The Home Ownership Thread

[Piobaire]

Here's a house, foundation and everything, for under 90k in Santa Cruz: http://www.zillow.com/community/de-anza-santa-cruz/2102248897_zpid/

 

[yywwyy]

.

 

[itsstillmatt]

Seem to be several bitter poorz in here.

 

[joelscott7]

Where the downspout from my room runs down, it goes into a circular receptacle that is connected to the city's wastewater drain. It is not fastened in, and in the large amount of rain we got today the water started overflowing from the sides. I am wondering if I can caulk this, so that the water will no longer splash out, or if there is a better way to deal with this problem?

 

[CBrown85]

Development company "designed" a large garden (dirt pit) in our back yard. Told us it wouldn't be changed during the construction phase. Fixed it ourselves. Had to move dirt around the side of the complex and sod in through the house because the back yard doesn't access to the front. We're in a town house so we're lucky to have a yard at all.

All in, the dirt, fence materials, sod were under $1k cdn and only took us a few Saturdays.

During our "modification"

After

 

[ChrisGold]



Development company "designed" a large garden (dirt pit) in our back yard. Told us it wouldn't be changed during the construction phase. Fixed it ourselves. Had to move dirt around the side of the complex and sod in through the house because the back yard doesn't access to the front. We're in a town house so we're lucky to have a yard at all.

All in, the dirt, fence materials, sod were under $1k cdn and only took us a few Saturdays.

Looks great, small yards are a challenge but you've now got a nice looking oasis.

 

[CBrown85]

Thanks- we're pretty happy with it now. Got a sofa and two seats from The Costco, a large sunbrella, and a planter box. Lots of room for the little guy to play and run around once he's walking.

Not bad for under $1mil.

 

[itsstillmatt]

Thats a pretty sweet little setup.

 

[ChrisGold]



Thanks- we're pretty happy with it now. Got a sofa and two seats from The Costco, a large sunbrella, and a planter box. Lots of room for the little guy to play and run around once he's walking.

Not bad for under $1mil.

Lots of bang for your buck there. Shows what you can do for not a lot of $$.

 

[Ataturk]

I'm a little unclear about what it looked like when you started. But the end result doesn't look bad, assuming you didn't screw up your neighbors' drainage.

Also a thousand bucks (even Canadian) sounds like a lot of for the materials. Did you have to buy it all in little bags to fit in your Prius? Hah.

 

[CBrown85]

I don't have pictures of the "before" on my new phone, but I'm sure there are some on our computer. There was a 1-2ft deep pit that contained a couple ferns and two poorly chosen trees surrounded by a concrete retaining wall (caps weren't even properly glued down). It was full of broken glass, dirt, rocks, and random construction leftovers and has been treated as a "nature space" by the landscapers even though it looked open and empty. We simply moved the wall against the fence and filled with soil. Drainage isn't an issue. The neighbour has the same pit we did but theirs is full of fir and cottonwood, so nothing has changed for them. They're in China 6+ months a year so the house is left unoccupied. I don't think they care about their yard too much anyway, but we used the remaining soil and sod to pretty it up for them.

Sod was around 80, fence lumber was around 200, soil was 250, drain riser was 30, leveling rock for the wall was 30, miscellaneous materials like tools and stone glue were ~50, and did the labour myself, so well under 1k, yes. I had to build a large ramp around the side of the building to get the soil up- just used scrap wood from a bunch of pallets. Moved sod in a parent borrowed Ford F-350 with duelies. Dirt was delivered.

We've gone from ~4 ft of grass to 15ft x24ft which could have been completely avoided had the developer actually listened to feedback. We went through the complete strata approval process to get this done and nobody had any issues.

Anyway, my new mission in life is to keep this sod alive for the summer. There are a few other things I'd like to finish and tinker with, but it'll be a fantastic entertaining space for summer. Lots of trees to shade.

 

[Piobaire]

Looks great, CB.

 

[Ataturk]

So you had to build the fence? Or did you just modify it somehow?

I'd be concerned about filling around trees. Putting a foot or two of dirt over the roots could kill even a big, mature tree like the one on the other side of that fence -- eventually. Everybody likes it when developers leave trees but you often see them all die after five years or so from root damage. That could be why they decided to leave a pit in your yard.

You didn't bury the trunks of those little trees in your yard, did you? Even six inches of dirt could kill them.

 

[ChrisGold]



I don't have pictures of the "before" on my new phone, but I'm sure there are some on our computer. There was a 1-2ft deep pit that contained a couple ferns and two poorly chosen trees surrounded by a concrete retaining wall (caps weren't even properly glued down). It was full of broken glass, dirt, rocks, and random construction leftovers and has been treated as a "nature space" by the landscapers even though it looked open and empty. We simply moved the wall against the fence and filled with soil. Drainage isn't an issue. The neighbour has the same pit we did but theirs is full of fir and cottonwood, so nothing has changed for them. They're in China 6+ months a year so the house is left unoccupied. I don't think they care about their yard too much anyway, but we used the remaining soil and sod to pretty it up for them.

Sod was around 80, fence lumber was around 200, soil was 250, drain riser was 30, leveling rock for the wall was 30, miscellaneous materials like tools and stone glue were ~50, and did the labour myself, so well under 1k, yes. I had to build a large ramp around the side of the building to get the soil up- just used scrap wood from a bunch of pallets. Moved sod in a parent borrowed Ford F-350 with duelies. Dirt was delivered.

We've gone from ~4 ft of grass to 15ft x24ft which could have been completely avoided had the developer actually listened to feedback. We went through the complete strata approval process to get this done and nobody had any issues.

Anyway, my new mission in life is to keep this sod alive for the summer. There are a few other things I'd like to finish and tinker with, but it'll be a fantastic entertaining space for summer. Lots of trees to shade.

From having sodded a few baseball fields which then almost immediately had heavy usage, the key is to really soak it good over the first few weeks to get the roots to go deep. Don't bother watering just a little, that can do more harm then good.

 

[CBrown85]



So you had to build the fence? Or did you just modify it somehow?

I'd be concerned about filling around trees. Putting a foot or two of dirt over the roots could kill even a big, mature tree like the one on the other side of that fence -- eventually. Everybody likes it when developers leave trees but you often see them all die after five years or so from root damage. That could be why they decided to leave a pit in your yard.

You didn't bury the trunks of those little trees in your yard, did you? Even six inches of dirt could kill them.

I had the same concerns before we started. The tree on the right was already at yard level, the one on the left was removed and then replanted. A city arborist who was here for a different reason actually looked at the big tree said said it should be ok.