The 24″ x 24″ pavers appear to float away from the main structure, helping to maintain the our designs overall theme of sliding planes, that mimics the lots natural landscape.

The odd pie shape of our lot and the relatively strange shape that it provided for a our yard, meant that we needed some way to connect the house to these outlying spaces. In my initial drawings/sketches that we provide to our landscape architect Dustin Halverson I sketched out the idea of a series of concrete pavers that appeared to float away from the main structure of the building and towards the larger side yard. This would ultimately be an access path to a potential firepit/BBQ as well as the badminton/lawn bowling and playground areas. Dustin agreed that this would be a good solution to the challenge and with a few minor adjustments we made this apart of our plan.

After waiting roughly a month for our sod to set it’s roots, Dustin and the landscaping crew returned to start the next phase of the process. The pavers were laid out in the desired pattern and then flags were placed to mark the corners of each stone, so the sod could be cut away, allowing them to set the pavers flush to grade. The tricky part is setting the pavers square as well as not breaking the 24″ x 24″ pavers, which are surprisingly fragile. Tomorrow the crew returns to set the pavers into final position.

The Hardiboard around the garage, was the first area to get the two-tone color treatment of Turkish Coffee and Black Bean.

The front of the house and the garage get random matching pattern of two-tone brown that unites the two spaces.

The first green went on and felt a little too yellow for what we were trying to achieve.

The second green was still vibrant but easier on the eyes—much better. Now we need to touch up the front edge of the awning in the Black Bean and it’s complete.

When we first moved into our house this past December, there was so much to do. The exterior of our house was wrapped only in it’s vapor barrier sheeting, the Hardiboard siding was yet to go up and the awning at the front door was not even on our radar. What all of this meant, was that at some point down the road we were going to have to do some painting on the exterior of our house, to get it completed.

For several months as we waited for the snow to melt and then the rains to finally stop (we could use a little now), looking up at the unpainted sections of our house and knowing it need to be painted made me ill. The pieces of Hardiboard were divided into gridded sections separated by metal Z-channel, which seem to mean hours of time consuming trim work. When we finally got started with painting it a few weeks back, we were really surprised at how quickly it seemed to go. The divided sections actually proved to be a bonus as it allowed us to paint one color of the two-tone design at a time. Additionally, we could do a couple of quick sections in the evening or over a couple of hours on a Saturday without having to commit the enitr weekend to working on the house. We’ve now completed almost all of the front of the house in both colors but will need to get a small section of scaffolding to reach some of the very top pieces and most of the 4ft overhang and we’ll be done.

Painting the siding presented us with another design issue. The two-tone brown color, coupled with the silver of the UniClad siding looks really nice, but it seemed to be lacking something. I was feeling it and then Stacy said it, it seemed a bit pedestrian, so we decided that it might be fun to bring in a little punch of color to the underside of the front awning. Stacy went out and pulled a couple of dozen samples of colors we could use, and we settled on a crisp citrus green color. If you know anything about color, you know greens can be tricky. A little to yellow and they become acidic looking, a little too much blue and it can start looking primary, not the color we were looking for. In This case, the color proved to be a little to yellow and neither of us were in love with it. We decided to pick another green color to paint (Green Tease), and this time I think we got it right. The color is a nice contrast to the neutral silver/gray and rich browns of the siding, and a nice little unexpected twist to our house when people come to the front door.

With our grass now coming in at full capacity, it appears that we are in need of a new lawn mower. We own a manual, reel style, push mower, that we used at our last house to cut the relatively small front yard (but the size of our new lawn and the time it would take will not make this a realistic option) We have sworn ourselves off the use of a traditional gas powered mower (based on their incredibly polluting nature), which means we need to settle on some sort of electric mower. I’ve never owned one before, although I remember years ago seeing a friend’s parent mowing their lawn tethered to the house by a long extension cord. Although I am finding there are now a lot of options when it comes to electric mowers both those that require corded operation and those that run on a battery I am struggling to determine which one is best for us.

From what I understand reel style mowers actually provide the healthiest style cut for your lawn and there appear to be a couple mowers that offer this option. the SunLawn EM-2 model (a cordless option) got high reviews from Wired Magazine and weighs in at roughly 39 lbs. one of the lightest mowers I could find that wasn’t powered soley by my legs. Unfortunately, for me one the drawbacks to the Sunlawn is its rather “Wally and the Beav” design, which reminds me of something that you might find at the back of your grandparents storage shed—not horrible looking but certainly not really very nice looking either. The other option for reel mowers that caught my eye, is the Brill ASM380 Reel Mower (another cordless option) with a more updated design style, and a remarkably light weight of only 29lbs. However, as I dug deeper in my search the ASM380 model has been discontinued by the manufacturer with the release of an new mower in June of 2008. The German Engineer, Brill mower can actually be operated as a traditional push mower if the battery were to run out, before the lawn was completed. Since it’s recommended for a lawn of about 2,500 sq. ft. or less this push mower feature might actually come in handy.

The other option in electric mowers, is the more common rotary style cutting system. The apparent darling of this category is the Nuetron Electric Mower. with it’s stylish fresh green exterior making it appealing to look at. Plus, it features a wonderful little features like a push button start (with safety key), relatively long run time of 45-60 minutes and boast being the most powerful battery powered mower you can buy (360 watt-hours of battery energy.) Its draw backs, in this case are its rotary blade and weight of 69lbs. Another one of the rotary options is the Desa® Remington® Electric Mower, which boasts being the first and only 60 volt battery mower with 60 minutes of run time and corded option. The design of the Remington looks a bit more like a traditional gas mower, nothing really “wowing” here but not bad looking either. The great feature of this mower (in my opinion) is the option to either run it from the battery or as a corded model. I can imagine that there may be a few times that I might forget to plug it in before my next use or run out of juice before I get the lawn completed so this would be a great little feature.

I’ve tried to read a few online reviews as well as pick up on what users are saying in various forums, but the feedback seems to be greatly varied. People either totally love whichever model they have, or they completely loath it. All of them claim to cut tall grass and give a long run time but at the same time, without first-hand experience, I can’t separate marketing hype from manufacturing performance. What I’d really like to do is line the various models up across my front yard and test them side-by-side, to see which is best for me. Since that is not so likely to happen, I’m asking if anyone out there can share with me their first hand experience with their electric mower.

The Sunlawn EM2

The Brill ASM380

The Nuetron Electric Mower

Desa Remington Electric Mower

In April, Stacy had placed our order from Costco.com for a sectional to be used on our upper deck. She had spent a fair amount of time looking for one that would not only look good, be durable but also not cost a fortune. The sectional was scheduled to be delivered in 4 to 6 weeks from the time of order but this was not the case. In mid May, when the first delivery date was anticipated, but the furniture had not arrived Stacy called to locate it. They gave her a scheduled delivery date for the following week, this would prove to be 1 of 5 delivery dates that we would receive over the next 4 weeks.

During one of the calls that followed yet another false delivery date, Costco actually told Stacy that she should call the delivery company herself since they were a subcontractor of Costco. After a long and frustrating series of calls and scheduled delivery dates, Stacy finally received a call back from the delivery company, only to say they would not be delivering the furniture that Friday after all, but that it was being shipped to another delivery company because they would no longer be handling this business. Back to square one. The series of continued exchanges grew very frustrating as we couldn’t get an answer out of either Costco, the manufactuer (Soma International,who Costco again told us to deal with) or the finally identified “new” delivery company. After waiting at this point 9 weeks, we were afraid to cancel our order as the other sectional options we had looked at, were either sold out for the season or meant an additional 4 to 6 weeks delivery, putting us at the end of summer. Finally, after we received the 5th false delivery date and no call explanation from Costco as to what was going on, we canceled our order and membership. Then miraculously, the next day, we received another call, this time the delivery person was very helpful. He told us he wants to schedule a delivery for the next day, however he didn’t feel comfortable doing so since he didn’t actually have the piece at this time and this was not the normal procedure (since it might require that we take off from work to be there to receive it). However, he was finally able to tell us the location of our sectional and promised that it would be in his hands in the next few days, at which time he would schedule an actual delivery date. Ironically it seems our canceling the order is what prompted it’s delivery. Maybe we should have done that the same day we ordered it.

Ultimately the sectional has proved to be of really nice quality and to our surprise, arrived in fairly good shape, less a couple of scrunched pillows. I can’t say I’m impressed with my first Costco experience and will have to think long and hard before I make any other Costco purchases.

I’ve been working on some sketches lately for a new buffet piece that I was looking to have our cabinetmaker Eastvold Custom build. I had contacted Matt Eastvold to talk with him about some ideas and he was excited to share with me a sneak peak, at some of the new custom furniture work that they have been designing and building. One of the pieces that really caught my attention was an incredible reclaimed Douglas Fir, Credenza. This along with a handful of other really incredible custom pieces will be on display and for sale Friday, July 11th, at the 9th St. Entry Gallery, in the Rossmor Building, St. Paul, MN. I’m really excited to see this and the rest of the pieces that they have to showcase first hand, I’m sure I wont be disappointed.

The reclaimed, Douglas Fir Timber, Credenza, stands 23″ tall, 16″ deep and 48″ long. The wood came from the Duluth Timber Company and was reclaimed from Albina Homestead School in Portland, Oregon. I can’t help but think how nice a similar but slightly larger piece would look in my house.

When I saw my first picture of a rain garden I was by no means enthusiastic about some kidney shaped, cedar chipped  planting, randomly placed in my yard. However our Architect (Micheal Huber) wasn’t envisioning anything even close to this in his head, when he suggest we use them. Instead he designed these beautiful geometric concrete beds that would work as rain gardens but look more like an extension of our homes design. Today the concrete forms were removed and we got our first glimpse at what I have to say is something really incredible looking. The plywood sheeting that was used to form up the sides left a great texture in the concrete and the open spout that was thought of and built into the mouth of the design (by our concrete guys) looks incredible. They were so cool that Fred Lutz (our main concrete guy) took photos of the work himself and then asked us to let him know when they were completed with the plantings, so he could come back and take some more photos.

One of the Lutz boys knocks out the foam they used to create the overflow spouts in the forms.

I loved seeing this photo that Stacy took, because when I went out to look at the back rain garden this afternoon their was no dirt around which means they cleaned it up and laid the sod down along the side of it.

Next step, planting.