My Own Private Parking Lot

NEVER THOUGHT I COULD GET SO EXCITED ABOUT PARKING, outside of finding a spot in the East Village on a Saturday night.

For the past two days, the construction of a parking court — that sounds pretentious, but it’s not a driveway, it’s a 25’x30′ almost-square and I don’t know what else to call it — has been underway in my front yard. The workmen just finished, and I’m pleased with how it turned out.

I had determined the standard dimensions from internet research. A spot for two cars ought to be 30′ wide — presuming car doors need to open, and people need to maneuver about. And I had decided it should be 30′ deep, measured from the road, to accommodate the occasional vehicle longer than my own Honda Fit.

When Joe Goncalvez, an old-school mason, and his son arrived yesterday, marked off the space, and started bulldozing the remains of the old black asphalt, I realized that was way huger than necessary. So I cautiously had them lose five feet of width, but it’s still 30′ deep, for a total of 750 square feet of parking. That’s almost the size of the house itself! It taught me something about proportionality: that it is very hard to get right without experience (and this is my first parking court, after all).

I’m hoping that with time, and encroaching greenery, the parking court won’t look so vast, and if it does, I’ll use it for additional container planting– put out barrels of annuals or evergreens, possibly even a bench. Turn it into an entry courtyard that happens to accommodate cars.

Meanwhile, it can fit four Fits, if not six.

I love the stone — 3/4″ pieces of local quartz and granite, a natural beige/cream/brown color, worn smooth by the glaciers that deposited it here 15,000 years ago (it’s dusty in the picture above; it’s not really that yellow). I used railroad ties as edging, an economical solution and one I think looks right for my humble cottage (Belgian block or any such fancy edging would have been too much).

Joe also brought over some smaller pea gravel, and suggested that, since I had a “credit” (the parking court being a bit smaller than originally intended), he pave me a pea-gravel walkway from parking court to front door. He told me they would excavate a couple of inches and lay down landscape fabric to keep weeds from popping through.

This morning, I got up early to fine-tune the curves I wanted for the walk with my trademark technique: sculpted piles of dead oak leaves. I went out for a bit, and when I returned, they had already done it. I found it mushy to walk on and not as wide as I wanted, closer to three feet than four. So I screwed up my courage — not being naturally that assertive with workmen (or hairstylists) — and told Joe this, feeling guilty because he had sort of “thrown it in.”

He was totally pleasant and professional about it — it wasn’t any big deal for him. Widening the walk and tamping it down took all of 15 minutes. The man is a prince. And I now have a proper place to park the car, like every American home should.

City Slicker’s Adventures in Cottage Living

…in which she can’t get a reasonable quote to install her fireplace and sees wild turkeys in her backyard.

Photo: Wikipedia

TIME FOR A LITTLE RE-CAP, I think, of home-improvement progress or lack thereof.

First, my ongoing fireplace dilemma. The Malm stands in a corner of the living room in silent reproach. I have failed to find a fireplace company, roofer, contractor, mason, carpenter, or handyman willing to hook it up for less than $3,000. And just when I thought three grand was bad, I got another quote for $4,700. “What’s the big deal?” say people who don’t do that type of work. Apparently it is. A biggish deal, coupled with Hamptons rip-off (this is not the slow season for fireplaces).

It’s not that I actively miss having a fireplace. My house, happily, is tight as a drum. All the windows have storms, and there must be insulation, because the boiler is not gulping oil as rapidly as I feared. It’s warm and cozy here, and a candle or two on a winter’s night is about all the fire I need.

For now, I’ve decided to keep the Malm (even though Design Within Reach said they would take it back), and put it either on the porch or in the cellar for another season or another house. I got it on sale (about $1,300) and it was paid for months ago, so that’s forgotten. But to lay out another few grand now, when I also need a roof, a driveway, a deck, an outdoor shower, and a new bathroom (in that order), is not an appealing prospect.

The Malm can also be used outdoors next spring and summer, on my future deck, without having to hook it up, which will be fun. So the Malm stays in the picture.

My new roof, originally scheduled for December, has been twice delayed. First, by my deciding I wanted to look into a standing-seam metal roof in lieu of the typical asphalt shingle. I found a metal roof guy, looked at his work, got a quote. It wasn’t horribly more than what I’m spending for the shingle, but ultimately I decided against it, because, as cool as it looks, the roof pitch here is not so steep that it would really be seen much — though the fact that it is greener than the petroleum-based, artificially colored Timberline shingles was a consideration. Then there was a major snowfall, and now I’m going to Spain. So the roof is delayed again till early February, giving me more time to decide between Mission Brown and Weathered Wood. Meanwhile, there’s been nary a leak from melting snow, but the roof is 30 years old and looks like crap, and I’ve already given the roofer a 50% deposit, so it’s going to happen.

I’ve got a 30’x30′ parking court going in at the front of the property, edged with railroad ties and covered in 3/4″ chunks of natural-colored stone, also in early February. That will be an improvement over parking in the mud or on the street.

Indoors, not much is new since my daughter and I painted in October. I’m happy with my living room decor, such as it is, and things like Crate & Barrel dish towels hung as art on the wall of the dining area give me inordinate pleasure.

So the winter is proceeding. My next-door neighbor, whom I see every few weekends, said, “Oh, so you made it!” (meaning through the two snowstorms, I suppose). “Easily!” I replied cheerily, the vulnerable feeling of driving a Honda Fit through deep snow behind me for the moment.

Yesterday, in the late afternoon, I came back from errands in town to find a dozen wild turkeys hanging out in my backyard. That never happened in Brooklyn. Of course, by the time I got my camera, they had dispersed into the woods. But it reminded me, powerfully, that I’m living in the country. And I like it.

Landscaping with Leaves

IN ANOTHER LIFE, I might be having lunch at Balthazar. In this life, I am sculpting with leaves.

Using a hose or rope to lay out the curve of a path hasn’t worked for me. They just didn’t stay put, or make the kind of curve I wanted. I tried neon paint, below; that was a disaster. The line I managed to draw bore no relationship to the sweeping, natural curve I had in mind.

So I’ve been working a kind of negative space thing, building up future planting beds on either side of a projected flagstone path — which will run from my future parking court to the front door, then onward to the back, a distance of about sixty feet — with piles of scavenged oak leaves, leaving bare what will be the path. (The leaves, I hope, will be the basis for soil by next spring. I know I’ll have to add loads of amendments.)

Not having many leaves left on my own property, I’ve been dragging a tarp and stealing from my neighbors’ roadside piles, left out for the town to pick up (luckily, not for another 10 days). I dump them roughly where I want them, then fine-tune the line with a rake, contemplatively, like a Zen monk.

Amazingly, the leaves stay more or less where I put them, through wind and rain.

Today I brought in from outside a few tender garden plants I think might survive the winter in a corner of my unheated porch, above. I have an old storm window and plastic sheeting at the ready if the temperature really drops.

Birth of a Path

NOT LONG AGO, my driveway was a straight dirt run from road to house.

For the past couple of weeks, an hour here, an hour there, I’ve been literally laying the groundwork for a walking path from my future parking court — a gravel square approximately 25′ x 25′, yet to be built — to the front door.

My plan is to replace the straight-ahead dirt driveway with a gradual, curving, S-shaped path of cut flagstone. And since the path will be only 4′ wide, and the existing driveway is roughly 10′ wide, that leaves lots of room on either side for generous planting beds.

Because there was nothing but compacted, sandy dirt where I hope to grow a variety of cottage garden perennials next spring, I’ve been moving leaf mold — chopped leaves piled in the woods behind my house by the tree man who recently took down several large oaks — wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow (and then, when the wheelbarrow’s axle broke, by garbage can on hand truck) from the pile in the woods to the front of the property, where I’m using the partially decomposed leaf mold to sculpt curvaceous new beds. Essentially, I’m composing on the spot.

I was inspired by an article in an organic gardening magazine that said if you pile chopped leaves and other organic matter in fall and let it break down over the winter, come spring — voila! Lovely planting medium.

I’ve run out of chopped leaves, and am now using whole fallen leaves, less desirable because they take longer to decompose. While my neighbors rake their leaves to the roadside for the town to pick up, I’m hoarding mine (and coveting theirs) to add to my newly sculpted beds-to-be.

A Loose Schedule and a Tight Budget

Above: Eric Ernst, Tree Man of Montauk, thinning out my overgrown forest so I stand a chance of growing something other than ferns

I’M ALL OVER THE PLACE HERE. I still have so much to do pull this house and garden together, I’ve hit another impasse of indecision. So I’m planting daffodils. (Though everywhere I dig, I hit inch-thick wisteria vine, and spend more time pulling and cutting wisteria than digging holes for the bulbs.)

I’ve accomplished a lot in the four months since I bought this cottage in May. But I have so much further to go. Not knowing whether this is a long-term home or a flipper makes it that much harder to proceed. If I knew for sure it was the former, I would take my time and spend more freely. But if it’s going to be a flipper, I just want to get it done.

Perhaps I should buy the Zen mindset my friend is trying to sell me. “You’re here now,” she says. “When you decide you don’t want to be here anymore, you’ll go somewhere else.” Yeah, but how exactly do I proceed with my renovation on that basis?

This I know: as soon as possible, I’d like to feel “Oh, how charming” pulling into my driveway, instead of “Eeewwww. Ugh.” That driveway — broken asphalt studded with weeds — is part of the problem. As is the house itself, with its discolored cedar shingles. And a front yard more brown than green. What’s the opposite of curb appeal?

The deer fence and patio have fallen off the top of my priorities list. I’m thinking of letting the deer have one last winter of ravaging the evergreens and rhododendrons, and spending that money indoors instead, on a fireplace, new bathroom, new kitchen counter, and a paint job. I also need a whole new roof. I’m gathering quotes from tradespeople: two roofers so far, two bathroom contractors, and a housepainter.

In the meantime, I’ve been canvassing the nurseries for shrubs on sale. I’ve fallen for a viburnum tomentosa plicata, or doublefile viburnum, above, eight feet across and flaming red, at Spielberg’s in Amagansett (the picture shows it in spring). At 40% off, it’s under $100, plus another $100 to plant (it’s very heavy). Deer don’t like it, but it needs a good sunny spot, and those are still in short supply on my lot. I also want a river birch somewhere; I love the peeling bark and delicate leaves. And dogwoods.

The truth is, I’m not in that much of a rush. I keep reminding myself that this is not a HGTV project done in a weekend. It’s real life, on a loose schedule and a tight budget.