Juniper Hill Cottage

Video: Bottoms up, gettin' it done

6/27/2020

It all starts with the foundation.

This is true for anything we create. A stable and solid foundation allows fantastic things to grow and flourish. And that's exactly where this projects gets underway - laying a foundation: footings, stem walls, and slab.

But to be honest, it sure feels like this is a surprisingly large footing for such a small addition. It's a massive amount of effort, concrete and investment for only about 152 square feet (the kitchen addition).

We're hoping this is so well built that it'll last another 100 years easy.

Huge concrete truck pulls up to deliver its load for the foundation

Big truck arrives to begin building the foundation.

We put together a short video to show a little bit of the process.

The simultaneous destruction on the street in front of our property makes it extra special (the street is getting a much needed make-over by the city too).

Check it out.

Bonus: Ibis-the-yellow-lab, as always, has a cameo shot!

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hand shovels and cast iron

6/18/2020

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The beginning of every castle is the foundation upon which it is built. And, in fact, castles used to be build essentially by hand, so this story fits right in (even though our abode is a tiny cottage).

The first few weeks have been focused on digging, moving earth, and discovering.

The excavation crew in front of Juniper Hill Cottage ready to get started

Pat, Leo, and Jose made it happen, one shovel at a time!

As prior chapters have described, while we are essentially keeping the square footage of our little cottage the same (even while putting in an addition) that by no means entails any less work than going big.

Quite the opposite in our case.

We are tucking a tiny 150 square foot kitchen addition onto the north side of our property where we have just

BARELY enough space between the current house exterior and the 7 foot setback to the property line on the north.

And on the east side of that is a large deck, that we built when we first bought the cottage, and it's going to stay. The deck goes right up to the setback line.

On the west side of the addition is a gorgeous fence and trellis that we built many years ago, and it's now covered with mature Halls Honeysuckle. The scent of those blossoms will be wafting into our new kitchen soon(ish)!

So, there you have it. There is no choice but to hand dig the foundation (and also for the Whiskey Porch extension going up out front - more on that in a separate post).

And here's the story of how a 2-day excavation became a four week slog...

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