Spring and New Life

Two Thanksgivings ago, on our first official visit to our new home after closing, one of the first to-do's on my list was removing a twenty-plus foot tree that was growing against the front side of our porch.  I finished the task the day before Thanksgiving.  In the same location as the tree, there was a rather large vine attached to a makeshift wire trellis hanging on the side of the house.  This past Summer, my Wife and I removed the vine and any signs of anything ever being in the location.  The only signs that something did exist were the tree stump and the stump remains of the vine.  Little did I realize what this Spring would bring...

There are several more of the same color just to the right of the pic.  I was both surprised and pleased.  Knowing the vine had been there for a very long time, this may be the first time the tulips have bloomed in decades and is a testament to the hardiness of a flower that has received no care!  I would like to believe Viola Zirkel, herself, planted the bulbs.

We are preparing to landscape directly in front of the house this month.  Once these tulips finish their blooming cycle and regenerate by September, I'll be relocating them to a more appropriate location near the front steps.  They deserve a much better place than where they are today.

Back Porch

As I was perusing through the blog, I realized there wasn't a before-and-after of the back porch.

During the home inspection process, the ideas began swirling in my head about what to do with the back entrance to the house.  The existing function wasn't workable with an immediate step-down from the rear entrance and 2x4's, which were surprisingly solidly mounted, as hand railings.

So, in usual fashion, I began doing a lot of online research for elements that would blend with the original style of the house.  The goal was to have something that looked like it would have been an original feature.  Interestingly, houses built during this period with doors above grade didn't have covered back porches. During our many walks through the neighborhood, we journeyed through many alleys looking for an example to gather inspiration. It didn't matter if the house was valued at three hundred thousand or two million dollars, what I was looking for didn't seem to exist. The only thing I could find  were small shed or hip roofs over the rear entrance and, even, those were rare.  Decks were common, but nothing covered.  Even our house had, at least two iterations of a deck, the most recent, of which, was an enormous structure that I was able to confirm after looking at an archived satellite view and street view on Google maps.

Inspiration

The main goal was to have something which covered the rear entrance, since we would be having the sliding glass door replaced with a solid wood door. Also, the flooring directly inside the house would have the tile removed and replaced with solid wood flooring--there needed to be something at the rear entrance to protect everything from the elements, namely moisture.  Eventually, I found a design online that I thought would blend nicely: not too big and met the functional goal without being an obtrusive addition to the house.  I made some modifications that would allow it to blend in with the house.  After getting the final approval from my Wife, the next step was to get our, eventually, hired contractor to make the vision a reality...


Below is a before and after.  We are very pleased with the end product, although there were definitely some major bumps which occurred during the construction, but I won't go into the details of it here--even the most experienced contractor can screw up the most simple, foundational elements (i.e. pier locations, ensuring the perimeter deck joists were square).  The back porch is just 4ft x 6ft, but exactly the size we wanted.  It was never meant to have a party on, but, instead, to provide a simple function--weather protection.

Before & After

Winter "Pruning"

Time to catch up on a few items, the first being the trees...

Before and the first weather delay

After we purchased our house last year, we made our first, official visit as new homeowners during Thanksgiving week (2019).  One of the things I noticed was the large, mature White Poplar in the back corner of the yard.  It was very large and had 5 main leaders, each, of which, was the size of medium sized tree. One of the concerning things was one of the leaders was dead and hanging almost entirely in our neighbor's back yard.  Also, since Poplars are a soft wood, large limbs would break off during windy days and my main concern being all the power lines and telephone/cable lines within 20 feet of it.  The tree had to go, but we knew we would wait until the following Fall to have it removed.

Crane spanning over our garage to the back of the lot

The first quote we received was astronomical ($10k), which, in my mind, was the company's polite way of saying, "we don't want the job".  But, I persisted and found a company to do the difficult work.  In all, we had three trees removed: the big White Poplar in the back corner of the yard and a smaller, albeit, large one closer to the house. The second tree was between two Blue Spruce trees and it definitely was impacting their health: falling limbs, competing for moisture, and shading the Spruce.  The last tree was in the front yard along the street--a Siberian Elm.

Before and during the process

After a few delays, due to snow, the initial work was done the week of Thanksgiving. We were excited for the work to begin, since the first available scheduling for the initial date was over two months prior. It took two full days to remove the trees with the large tree being the main challenge.  The electrical line to our house was disconnected and dropped to the ground by the City to prevent damage to the overall utility service on our block. This was necessary in case a cut tree limb accidentally fell on the line. The fine to the tree company is $10k per instance!

Down but not out!

Nevertheless, these guys were very professional and took their jobs seriously and everything happened without any issues.  I may have been more stressed about the process than they were, but they did a fantastic job!  Since, I work at home, I had to force myself to stay inside and ignore what was going on in the back yard. A week later, after another weather delay (snow), they came back to grind down the stumps.

4+ feet in diameter!!!