anywhere but out the back of the house. I will try and build some forms this weekend and perhaps at least pour a new curb/step for underneath the door. Aside from the countless interior projects I have left to finish up, I am happy to have gotten the patio 90% complete.
Its funny that there is even garage talk today as the car is in for major surgery at the moment…but thats whole other money pit story.
I think that is all for now. Stay tuned.
