Modern Landscape - Summer 2011 Progress

For almost every weekend since winter has past, we've been working hard to finish selecting plants for the enclosed concrete landscape beds along the front of our house.  Before we begin, have a look at where we started with beige 80's mania.  Lately, everything has started to fill in nicely, we are sitting back enjoying our new view(s) so it's time to share our progress.  On the left side approaching our house we have two tiered beds, and along the front we have one really long bed that gets varying levels of sun and shade which has made our plant selection tricky.

On the far left we have a full sun perennial garden and closer up the higher bed is half sun (angularly) and half shade.  We've always done well with a couple of annuals, the rest are perennials.   This bed is in almost full summer bloom and adds a nice splash of color against the front of the house.  

A close up of the mixed color.  Echinacea flowers in the rear add a natural screen wall to the far side of our house.  Up front are some summer phlox, veronica candles, different echinacea, and balloon flowers.  Behind the tall echinacea, we have our herb garden. 

Over in front of the concrete porch we poured a few years ago and adjacent to the newer walkway slabs we poured last spring is our other full sun perennial garden.  We've tried to mix a lot of color throughout the seasons to contrast against the gray color of the house.  Next year, this bed should be a slow fireworks display of color. 

On the other side of this bed is a totally different color array of flowers.  The long planting bed is made up of three different sections predicated on the quantity of sun each area receives.  We've tried to stick to only flowering perennial plants in this section. 

 

Looking straight at the full sun bed, there's a mix of agastache, echinacea, geranium, salvia, liatris, & shasta daisies. We are planning to add   allium bulbs to have some early spring blooms.

The middle section is full shade due to our thriving Magnolia tree. We've kept is simple here with impatients and some spiderwort clusters. Over time the spiderwort will take over a majority of this area hopefully.  It's a finicky plant, only blooms once a day in the morning for a short period.

On the far side is our almost full shade garden. Last year we had planted 5 azaleas to anchor this bed. Unfortunately, due to an accident by our roofers we lost two of them. We moved the remaining plants spacing the 3 survivors evenly and added some columbine, astilbe, and irish moss along the back side. The astilbe and columbine are spring bloomers and looked great when they were in bloom.

Walking pack along the paver path to the front door we added phlox down the entire length of the bed, previously we had only done half the length.  It now anchors the whole bed and is slowly growing over the edge of the wall.  This also flowers in early spring before almost anything else.  Behind the phlox is a row of shasta daisies.  

From our front door looking straight on the walkway.  We've prescribed to mostly geometric, linear arrangements, this bed is the anomaly, but it's a good thing.  We scored the large planter shortly after moving in the house at a DWR warehouse sale and have it stuffed full of cascading flowers.

Trying to catch a little color in front of the dark gray.  All this is the culmination of several years of work, we are glad to be at a point of completion.  You'll have to forgive all the kid toys in the photos, this is the way we roll most of the time with two young kids you have to keep it real.

Mid Century Modern Curb Appeal Poll

Happy New Year, hello next decade. In three more years our house will be 60 years old, vintage for sure. Last we looked, we were well on our curb appeal road with new house color, concrete, screenwall, and walkways all completed. Still left to do is completing the mortar on the screen wall, as it will sit freestanding until spring. Additionally, the roofline needs addressed, ahem, redone & the main walkway up to the house will be removed and redone. Currently you can see the temporary patch job between the old curvilinear concrete walkway and the new inset porch step.

To start the new year off with a bit of evolution, welcome the first ever Cincinnati Modernation poll. This is my first poll 'gadget' in use so let's hope all works well. The poll is located in the upper right of the page. I decided to play with some Photoshop caricature concepts that illustrate our color schemes we hope to start working on as soon as the weather allows. With the temps in the teens today, I don't this will be anytime soon, plenty of time for debate. Trying to keep warm with single pane glass is a challenge in itself.

The first photo is the current situation, second is a dark gray bonanza that limits the palette, perhaps the concrete step should remain unpainted as it matches the concrete soffit nicely. Third up is a bit of throwback to the house's original maroon color, and was part of what we originally planned to do.

Finally a more 'Palm Springs' approach with a white roofline and white concrete walkway. The overcast sky doesn't help the white pop as it would on a clear day and blue sky background. I could see the Salterini orange slice chairs being a nice powder coated white to match as well, clean & clean!

Mid Century Modern Curb Appeal Part 2

The weather has been a bit abnormal of late here in the Nati. Barring this past week of coldness including two freezing evenings, it had repeatedly rained on our planned painting weekends two weeks in a row. Prior to this first photo of the street view of our house, pre-primed, most the windows had been reglazed & I sealed all the material connections with silicone. Additionally our fence on the right side of the house that screens the trash has been removed.

Speaking of the trash, we're going to build a new screen wall. The second photo is of my mini mock up of a couple different 4" concrete blocks. The old fence can be seen behind, definitely a 'Gene it up' special, and in much need of replacement. The new electric meter is now on the side of the house adjacent to the downspout. We are thinking to build the new screen wall with the lighter colored block that has two holes. Taking the wall up to the window sill will provide an adequate screen height and the block coursing would align with the brick evenly at that height. The block also matches the concrete color of our porch and soon to be landscape walls.

Finally, a couple weekends ago the rain broke and we got down to some priming. In a few hours one morning I was able to get about halfway across the front of the house moving right to left as can be seen in the third photo. If you look close you can see some of the many cracks that were silicone injected. I feel like we spent eternity on prep work, completed with taping off around all the glass. We were also lucky enough to break the painted seal holding our storm door glass insert so that could be painted separately.

Stepping back a bit in the fourth photo reveals another curb appeal project in progress being our concrete landscape walls. We went back and forth debating whether to do the walls out of the same block as the screen wall or to pour concrete. Having poured the porch myself I thought this was another good project for me to 'weekend warrior' it up. My logic soon proved wrong. Our neighbors across the street were having their entire driveway repoured. A quick quote from their contractor was very reasonable with materials & tool already onsite an advantage for him. Better yet, having asked for the quote on a Friday, they would start the following day and pour on Sunday.

The walls are intended to be extensions of the front porch and will provide us with a nice area to landscape and add some color and depth to replace the lack of any real landscaping up close to the house. The walls align with the ends of the house and the front porch steps. The walls are 6" wide and 18" deep continuously on both sides with wire mesh. The fifth photo is looking toward our driveway, almost a 30' run of concrete wall. We were priming while they were building the formwork.

The sixth photo shows the end of the concrete wall enclosure returning to the house and where the new screenwall will be. I had them pour a small stem wall for me to mortar the new screenwall onto. This wall is merely an extension of the other landscape walls which are all kept level with the porch finish elevation. I have to say I'm glad we went with concrete, the original idea in lieu of the economical block that would have felt forced.

The final photos are of the concrete pour, an hour of pure excitement was had. There's always energy in the air when the concrete truck pulls up to pour. Getting to sit back and watch someone else do some work for us was pure luxury. The concrete walls would have taken me into winter to do on my own and these guys were lightning fast. Next up will be some more progress of our curb appeal project.

Mid Century Modern Curb Appeal Part 1

Our latest and greatest project has been our ever ongoing work to enhance the exterior 'curb appeal'. As mentioned in an early post, the outside of our MCM had a fun 80's exercise in the school of 'Gened up'. The first photo is our first look at the house on a very rainy day in May of 2005. Note some of the Gene interventions: fake green shutters; new electric meter on the front of the house with hideous galvanized pipe; angular lumber enclosed planting beds; vertical slatted blinds; and a lovely glass front storm door, complete with beveled glass and brass detailing.

We have had our work cut out for us with a complete 'curb appeal' overhaul, having done most of the completed work in 'mini-project' approach. A couple years ago, I pulled out all the front landscaping, including the wood enclosures and white gravel. We then poured the front concrete porch, a maturation of the original exterior concepts. I left the existing concrete landing and wrapped it with a new slab and inset step to match. The new concrete color juxtaposes nicely with the old weathered landing. Most likely the landing will get painted dark grey to match the house.

The large air conditioner was removed last summer, with glass replacing it's huge chunkyness on the front of the house. Last summer I scored an awesome 1950's MCM front storm door from a local salvage company, Building Values. It took 6 months to come across the right door, but this one might be a duplicate of the original. The door is simply trimmed with a removable glass frame, even the color almost matched our original maroon color.

This past Spring, a bad storm caused the next door oak tree to drop a huge limb that ripped out our entire electric service, meter and all. Long story short, we lived for almost a week off a generator. In the end we had the new meter and service installed on the side of the house, the required piping, etc was installed very cleanly next to our downspout to conceal it from the street view, photo to come in follow up posts.

We also installed two lines of aggregate pavers that were sitting stacked out back when we bought the house. The smaller ones are set in gravel next to the porch and along the entire front of the house with aluminum landscape edging. The larger ones are offset parallel to the porch. Part of our larger idea is to have a long rectilinear planting bed between these two walkways. Currently we are debating on whether to pour concrete or to set some patterned pavers for the landscape enclosure. The jury is still out. The outline of this new enclosed area can be seen in the fifth photo. Currently I've dug the trench for the concrete or paver enclosure.

With the studio roof recenlty fixed we've shifted gears to working outside while the weather is still nice. Painting the front of the house and getting the landscape enclosure finished is the goal before fall sets in. We've decided to go with a dark grey for the front color of the house (see sample in the third photo). We think this will compliment the red of the brick and keep the color scheme simple. The existing tan is going to remain on the flat roofline until next spring, unless we get our act together and go painting bonanza.

Around the new front storm door, we have patched all the gouges and nailheads from the installation. Since I reused the original redwood, I knew I had this tedious chore coming, much of the jamb face had damage, insert wood putty. A lot of ivy once covered our house, a ton of its remnants have left their mark on the concrete fascia and soffit. We decided not to paint the concrete finish, but to clean it and patch as necessary.

We certainly have had a few good laughs at how our house has looked, oh, for the past year or so. With a red front door, a white primed window, the other windows sage green, and chicken pox on our front door, how can you not laugh? The antique house numbers on the mail chute door have been removed and its come time to work on the windows. I have re-glazed several windows on the house and have to say, reinstalling new glass in a metal casement window is no easy task. We are focusing on painting the front 'wooden rectangle' face with a lot of window prep work before painting. We are going to extend around to the redo the two studio windows in the next phases.

This past weekend we scraped all the old caulk around the wood and windows in preparation to re-seal all the material connections, currently the front wall is quite drafty. I started reglazing with the largest window, you can see some process in the last three photos. Basically, you warm the glazing up in your hand, roll out small ropes and finger apply the glazing compound into a 45 degree angled profile from the glass to metal frame. Followed with several passes with a 1" putty knife, you work the putty to a nice smooth finish. It took me 4 hours from start to finish on the large window and the smaller adjacent window. The fresher the window glazing the smoother the job.