What Goes Up Must Come Down — A Backyard Cottage

Welcome to progress! The permitting process may have taken three months but building seems to be happening at lightning speed. We’re capturing this transformation as fast as we can. First, for context we’ll share a photograph of Drew and Jacob’s backyard prior to breaking ground:

Left: Scout enjoys a cool drink on Drew and Jacob's lawn. Right: Jacob and Maude relax in the sunshine last summer.

The first step in the construction process was tearing down the old garage. Drew and Jacob’s house was built in 1910 with a small shed out back which was upgraded and replaced by the current garage in 1951 according to the documents we found at the King County archives. Not too shabby! Since the garage was only one foot from the neighbor’s garage, Joe’s crew did the demolition by hand, board-by-board, sledgehammers in hand, which took 2.5 days.

Raise the roof..and then dismantle and recycle it.

After the garage went to its final resting place in recycling heaven, Joe called in the excavators, a company called Fasoldt Gardens. The bobcat arrived and as the crew proceeded to remove concrete and dig down to eventually establish the parameters around the 14 by 24 foot cottage, they discovered another foundation made of brick. Everyone stopped, everyone got nervous. The excavators spray painted a large question mark on the brick foundation and called Joe.

Coming home to a giant question mark and mysterious bricks was quite a surprise that day.

Long story short? All is well. It turns out that the brick foundation did not have to be removed. It was below the level necessary to dig the new foundation and was actually the foundation of the original brick structure that preceded the garage we demolished. The crew speculated that at one point it had been used as a trash pit for burning neighborhood refuse and we even found old beer bottles and car parts hanging around!

Fasoldt Gardens worked around the old foundation and proceeded to build the necessary trench two feet deep for the new foundation. Constructed forms and rebar were fitted in the trench with cement poured by Salmon Bay.

Petr The Plumber has now entered the picture to dig trenches for the pipes to connect to the sewer. This pretty much brings us up to date.

Left: Petr and Elyse discuss plumbing. Right: Elyse, Joe, and Petr.

Last week ended with a meeting with Joe and Bruce to discuss doors, floors, windows and ceilings, keeping in mind that space is precious, or as Elyse asked, ”are you sure you measured it right?” Yes. This is what 616 square feet looks like.

Home sweet home.