BACKYARD PARADISE
21 July 2008
“It is my sanctuary, a place of refuge where I can be at rest from the wars. I endeavor to free this corner from the public storm, as I do another corner in my soul.”
—Michel de Montaigne
On August 14th of this year my wife and I will celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary, and in a nice bit of symmetry, we have been in our home for half of our marriage. At the time we got this house I had already made an elaborate double pedestal computer desk with hutch, using only a skill saw and a drill. “If I had a table saw and some other tools, I could make for us a paradise,” I told Christine. “And if not another thing happened, that would be enough for me.”
So she agreed, and I got some tools and set to work, being in those early years entirely self-taught. In the first two years we had the house I made a walk-in closet for her and an armoire for myself, along with a window seat and furniture for the living room, but I felt I was spinning my wheels in a lot of respects, because there were so many things I did not know. So I started taking woodworking classes at Palomar College, taking, in all, some five years of instruction. And it was about that time that I began working on a fantasy for our back yard, thinking that I would require no more than two years to complete the project.
Well, as it turned out, I spent a total of ten summers in that yard. Sometimes, depending on class projects and the like, I would not begin working on the yard until June, once even as late as July, but the year always ended about October, excepting the casita, which was a project that required one entire year of my labor to complete. I did have some professional help on the casita, totaling about 15% of the finished project, and I had help raising the posts for the two raised decks. All of the rest of the work, including the overheads on the decks (those long beams under the awnings are twenty-two feet long!), I did myself.
Had I known what I was getting into, I would not have done it. I would have gone to work on the house first, made all the things we wanted for the house, then started my business and hired someone to do all the things in the yard. Maybe. My guess would be that it would have cost $100,000 to $150,000 for professionals to go back there and do the work. And I doubt that they would have done some of the things I did, the benches and reading porch. And who the heck would want to shell out that kind of money? But on the other hand… ten years!!!
But it’s finished now, and that’s the main thing. And I have to say that we have enjoyed it quite a bit and expect to really enjoy it this summer. Already, Christine has been back there on a frequent basis, looking at the growth of the plants and such, and enjoying every minute of it. (For more on our yard—and more pictures—please go to Thinking About It.)
We have featured a lot of backyard kitchens on this site and will do more in the future, as it is an idea that is becoming increasingly popular, as is the concept of a yard as elaborate as the one I designed in a moment of insanity and then pursued for much too long a time. It is not, I hasten to add, a line of business I want to get into myself, but I thought I would share some of my ideas with our readers, along with what I have found along life’s byways… and the Internet.
Joseph
NEXT: “When You’re Here, You’re Family!”
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