On impulse today, I agreed that it made sense to build our basement deck before we let the builders go to their next job (surprise, D!) Ronnie first formed the steps down from the deck. He had the clever idea to put some of the leftover styrofoam building blocks into the cavity, to save a whole cubic meter of concrete. Recycling the blocks is a bit of a headache, because I need to cut away the styrofoam from the plastic ties before taking it to the Gibson’s Recycling Depot. So this saves recyling and it saves concrete.
Here is our neighbour’s house.
Now back to me! Here’s our deck structure.
Here’s our view from our main sundeck.
Now back to me!
Perhaps you get my point-of-view. Our neighbour’s house is huge (five stories including the tug boat on top.) It looms over our indoor and outdoor spaces, and there may be nothing we can do about it. Raff suggests bamboo. We need all the sun we can get from that side (south) for the garden on top of the studio. D suggests we show movies on that big wall, which will be painted grey. That might actually work!
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
It’ll look better once they finish it and get some landscaping in there. At the moment your place is probably a bit of an eyesore with that bright teal lining exposed all around.
I don’t think their windows look too bad for privacy considerations. It could be way worse. Did you figure out how high that bedroom window will be (from inside)? Is it eye-level, or higher? That thing on the roof is a surprise, I wonder what they’ll use that for. Hopefully nothing where they stare out the round window at your living room and deck.
Just the presence of that huge hulk is dominating, though. It eclipses a good amount of the hill, from the looks of it. If you’d never seen the empty lot there, it would be easier to take.
Ridiculous square footage. I hope they plan to run a hostel in there, or something. Get some use out of it.
Imagine, all those local subdivision requirements and a house like that gets built, which adheres to the codes but probably makes the subdivision much less desirable to live in. I can hardly think of an uglier waste of materials. If he stuccos it in peach then that would top it off.
What would you have done differently on your house should you have known about the place prior to design?
Even a wooden fence with vines or something to hide some of the thing.
I’d come over to watch a movie on your deck…
Good question, Liam. I think our house has to be oriented the way it is because of the sun and passive solar gain. But, I probably would have eliminated a couple of our windows, because they’ll just be curtained anyway. And, maybe planned a partial wall of some description for the sundeck.
Holy crow, that’s some house next door!!
As for plants…I’ll check with my resident gardener when he gets home tomorrow and see if I can send you his list of xeriscape plants. Seems to me that you will want drought tolerant plants just like we have here in the Okanagan. Bamboo might not be a good idea from a water perspective–it can also get out of control and take over.
I’ve been away in Iceland and New Brunswick for a month–good to catch up with you.
Janet
Liam’s of course right–you should build a fifty-foot-high vine covered fence to give you neighbours some privacy.
Hope you don’t get off on the wrong foot on account of the house. Advice I got yesterday was that maintaining good relations with neighbours is always a top priority. So I try to remember to chat up the dump crows, in case I ever need them to look after the place.
Good call (caw) Tess. Ha, ha!
You’re right about neighbours’ relations. We will be neighbours for a long long time.
Thanks Janet, for your interest. I look forward to learning more about xeriscaping.