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.

I love how neat their forms are and how they used a piece of plywood to shield our lawn from getting splashed with concrete.

Fred puts the finishing touch on the second of two rain gardens, off the back of the house.

Our concrete guys (Fred Lutz and his sons) were back this week to frame up and ultimately pour our rain gardens. Typical rain gardens are kidney shaped, organic depressions cut into the ground. However, in an effort to keep with our geometric theme, our architect Michael Huber had designed the rain gardens to be a series of step downs poured from concrete.

The rain gardens purpose is to manage rainwater run off from the two largest surface areas of our house, the roof, and the driveway. By trafficking the water from these two areas into the garden we help to minimize erosion, flooding and pollution that reaches ponds, streams and ultimately our drinking water.

The gardens had been designed with an overflow spout at the front of the forms but as we started forming them up, one of the concerns we had was that it would need to be very deep to hold a fair amount of water and not dump it back onto the driveway, before they reached the overflow point. In order to do so the overflow spout was starting to look a bit too exaggerated in my opinion. As a solution, one of Fred’s sons suggested we use a piece of rigid foam insulation and create a scupper like opening in the mouth of the garden, an idea that I love and can’t wait to see, once the forms come off this weekend.

The International Interior Design Association is offering a version of this years NeoCon event in Chicago called Minne-Con. The event will be held at the super cool Chambers Hotel from 8a.m. to 4p.m. on June 26th and feature over 30 vendors showcasing a wide variety of new and hot products. There will also be a happy hour from 4p.m. to 6p.m. so you can rub elbows with the interior design fashionista of the Twin Cities. For more details check out the event site at iida-northland.org.

I’m sore this morning. My back is stiff my knees are aching and I think I may have successfully developed carpel tunnel in both wrists but I feel great! Why, you might ask? Well my yard is finally filled with turf.

Friday evening our landscape architect (Dustin Halverson from Village Green) and his crew finished framing up the landscape edging and planned to complete the final grade of our lawn early Saturday morning. Our sod was scheduled to arrive on Saturday between 12 and 2pm. I hate when companies give you a window of time when something will arrive, “…yes sir your item should arrive between noon on Tuesday and 5 pm Wednesday, will someone be there to sign for it.” and inevitably they are almost always running late.

We had made plans to begin laying our sod sometime after 2pm and were going to use the morning to do our prep-work. Then around 10am I looked out the front windows to see a semi-truck from Jirik Sod Farm parked in front of our house, they were early, and we were nowhere near completing our prep-work. After getting the driver to quickly unload the sod to various parts of the lawn, Dusty finished grading the front yard while I and one of his workers focused on clearing out the circles in the driveway. By 11am we were laying sod. At first it seemed like we were flying and it was only going to be a few hours before the three of us were completed with the front yard and onto the back but that wasn’t the case. The front yard went deceptively quick as it was one open area with little to no cuts. I will admit that this was my personal assessment of the work at the time, however Dustin seemed to have a much great sense of urgency to his work, some 12 hours later I would realize why.

The sod arrives a bit early.

A daunting task.

Our early system was two people carrying (Dustin and Carson) and one rolling it out (yours truly). Our hired help left around 6 but another friend of mine and one of my very gracious neighbors chipped in for the next few hours to get us to the finish line.

Sunday morning things are looking good. I tossed down a few more rolls of sod and we were done. The dirt area to the left of the driveway will be the frame of our rain gardens which are under construction this week.

The circles in the driveway were something that both Dustin and I were really looking forward to seeing completed. I must say we were both pleased and it made all the hours of the work a little less painful.
When it comes down to it, 9 pallets of sod is a lot of turf (roughly 675 square yard to be exact). We had given Dustin a set of plans to work from that he then used to place our order for the sod. We had decided that at this time we were only going to do the front and side yard and would deal with the narrow strip of lawn that is our backyard at a later time. However, on our plans we forgot to mention to him that it not only shows our yard but also the easement area, a 5 foot swath around the entire lot. This coupled with the fact that he ordered a little extra for waste (usually resulting from cutting around landscaping and other obstacles because of the curved shapes). However in our case there was almost no waste at all since everything is based on right angles (except the driveway circles) leaving us with a bit more than we had planned. Although the extra sod meant we had to work extra hours to get it all down, it does mean that our yard is completely covered for now, and that’s a relief.