Outside Luzanne

   
mid- November 2000
Dec 26, 2003
Feb 2007
June 17, 2007

The hill behind is all "Open Space". Owned by the county and not for developement.

Folage has been trimmed back, A white retaining wall has been added.


new garage


new front wall, planters and wider driveway. driveway will be bricked after top story of house is remodeled.

This is a very quiet street. A 5 and 8 yo girls live across the street. That is our neighbor the Smith's house over the fence. There is a lot of rosemary and oleanders planted all over!
 

The garage and deck need alot of work. There is water leaking through the deck and some rotting timbers. George wants to build either a unit, a new kitchen or master bedroom above the garage. (not me!)
 

Only one spigit there on this side of the house. Not many others around. This cute little window box has to be removed. It is rotten and harbouring pests. You can see the kichen windows on the second level.

This will probably become our main entrance.

Perhaps Bert and Glenn would lend us a goat on occasion to keep the fire danger low. Mid and her husband planted those pine trees at the top of the hill. They obtained them from Inverness and named them "mom and pop".
Mid's husband used to be a ham radio operator and had an antenae on this hill. Mid says the soil is mostly a layer of clay on top of rock. 


We tore out a lot of oleandors and a few junipers. George has built the trelace bench that you barely see in the middle of the picture. It still needs a couple cross pieces.

 

Most of arbor is gone. oak tree behind it has grown. Wonderful scarey swing in monterey pine at top of hill.

The twig right foreground is a gravenstein apple tree planted last year.

I need to check the dirt and see if I can plant a few more fruit trees on this hillside. The neighbors have a mini-vineyard. I wonder how an avocado tree or pomogranate tree would do. Perhaps the avocado tree could ge the wind protection it needs behind the house

I'd also love apricot, cherry, peach, more citrus trees.

The canna's must have frozen, you can see their wide leaves have turned brown. Someday after the house is more complete we will get back to redoing these stairs up to the upper garden. We moved the fence line back one more terrace. Almost inline with the trellace bench are a few fruit trees: fuji apple (seems a bit stunted), pear, apricot, pluot, plum, peach and nectarine. Around the rest of the house we have planted lemon, orange, lime, several avoados, pomegranate, figs, blueberries, raspberries, grapes, persimmon and probably more.
 
The End of the white wall will be extended up the hill. backyard has increased in size because of excavating the hill and also beaucse white retaining wall was moved over to property line. The chicken house and apple tree is in the foreground. The apple tree was moved here this last winter. Excavation will continue and eventually we may put a pool here.

Party area! I'm not sure if she's taking any of the potted plants. That is the corner of the house on the left.

There is not much visable change here except the hill behind. We did empty out the old fish pond that Mid had tuned into a flower bed after Frank died.
   

See the tip of Mt Tam above the bearing lemon tree. The kitchen door is on the right. The deck in background is above the garage. That is Doug talking to Mid.
   
what a mess! The deck is beuaitful though. I'll take another pic soon after clean up. Pingpong table in foreground.

Stage 2 of fixing the drainage problem will be putting a second french drain at the base of the slope on the right. the concrete needs to be torn out. We will probably carve back the hill a bit and make this area a little wider. The half bath off the master bedroom will be made whole by either extending the bathroom out the back along this wall or taking part of the bedroom for it. Hot tub in far corner?

 
Ugly shed behind house obscurring Sophia's window. We built this to house the junk from the garage while it was being rebuilt. Tough to get rid of storage once you have it. We painted the horizon on it to try and help feeling so crowded by it. George says we may have to sleep in here when we remodel the upstairs.

That is the neighbor's house in far background. More screening needed there. They are an older couple, dentist and nurse with a grown som possibly living with them. You can see just a fragment of the redwood tree in the upper right corner. Another spigit!


T he vine that used to climb the wall at left was choking the french drain below it that ran along the back of the house.

   

On left is the catwalk for cleaning the window. This is the wall off the master bedroom and on to the living room wall. Possible deck and grotto garden here. Path slopes down to studio door, driveway is beyond.

Construction is still going on, obviously. We still need to finalize the design of the pateo that will go here outside the french doors we will be putting in this wall at left. This goes into the bedroom. This pateo will hopefully be private and look over the lower pateo. I'd like it to look part of the earth rather than suspended out from the house like a deck.
 
this new retaining wall allowed us to make a patio outside our bedroom. Now we need to put in french doors in bedroom wall.

Concrete slab patio, a possible play area big enough for tea parties but not big enough to ride bikes or scooters.

Studio door. 

We had planned to enclose the pateo where the round table is in a shed for storage, but changed our mind when we saw how much space we can now keep open. That is a window in the wall at right. Michel wants to put a cannon there. Stairs will come up to an upper pateo outside bedroom from the lower rightt corner of the photo.

booth seating is still unfinished. Just plywood tops to benches at present. It's amazing how much added space this pateo gave us. The bed around the fountain is planetd with dwarf citrus trees, passion flowers, and bulbs. That's a fig tree just outside wall on the left and a pineapple guava behind the second wall on the right. We had a lovely white canopy over the booth area but a recent sotm front came in and blew it over the fence behind the fountain including the moroccan lamp and xmas lights that were draped all over the frame. It landed in the neighbors driveway and in the night, their son drove over the lamp. I found a picture of the booth. See below
 

These window leak out side the studio, need replacing. Perhaps we will put in a set of french doors here.  French doors and french drains everywhere. This slab seems to lean in a little toward the house. The window boxes are rotted and a source of water damage that invites pests. They will need to come out. I'm not sure how level the ground is past the slab under the brush.

George's beautiful gate.

The awning keeps studio cool.
 
This is taken from the upper end of the lot. The roof of the house is visable with the view beyond. I want a park bench in foreground. It levels out a bit there. Perhaps we can eventually put a level pad in there, big enough to pitch a large tent or gazebo . It is very quiet back here and smells wonderful with all the scents of the woods. I found a lot of scat on hill side that doesn't look like deer. Would a chicken or bunny be safe?
     

The gorgeous oak. Can we put a treehouse in this tree without hurting the tree? There is an eroded section of earth just below the tree.

Thanks for coming! A house warming party will happen probably in January. See you then!

 We never did have that house warming party did we!