August 27, 2008

And the winner is...

While Mrs. Tikihouse and I really appreciated all the thought and effort that went into all three designs, we ultimately went with an adapted version of option number two.

Design number two (click to enlarge)

Elevation of plan (click to enlarge)

I know many folks who have posted liked the soft and organic lines of option one and while we really liked the design, it did not fit 100% of the criteria we were looking for. As I mentioned in one of my return posts, we liked the two seating areas, but unfortunately the second seating area by the shed would not be utilized in the manor we were hoping for due to it's "bird's eye view" from the new brick 4 story building.

Photo: view of new 4 story brick building from shed patio

After our meeting, we felt so sure about option two that we sent Diana back to her studio (Fun City Design's website) to work up the final working plan for us to show the hardscape contractors we were calling and for an initial discussion with our friendly neighborhood developer. The remediation we had originally envisioned was a replacement of the existing patio (now trashed by the construction of the building next door, albeit with our permission) with an upgrade to a paver patio, rather than a concrete replacement. However, as we said in the first post, rethinking the back yard took us away from a "you break it, you bought it" mind set into what we "could do" vs. what we "thought we would do."

Photo: our "trashed patio/yard" on the other side of the construction fence.

The hope is that by working with a designer to help us formalize our ideas about the hardscape, we could make the replacement cost of the patio morph into something that would "be fair" to our developer friend, but also "make us happy" after the loan of half of our yard and dealing with all the quality of life issues associated with living next door to a new building development site.

Win-win, we hope.

Some specifics that we looked at as we went forward with the refinement of the plan was actual materials: pavers, types of blue stone/flag stone (do we reuse what we have), pea gravel vs. DG (decomposed granite [dust]), metal landscape edging vs. Belgium block retaining walls and the planters (concrete stacking product vs. cedar boxes).

Photo: reusable blue stone from our current (no longer private) patio by our shed

Photo: "Granite City Blend" by Nicolock (though we're looking at the tumbled version)

Potential concrete paver patio systems from Nicolock

Stackable planter systems from Nicolock and this one as a possibility.

There was also the initial discussion of if we did blue stone/flag stone for the seating area, would we have everything cut to fit (leaving little to no room between stones) or perhaps have them set in DG, then sweep in pea gravel to soften the transition between the seating area to the paths.

Photo: Flagstone and pea gravel example (for conceptual style and color possibilities) via Fun City Design.

In addition, how wide should the paths be vs. how wide do they need to be (48 inches was the standard, but that was wider than what we had, i.e. less planting space). And finally, while the veggie garden was moved and enlarged, we'd need to watch the sun to make sure it was the right move and right size. Did we need some additional space on the left side of the property?

Still a work in progress as we moved forward with selecting four hardscape (not landscape, that we'd be doing ourselves) contractors. Meetings and bids in our next post. Stay tuned and keep those comments coming!

Note: all plans posted on this reno blog are ©2008 Fun City Design (and we own these most recent ones!)

Posted by tikihouse at 9:00 AM | Comments (1)
Categories: Landscape design

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