for those of you that don't know, we have been building a new garage and a guesthouse in our back yard since summer. and by "we", i mean my parents. the guesthouse has yet to be officially named. i'm not thinking, like, rosie or anything. i just mean we call it the loft or the guest house. do you have a better name for it? i tend to call it the loft mostly, or nana and gramps' house, as my kids refer to it. but when they aren't here, it
will be our guest house. hmmmm....
here's where it all began. well, this is a little into the teardown. it was a tiny little one car garage and the yard space on the side of it i called "the dump" - it was where all of our leftover construction material was dumped after building the main house. it was disgusting.
here my mom and i are cutting out mounds and mounds of overgrown morning glory that has infested everything in the back. then we had to clear out the dump and move thousands of pounds of cinder block, brick and flagstone.
here's dad working away at the teardown. it went down in a day, i think. crazy fast.
here the dirt was being leveled. that didn't stop us from enjoying our summer - see the fancy blow-up pool? delux.
getting ready to pour the stem walls.
stem walls done.
prep for foundation. this was taken from the girls' bedroom window. that was the best spot to watch all the work.
here the pad/foundation/garage floor and driveway have been poured - the day before silas' 1st birthday party! down to the wire, i tell ya! this is the view back to the girls' room. on the other side of the pile of wood is the driveway down a hill to the street.
finally, framing began. here's my dad, in masculine pink, helping to lift the huge beams. the blond hair belongs to one of the "supervisors".
the first wall goes up for the loft! it went really fast from here.
see? wasn't that fast? the entrance to the loft (or guest house) is from the top tier of our yard. you walk up those cement steps you see in the bottom right corner, then there will be stepping stones acros the grass to the wooden steps to the entry at the front.
here are 3 little monkeys hanging out above where the fireplace now is.
here is the beautiful shower with pretty glass tile accents.
just needs fixtures. and running water. and a glass door and glass wall above the half wall.
and a garage door! this was very exciting for me for some reason. we'll get hardware for it to make it look a little more like a real carriage door. like handles and brackets.
and here's where we're at now. actually,a guy is working on finishing the railing up the stairs as we speak. i can hear his drill. i love how the railing turned out, not only aesthetically, but practically - it freaked me out to let my kids play outside for fear that they (silas) would escape my view and head up the stairs to a porch with no railing (he did). so this calms my fears.
what's left to be done:
bathroom sink and potty
shower fixtures
finish details on railing
exterior paint
interior trim
bling out the gagrage via
these guysi'll show you pics of the inside once there's not a tile saw and random tools filling up the space!
-lindsey
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