June 4, 2008
Improving my desgin
I’m finally working on my house again. The first big job will be painting the interior. I’m prepping now, so don’t mind the paper on the doors and the patches on the walls, please. Several years ago I had the open-decked lanai torn out. In its place I now have a screened lanai/multi-purpose room. My washer and dryer are out there, I have plenty of built-in storage and there are two benches beneath the large screened windows out of view to the left and behind me in the picture above. My tiny side yard is also behind me, and my herb and tropicals garden. I use the screened door to the left to enter the house from the front lanai. It’s really convenient because I can set anything I’m carrying inside, go out for another trip (and another and another if I found some shopping bargains!) and not worry about Lance getting out (the baby gate is temporary - it will be replaced with a screen door soon.) We don’t wear our shoes inside in Hawaii, so it’s also a convenient place to take them off and have them ready to go for next time. All-in-all I’m pretty happy with the room. It’s got some design flaws, though. I acted as my own general contractor and I’m not exactly an expert. A licensed contractor would have pointed out any problems with my plans and helped me find ways to correct them. The carpenter I hired just went along with my original design. Notice my lovely tile floors? They’re very practical when I come in from outside during our rainy winters, or when I’m dirty coming in from the garden. They’re also very hard! I came out of the house with a load of laundry one day and toppled off of the deck to the tiled slab below. I’m very lucky to have had only a few bumps and buises to show for it. A contractor would have seen the danger in having an elevation change so close to a door and would have insisted that I have guard rails along the upper level and the stairs. I’ll have to have them retro-fitted now, but I’ve found a great place to get just what I want. Picketed rails look great on the lanai outside, but I want something open and airy inside, to suit the room.
This is exactly what I’ve been wanting! Tempered glass inserts will provide safety without blocking all of the lovely sunlight that floods into my dining area or blocking my view through the room into my garden. The metal components are fitted together with self-drilling/self-tapping hardware, so I could probably do the work myself except for needing someone to hold the glass while I install it. Yeah, like I would be that stupid again! No, this time I’ll let a pro do the work, but after we discuss what I want we’ll be going to the link above to get everything we need to make the room safer without compromising the design. I’m a - ahem - mature woman now, and a broken hip would put a serious crimp in style. I’ve already bought some no-skid patches to put on the stairs. Now I just need to find a contractor bold enough to tell this old gal the right way to finish making things safe.
Technorati Tags: building design, guard rails, home design, safety, stair rails
Posted by skeet @ 10:39 am • Shopping, Home & Family
RSS feed for comments on this post.
TrackBack URI
June 4th, 2008 at 2:34 pm, Whim Says:
You are really on a roll. Keep it up!
June 6th, 2008 at 9:44 am, skeet Says:
I’m working hard every day, Whim, but it’s going to take a long time to make up for all of my neglect. Day at a time, just like the folks at AA, ya know?
June 7th, 2008 at 1:46 pm, hyphen8 Says:
Looks really nice to me..it’ll be really snazzy with the glass guardrails though.
June 9th, 2008 at 5:21 pm, skeet Says:
I’m determined to get some louvers put in to keep out the rain so I can add cushions to the bench seats and have you and the rest of the TOC gals over to try it out, Hyphen8!