These photos of our first home might give a little glimpse of how we spent our time from our mid-twenties into our early thirties ....for better or for worse. Many of the special details in the landscaping and home finishes were things we personally designed, and in many cases, did ourselves. Our inspirations were from magazines like Country Living and This Old House.
Our home on Hurst Street was a work in progress over 10 years from 1996 to 2006. We did smaller projects when we first moved in, and then a major remodel/addition in 1999-2000. The projects just continued on and on and on...
This is a photo from 1995 of the pretty little Cape Cod we bought when we were 26 years old. It initially caught our eyes even before we were married.
Since the house was on the corner of a popular traffic short cut, as well as across the street from a park, a lot of people had daily visibility to our various home projects. All the work seemed worthwhile though, because we received so many very nice compliments from neighbors and passersby while we were outside working. It definitely kept us going through some tough projects. In addition to that recognition, I would guess we had no less than 100 people knock on the door over the years to inquire about different aspects of the property, or to ask for permission to photograph something. We were proud to have created a home that must have seemed to be so approachable that strangers did not think twice about knocking on the door......that is, until we had kids and it always seemed to be at nap time. ;)
The most frequent questions were:
- The Exterior Paint color: We chose, after looking a dozens of samples on the house, a Ralph Lauren interior color called Mountain Sage (now discontinued), we had it custom matched in an exterior Cabot paint. Now, this color is commonly seen, but at the time (2000), we did not know of another house with this greenish gray color.
- The Front Door manufacturer: I designed the 42"mahogany door with side lites to simulate more of the look of a Dutch door, rather than a Craftsman door. See my original shop drawings here. I also designed the 5 sets of French doors in the Great Room in the same mahogany. All were made locally by Dale Lumber. The bigger door is a personal preference. I often look at homes and think that a 36" front door is poorly proportioned for the size of the residence. Double doors are an option, but I think it is more welcoming to swing open a hefty single door and usher people through a nice wide space. The shelf depth of about 3" also came in handy, as I would frequently be carrying a variety of things including a cup of coffee. A Starbucks cup fit perfectly on the shelf as I turned the key in the door.....it's the little things that make a nice difference.
- The Winterberry Trees: People always wondered what type of small trees could be so showy in the winter. I planted these trees in the front yard outside the Great Room balconies. They would be covered with clumps of red berries all winter. I originally planted them here so that we would have a natural Christmas display every year. Since we always placed our Christmas tree in front of the balcony doors, the indoor tree would always have an annual sea of berries as the outdoor backdrop. I thought it was a cool way to draw the eye outside to the garden during the winter. As the trees got bigger, they became more noticeable from the street as a unique aspect of our landscape during the winter.
- The Fence, Arbors, and Gates: Larry and I built the fence and gate system that surrounded our back and side yard completely from scratch. We hand-picked 38 well-cut 6"x6"x 10' posts for the fence system, prompting one Home Depot employee to ask us if we owned cattle. No lie. Each post was put 36" into the ground with 2 1/2 bags of concrete each (We did not want a flimsy looking fence.). The posts needed to be hand dug because of the large trees on the property. That was Larry's job. I relinquished control of that aspect after being injured by the two-man auger we rented for the project. We ultimately found that a reciprocating saw worked best when we hit huge tree roots, or as a last resort, we moved the post slightly. There were over 800 hand-picked 1"x 4"x 6' pickets from Home Depot, brought home in small batches in our SUV. Each picket top needed a "Popsicle stick" cut with a jigsaw. Larry's Dad helped us with those cuts, as well as the hanging of the completed sections. We had devised a custom spacing method to adjust for the slight difference of widths between posts, so that we always ended with two full boards to cover the hanging system. We meticulously adjusted each arch to look as similar as possible to all of the others, despite a 30" drop in grade from the back to the front yard. We developed a hanging system for the sections that was virtually unnoticeable and incredibly solid and straight. Next, we built all of the gates and arbors. Those were our first lessons using more complex routed joinery. Lastly, we painted the whole thing with white opaque stain.That was actually the most tedious part due to the board-on-board fence configuration. When it came time years later to refresh the stain, we hired someone....money well spent.
This back arbor was 8'wide and 11' high. The large size proved to be helpful when we later dug the pool, because the bobcat had to excavate the whole area and transport the dirt out through the arbor to the back driveway. We also needed to build new gates for safety purposes once the pool was installed.
A little more history....
Hurst Street was a cut through for the Idylwood neighborhood to the W&OD trail. We would ride our bikes by this little home before we were married and say, "Wouldn't that be the perfect first house for us?" Idylwood Park and the bike trail were right behind the house. You could often see the Conrads working in their garden (They did not have any privacy, only a split rail fence and no screening plants). The street had a hometown appeal, not at all giving the idea that it was is was just 2.5 miles to Tysons Corner Mall. We loved that it seemed a little like a country oasis. It reminded us of our upbringing in Pennsylvania.
Just after we were married and Larry moved to Virginia, this house went on the market and we bought it with a combination of my income and Larry's ex-military qualifying status for a VA loan. We had not had a chance to save anything for a down payment, only being married for a couple of months and having paid for our own wedding. We could barely scrape enough together for the closing costs, some of which were paid by the seller, as was customary in that market. We both had pretty good jobs though, so the monthly payment with the tax benefit worked out to be less that we were paying in rent. It felt like a good decision, but we were nervous about all of the debt. Of course, now we look back and think it was a great bargain.
When the house was inspected, our inspector told us that the home had obviously been cared for very well. The Conrad's had been there for 32 years before selling to us. He was a retired electrician, so later we found our share of Conrad signatures every time we started a new project in the house. When a piece of construction material was found to have at least three times the usual number of screws or nails necessary, it was then referred to as a "Conrad". Hearing the sentence "I found another Conrad." on a Saturday morning usually meant that my time estimate of how long something was going to take had just been completely shot. I found out recently that the new owner named their new baby "Conrad." I absolutely love the name, but I wonder if it was subliminal in some way....as if the name was echoing in the house somehow. Only time will tell if this little boy will feel a similar strong affinity for fasteners as dear Mr. Conrad.
Some garden shots....
I was a complete novice at gardening and plants when we bought our house. I developed an interest quickly and started attending free classes at Merrifield Garden Center. There was a lot of trial and error over the years, but there were certain areas where I really liked how things ended up. I'd love to say there was a grand master plan, but it was more of a plan that addressed each area individually, and then had to be meshed together with additional work. We're trying to have more foresight in our present home.
One thing I did pick up on from all of my magazines was the creation of special little vignettes. Most were better experienced in person with birds chirping and the smell of scented flowers as part of the experience, but here a few of my favorites favorite pictures.....
Adding more soon.....
I was training this aucuba and japanese maple to arch over the little path to our front yard. It created an inviting "secret" entrance to the front yard.
The oasis of grass was both practical and pretty. I realized quickly I did not like mowing around things, so the grass areas on the property were kept open, but free formed, like a pond. The ring of evergreen shrubs and ivy were for privacy and winter interest. The brown of winter was never a favorite for me as a new gardener, so I slowly gravitated to evergreens and perennials that had year round relevance to the landscape.
The entire front yard once was graded down to the street. It was a pet peeve of mine that people would park in front of our house to go to Idylwood Park, and cut right across our lawn to get there, trampling plants on their way. Really! I was raised in the farm country of Pennsylvania, but I knew to respect other people's gardens. Anyway, (That is about as mad as I get on this blog) we did not have much use of the lawn ourselves because of the slope, yet I was always working to maintain it. So, once the house addition was complete, we borrowed the contractor's Kubota over a weekend, brought in dirt to level the front to a 2% grade, about 5 dump trucks, or 50 yards. Then, we put in a series of drains and a catch basin. This is where it comes in real handy to live in a corner. All of the watershed when right into the county drains. The edge of the front property was now encompassed by about a 4 foot berm on the street side. The only complex thing we ran into was I needed to pay a fee to have the water meter raised almost 4' to bring it to level with the new berm. Once completed, we had created a private oasis of grass surrounded by evergreens and ivy.
Larry hates when I tell this story because I always bring up the fact that he left me alone to go to a corporate suite at an Avenel golf tournament, just after the dirt I ordered arrived. There were thunderstorms coming in late that afternoon, so I really wanted to dirt rough graded as much as possible before the rain started...so I dit it all..alone...and finished just as the rain started to fall....one of those days that he will never live down in this marriage.
It worked wonders for making the property more private and useful for us.
This was a garden picture from June 1999. We had already regraded the land away from the house with a bobcat, added a french drain, built the retaining wall, replanted the entire back yard except for three trees, custom built the fence, arbor, and mahogany deck. Our major home renovation project started in the fall of 1999 and went through to summer of 2000. The pool was installed in fall of 2000. The retaining wall was spared and the bobcat that dug the pool had to enter and exit through the arbor.
Will be adding images soon....
