Yesterday, as I was working on the side steps for the studio, I remembered that a few years ago I had made a model of what I envisioned the finished exterior of the studio to be. So I went back into my archives and found it. Here is what I created in 2018.
The funny thing is that our house actually looked like this back then…
We had just converted the garage into a studio, had new siding put on the house, and painted the entire house (including the brick) one color, but that was it. As you can see, we still had the old concrete wheelchair ramp (which was dangerously steep) on the side of the porch. We still had the original sidewalk and concrete steps in the front. I hadn’t done anything to update the porch yet, so everything was concrete at the time. None of the windows had shutters. The front door was still white. We still didn’t have a driveway.
In other words, virtually nothing was done to the outside of our house other than new siding and paint, which was a huge improvement over the original…
…but there was still a long way to go.
As I looked at the front of our house again yesterday and remembered the model I made of the outside of the studio years ago, I thought to myself that I still have a long way to go, but a lot has been done since then. So I was grateful for the progress (and completing these studio side steps will be a huge victory), but also excited for the other things I still want and need to accomplish.
But here too we have come a long way, even if things look pretty chaotic at the moment. I can’t wait to finish all the projects I’m currently working on and then show you some “before” and “progress” pictures to show you how far it’s come.
Since the model I made in 2018, I have completely redesigned the porch and built a floating wooden porch over the original concrete. I built new wooden front steps to match the porch. We had the old sidewalk at the front replaced with a new, wider sidewalk. We now have a real driveway. The windows have real shutters similar to the ones I made in this model (although I still have a fallen shutter that has yet to be re-hung). And I’m close to having actual steps on the side studio door instead of the cinder block steps that have been around for years. I’m only making progress at a snail’s pace, but at least there’s progress!
With this in mind, I have decided to continue my outdoor projects until my birthday. This gives me another month to focus on the exterior. I want to get as much done as possible in the next month and then focus solely on the storage space. I wanted a change to work on a few fun projects before moving on to the next big indoor project and these outdoor projects are exactly what I needed. But none of these projects were actually on my list of home goals for this year. Once June is over, I want to revisit my actual list of goals for the year and see if I can accomplish them in the second half of the year.
But next month for me it’s all about the appearance. And I dreamed and planned about future projects. I won’t be able to do it now (or probably at all this year), but one of the biggest and most expensive things I still want up front is more sidewalks. I want to connect the front walkway to the driveway. I made a really bad model to see what this would look like…
Our landscape plan shows in much more detail how this relates to the sidewalk and driveway, and you can see that it continues on the other side of the front sidewalk as well, extending around the bedroom side of the house (which is labeled “Gym” in our landscape plan).
Of course I would love it if this were all concrete, but for budget reasons I would also like to consider other options. I’m wondering what the cost difference would be between a concrete walkway and a crushed granite walkway. I think a crushed granite walkway would be very appealing while also providing a material that Matt could still use in his power wheelchair, as long as I can get that walkway to also work with the sidewalk and driveway where they meet.
I also looked at water features for the area outside the breakfast room windows. I’ve dreamed of having a water feature there for years but could never figure out exactly what I wanted. At first I thought I wanted something made of natural stone, like a small stone waterfall. And then I thought about a stepwell. But now that I’ve had several years to think about it, I really want something more structured than a stone waterfall, but not quite as grand as a stepwell. Now I’m imagining something more like this simple bubbler, but I want it to be big. This is the Girona water fountain from Outdoor Fountain Pros, but it is only 30 inches in diameter and 15 inches tall.
I think I want this style but I want it to be a little wider but definitely taller. I want it to be seen from the street.
And then of course I want to add flower boxes to the windows. I love the charm of flower boxes, and as you can see from the studio model I made a few years ago, adding flower boxes was always the plan. I have to laugh at the fact that I’ve wanted flower boxes for our house for so long and my workshop was the first to actually get flower boxes.
But because I like continuity, I would like to build exactly these flower boxes for our house, starting with the studio window. I copied these window boxes from the workshop and pasted them onto this picture so I can see what it looks like. And yes. I still want her.
Anyway, it’s just a bit of fun to dream about future projects, but for now my only focus is completing the side steps to the studio. And then for the rest of the next month of outdoor projects I want to finish the baseboard on the porch. Afterwards, if there is enough time, I would also like to finish the steps to the new bedroom door. Now that I have a plan and have fixed all the kinks in the studio stairs building process, I can confidently build these bedroom stairs.
And to answer the question I get asked most often: there is NO permanent ramp built into the steps to the bedroom. The plan is to have a large landing as the top step right outside the bedroom door that I can roll Matt onto in an emergency, and then I’ll keep a movable ramp just around the corner that I can pull out and place on the steps to get him down to the garden. I looked for lightweight aluminum ramps and found one that weighs 26 pounds. I think this will work perfectly for our purposes. We don’t have enough space for a porch next to this door, so our goal was never to build something where we could spend time and enjoy nature. We already have a veranda for this. The sole purpose of this door is to provide an escape point in the event of an emergency. As long as I can get him outside to that big top landing and then have a ramp in place within a few minutes to get him into the front yard, I feel good about it. But I don’t think he needs a permanent ramp on every door in the house.
However, I plan on building a ramp from the back door (i.e. the main bathroom door) to the back yard. So that gives us options. I have two directions I can take him in an emergency. But I won’t spend much time on this ramp. I mean, it will be safe, but it probably won’t look pretty. I still hope that one day we can build our addition, and in that case I don’t want to spend a lot of money on a permanent ramp that will simply have to be torn down in the future. But rest assured, Matt’s safety is always my top priority.
With all that said, I’m looking forward to working outside for the next month (until my birthday). These outdoor projects are a great change for me and almost like a birthday present that I give myself. If I can get the side steps to the studio and the porch done, that’ll be enough for me. But it would be an added bonus if I could somehow fit into the bedroom stairs during this time. We’ll see!
