We have a big chunk of messy indoor work to do here at the Hammershack before we can close that pesky permit we opened in 2014. The upstairs bath and laundry and hall will undoubtedly take many months and a good chunk of moola to complete, and though we have made progress on our design concepts and clearing the way by getting rid of large objects, we just are not quite ready to dive in.
There are a few smaller and more immediately achievable pieces we can peel off in the meantime, and last week Morgan finished these beautiful steel and gravel stairs connecting our front door to the upper driveway.
So elemental- steel, stone, gravel.The slippery slope of before, and process
It took 4.5 yards of gravel to fill, much of which I shoveled- oof, rocks are heavy, y’all. That said, I was very glad to contribute what I could after Morgan did all of the truly hard work.
Not shown- the step lights that pop on when you approach, and the sweet little under-boulder lights that he’s been playing with. You’ll have to come visit to see those!
Our little craftsman cottage, built in 1924, is 100 years old this year. I was looking at some maps from that era and trying to imagine what it must have been like in Seattle, in this neighborhood in 1924. Who built the house, did they do it on speculation or for themselves? There are some really cool historical photos online of the neighborhood in general, and we have this beauty from the WPA Land Use Survey in 1936.
1924 map of Seattle found on Ted’s Vintage Art. We live at Henderson and 42nd.
This weekend I was weeding along the fence line and a truck pulled up with these gentlemen in it. They said, “We used to live here. Did you raise it up?” We used to get mail for them, so I knew their names when they told me: Steve and Jim. Steve used to use the garage as his artists studio, and was glad to hear that it is still used as such. They said they had a little wood stove in the living room and they kept the house warm with that, and that they had enclosed the porch for extra warmth. It was so fun to get a little bit of backstory, and they remarked on the big changes, especially to the yard.
Speaking of big changes, this is also the month of our ten year anniversary of lifting the house! I remember writing somewhere long ago on this blog that we hoped we would be done in a year or two, but I also acknowledged that there was a lot of mystery to the process. Reviewing the posts about waiting for our permit or our excavation contractor, or Morgan realizing that he had to hand-dig what our excavation contractor missed, I am aware of how much we have learned about process and patience. Truthfully, once I got a new kitchen and we were able to move downstairs, it was all worth it. Getting a toilet back inside the house felt amazing, and getting one that actually had a door we could close was even better. A big upstairs bathroom will be luxurious when we finally get to it, but we have all we need. Nothing like living in privation to bring home how sweet heat and indoor plumbing are!
Future Bathroom/LaundryThe toilet lives there in the future, too.Future Bathroom/LaundryFuture Laundry Room/Hallway
We were hoping to tackle the big remaining piece of indoor work this year (that upstairs bathroom and laundry room), but circumstances did not line up for that to happen. It would have been so neat and tidy to finish our permits at the ten year mark, but life is so rarely neat and tidy. Perhaps we will be able to wrap it up by year 12, and move on to just fiddling and fixing and “stretch goals” and enjoying it. Heck, we are already enjoying it, so that’s a big win.
Happy Birthday 8824! Deepest gratitude for your shelter, your teachings, your protection, and for letting us alter you so significantly. You have been an excellent container for our family, and we love you. We have occupied you for nearly a quarter of your life, and somewhere around half of ours- or in Huck’s case, his whole life! We hope our attentions mean you will last another 100 years, and that we get to enjoy many of those with you.
Happy New Year! I write this as we here in Seattle tilt dramatically away from the sun, enjoying long nights with plenty of dark sky to contemplate our cosmic place. We are so very small.
Around this time last year we lost an old friend to the ongoing tragedy of the opioid crisis. Rani had been clean for 18 years, had a medical issue and the hospital gave him a painkiller that sparked his addiction as if he’d been using last week. So, 2023 started off with a memorial service for our friend, a reminder to enjoy each other and our time here on this planet- it’s special! It’s fleeting! Get that good stuff in you!
To that end, Morgan and I took a trip to Hawaii in March, staying part of the time with Chris and Carol in their fancy Waikoloa condo and adventuring on our own around the Big Island to check out the stunning volcano and the lush jungle vibes of the Hilo side. Hawaii is such a special place; big respect to the formidable energies of creation and destruction that live large on those little specks in the sea.
The house project of the year was our glorious shed/shop extension/covered deck which has been getting some use as a work space, a social hangout, and houses our new (previously owned) ping-pong table. Come on over, Morgan needs a challenger! The big remaining chunk of this permit set is to build out the old upstairs kitchen and hallway (which was once our bathroom) into a bathroom and laundry area, which will involve a large mess and a fair amount of disruption. It is possible that we will begin to tackle this in 2024, so we have been thinking about configuration, tile design, fixtures, etc. in anticipation of the rush of decisions that that will entail.
Huck survived freshman year at the University of Washington, and also the end of his relationship with Frankie. Her path took her out of state for college, but despite the no-fault need to end it, the pain of loss is always acute. He threw himself back into his Kung Fu practice and began learning new forms at JunHong Kung Fu Club where he had previously been practicing Sanda as an add-on to classes at White Dragon Kung Fu Seattle. He now finds himself at Jun’s studio almost every weekday, teaching 2-3 days/week and working on his own skills for 3 hours on the days he’s not teaching. Through Kung Fu he made a connection with a new friend who also attends UW, and she introduced him to a great group of other students- hooray! Friends make all the difference, especially since school has not been a slam-dunk. Going into next quarter, he is taking an intro to the Comparative History of Ideas (CHID) program, which is now officially his major. We are all hoping that having a smaller cohort and a more concrete goal makes things feel more manageable at that giant school. He continues to work Saturdays at Jack’s Fish Spot in the Pike Place Market, and participate regularly in activities with the PNW Great War re-enactment group. Honestly, I am not giving the re-enactment enough of a word-count here, it’s a big part of his day to day, as evidenced by the gallery below. Let me just say that he recently bought a reproduction Great War era blue French greatcoat and has been wearing that all over town. Imagine seeing that long-legged Kung-fu trained body striding around the UW campus in that decidedly unique look- they cannot know that inside that intimidating giant is our little Huckleberry Blue!
Morgan spent the first part of the year building the aforementioned shed. The rest of the year has been dedicated to other people’s projects ($$), maintaining friendships, and getting out into the world with me.
We had an active summer, with trips out to the coast, to the family property in Twisp (a whole delightful week there!), up to Bellingham, and over to Quilcene, among others. It was a bit like our pre-pandemic summer frenzy again, which is super fun, and leaves the garden feeling lonely.
I celebrated 30 years in practice this August, a milestone I can’t quite believe. For the past couple of years I have found myself wanting a better narrative for some of the things that have been happening in my practice, so in October I began a path of study that I have been describing as “bridging the conscious and the unconscious” with dreamwork, constellation, and ceremony. The first retreat was out in Hansville on the edge of the Salish Sea, and we practiced listening to the quiet, attuning to subtle shifts, paying respect to feelings and imagination, and I came away with three new friends and a bunch of homework. So far, it has been helping a lot.
Here’s to the great mysteries, my friends; may we maintain our awe, may we plant, tend, and harvest joy, and may we all become more and more excellent at compassion. All of our love to you.
This is such an exciting addition to our property. I’m just going to blast away with photos first:
If you read the last post, you know that we needed storage. We also needed some covered outdoor space that could flex between hangout and work zone. Hangout is obvious, work zone is maybe obvious when you see how small the Shop is, even when it is clean. Big railing jobs have historically been built in the driveway, and protected with tarps and pop-up canopies, which is not ideal. So check out our amazing new outdoor room! We love it!
Below, a video showing the custom locking mechanism that Morgan designed and created for the big sliding doors:
Shed as workspace with very bright work lights in full effect:
This is night time!
Some details:
You don’t see the brackets here, that’s on purpose.This cool thing Kevin and Leah gave us a long time ago.
Here are some process shots, including our main helper Jeremy Calvert and occasional helper Mark Tomkiewicz:
Thanks Mark!Thanks, Jeremy!
And finally a few images to remind us what this area used to look like, plus a previous blog post for context:
The back door and the basement door. Looking at the house and yard from where the Shed is now.Funky old decking and back porch during demo.
We have one more big disruptive piece to do, but that’s for another post. In the meantime, we will enjoy this great new addition to our day to day lives.
The big house project of the summer finally got underway last month. You know how it goes. At any rate, Morgan is building a sort of shop addition, a covered deck with a shed/closet on the east side where we can put our sports and camping gear, big tools, off-season gear, and gardening equipment.
Hot tub move thanks to friends! Thank you so much, friends!
Right now that stuff is either in the old kitchen (which will someday be a bathroom and laundry room), in a cramped attic space above the shop, taking up precious floor space in the shop, or tucked into a corner of the yard. This is what happens when you turn your old basement into a living space.
Steps to stairs.
Throughout this project there have been many glorious moments when things find their forever homes, as with our craft and office cabinets. This structure will likely potentiate several of those moments, and I will do my best to share them with you as they arrive.
❤️ Morgan’s notes in the landing pad. ❤️
In the meantime, one concrete piece of the structure has been completed, and we can now run up and down stairs on the east side of the house instead of slipping and sliding on the muddy slope we had there. Check out the step lights in the side of the house, finally united with their true purpose.
Morgan showing off the alternative to a slippery slope.
Tell you what, there’s nothing like global crisis after global crisis slamming through the news to make your house project seem like a ridiculous indulgence. Here we are though, trying to make something beautiful and frankly working pretty hard for it, so I will go ahead and share it with you.
When we had our quartz countertops put in we had planned for a natural stone piece on the peninsula bar. The contractor nixed our choice for not being solid enough for the task, so we pivoted.
We thought we might use a piece of live-edge cedar newly harvested from Chris and Carol’s place in Bellingham. Not wide enough. We tacked it on for temporary use and pivoted again.
Temporary cedar.
We thought we might use the beautiful live-edge walnut bar from a friend’s old business. Also not wide enough but Morgan had a plan to use bronze to make it bigger. A really cool plan. But also a lot of work and time and ultimately not really less expensive than going back to the drawing board for stone.
Check out this crazy stone!!!
If you have never chosen natural stone, it’s pretty fun. We went to Meta Marble and Granite (among other spots) in Georgetown on our contractor’s recommendation, and walked through the stacks, admiring the amazing things the earth has made. So many beautiful and wild things… I wanted something with dramatic seams, but my tastes were expensive.
Our slab
In the end, I found a slab of granite that was reasonably priced and has more subtle flair. It looks pretty boring in the big photo, but when you get close there’s depth and glamour in it. It picks up the speckle of our ground concrete floor and the colors of the cabinets and the quartz. It’s pretty cool.
Speckle and sparkle
I then successfully lobbied Morgan to make that choice with me- perhaps the greatest feat of this particular project.
He wanted that top slab that makes your eyes go 👀
We got our new full strength counter complete with waterfall edge on Friday. We can now put our knees under the bar and eat. Hooray! Now to finish that wall underneath it…
We really wanted to wait on this project until after all the glamorous stuff got done; it isn’t part of our permit and it’s money and time we could be putting to use finishing that out. However, a slowly spreading stain on our old bedroom ceiling started to drip and crumble on those heavy soaker rain days and our priorities shifted, just like that.
Exposed
So here we are, tearing the roof off in a sunny stretch and fixing the sags, the rot, the parts that got no love the last time someone did this- whenever that was.
Seattle in June is not a guaranteed sun fest, so there is urgency in the pace, long exhausting days for Morgan, who as usual decided to tackle it himself (with a little help from some friends).
This way those sags and rotten bits get properly addressed, and we save a lot of money, some of which we will spend on upgrading to metal. We fantasized about the newfangled solar shingles being sold out there but it seemed out of reach and maybe ill-advised for our particular situation. A metal roof will set us up for big solar panels when we are ready, so it is a step in the right direction. The metal has an ordering lead time that likely means this project will be two-phased: tear-off, repair and shore up, sheath and then waterproof is phase one. Phase two is metal.
Right this moment we are in the middle of it all with our top wide open to the elements, sunlight streaming in where darkness and wasps usually rule. The forecast looks good for at least a week, let’s hope they got it right!
Morgan has been busy working on other people’s projects since the completion of our new bathroom, but having that new bathroom done makes it possible for us to get rid of the remnants of the old bathroom (which has also been our hallway for lo, these many years) and kitchen (which has our other toilet in it, because it’s about to become a bathroom).
There was a mishap involving a cabinet falling on Morgan’s hand, which put the brakes on any extracurricular destruction for awhile. It’s very fortunate that one of the jobs he was working on at the time was for our friend Marcus, an ER doctor who helped him out with some stitches in his back yard.
Now that’s healed up and the guys got back to tearing it apart a bit more. I forgot to take photos of the mess when it was inside, so you will have to enjoy the piles in the driveway instead, along with some photos of the missing wall.
We aren’t in a big rush to move on this part, but it’s fun to have something to pick away at. I think we are ready for a big ol’ dump run now.
Over the past couple of weeks, Morgan took some time to recondition our slab floor. He figured it would be easier to do this before cabinets went in, and it had certainly lost whatever luster it had after four years of construction-site treatment.
The slab was kind of a nightmare for Morgan, and I will admit that it is not a beautiful floor, but it is perfectly functional and I like it just fine. Now it’s freshly sealed and shiny clean, ready for cabinets to go in!
Work has been on hold for other money-earning jobs and the like. This weekend we are hosting a Barn-Raising to try to push the exterior framing through to completion, something that goes a whole lot faster with helpers on hand.
On Monday we will have a contractor come through to grind the concrete down and make it pretty, if not perfectly level, thus concluding the drama of the bad concrete pour from December.
Our windows and sliding glass doors should arrive in early May. Things are happening!
Hammershack Report 