Tag Archives: view of LA Harbor

We Built A New Garage

We built a new garage. Sounds simple enough. Pour a slab. Build the frame. Electrical. Drywall. Roof. Door. Done….NOPE.

This was no easy task. Thank you city codes. Footers down into the bedrock – which happened to be about 7 feet below the ground. Retaining walls on two sides.

Also…the structure couldn’t be within 10′ of our existing house – or it would have to be attached. The two possible places to attach the new garage would either block our view (not gonna happen), or in the place that our septic tank currently occupies…meaning, we would have to move our septic tank (again, not gonna happen). So…unattached garage it is.

And then, it had to be no closer than 5 feet to the side property line, and 20 feet from the street property line. Lastly, it could not be over 12 feet high – we are all very serious about our views in this town!

With all of these measurements in mind, there was only one place the garage could go – with literally 1″ wiggle room and it was destined to be a 20×21 two-car space.  Thank you to CK Architecture and Made By Render for figuring this business out!

Here’s a little reference on the plans for the new garage:

And this was from demo day 1. The new garage sits right in this space:

And here is a little reminder of what came next…digging for the footers:

Concrete Poured footers here along with the frame for the concrete retaining walls: 

Walls poured:

And finally…a slab!

Next, it was time to frame and pour the new entry steps: 

It was about this time that we high-tailed it out of town. And we missed getting pictures of the framing. SO, smash cut to:

And…!

Electrical – done.  Now for drywall: And then…the standing seam roof. Yes please!

Fine-tuning the electrical and paint. Reference: we used Cabot stain and matched Clark + Kensington’s Black Chiffon  :

Final touch…the garage door. We went with a panel glass door, opaque so you can’t see it at night but not green during the day. And it is the quietest door ever. SO happy with it: 

And this was the finished product. New garage for us! 

Here’s and this is how it looks now. Curb appeal here we come!

 

Thanks for following along. More details to come next week.
Follow along on our entire house remodel here. 



We Poured A Lot Of Concrete

This was our view last August. A patio form…waiting for its substance to fill it all in.

Our crew from D&S Construction were awesome. Seriously – a great crew of people makes the disruption of a remodel so. much. better!!!

And finally…the first concrete pour began!
All hands were on deck to control the amount of concrete in each area and to smooth it down with an even finish. I’m not sure exactly how much concrete was poured, but in the end, there were 5 different pours to make this project happen. And suffice to say, it was a lot of concrete. This was pour #1:

We wanted the appearance of a light acid wash on our patio – and to do that we had to slightly expose the aggregate by spraying a chemical surface retarder (the blue stuff) onto the slab surface immediately after placing and finishing the concrete. This delays the set and gives the crew the flexibility to remove the cement paste up to a day or so later, by pressure washing.

And here is our first look at our new patio – which now sits level with the house floor and is about 4 feet higher than our old patio. View maximizer!

This was the point when we felt the genius behind the design of this patio. Thanks CK Architecture and Made By Render! The dogs were a little tentative at first, but they’re definitely getting used to all of the steps.
Sweet Lyle is checking it all out.

So stay tuned…there’s more to come…next week I’ll post some info about the new garage.
Follow along on our entire house remodel here.