New patio in the works

[68gtxman]

Been there before. Used to live next to a church in downtown Camden, SC. My big backyard ran next to their back yard. I came home early one afternoon and they had a big backhoe operating on their side of my fence and were happily pulling up my trees and plants and banging up my fence. I asked them what the hell did they think they were doing? The guy said to F**k off they didn't answer to me. Had the police there in 5 minutes. They ended up having to replace 40 feet of my 6ft tall wood fencing and replant all of the trees and plants. See the thing was, my wood fence was purposely 4 ft INSIDE my property line with a chain link fence on the line. I got tired of seeing and hearing the raft of kids playing out there while we were trying to enjoy our pool and yard. They just thought they would steal that 4 feet from me.

Yeah, that sucks! In NJ, fences can only be erected exactly on the property line (except for a pool fence or similar). If you don’t have a fence, it could lead to arguments with the neighbors.

 

[68gtxman]

Thanks for the compliments on the nice rendering, but it was prepared by one of the bidders (he was the highest bidder too so he didn’t get the job). Here is the sketch that I made (fairly lacking for the engineer that I pride myself to be):

I drew up several sketches just to explain my vision to my wife and never really got around to doing up a nice drawing to scale.

The low bidder was $3K cheaper than the next higher bidder (out of 6 bidders). He is also a neighbor from across the street in my community. The wife and I went to his house last night to look at the work he did in his own yard. Turns out that the nice photos in his brochure are from his own yard! Here is his website: http://www.grassmasters.net/scaping/index.htm

Here is his yard:

 

[Brandy]

Looks like a pro! And right across the street too? No brainer...

 

[NJRR]

Very nice work sir. Where I grew up in NJ, there was NOTHING that nice. I tend to forget that West and South Jersey have some beautiful country areas.

Me too. Hudson County, home of the crooked politician (think Senator Menendez, now on trial) !!! What part of Jersey were you from?

 

[NJRR]

The township had been using a private assessor and he just loved my “waterfront property”, so he kept placing an inordinately high value on it. I always argued with him that if it was such great “waterfront property”, why was the creek in my backyard instead the front of my house facing it? I kept appealing every reassessment and being an engineer, I was able to construct strong enough cases to get each increase reduced significantly. But when the a-hole retired and the township hired a national firm to do the next reassessment, they finally gave me a fair value and my taxes dropped from $7,700 to $5,600. When compared to a house that I owned in Tennessee, I paid $240 per year in property taxes, I realized that NJ sucks! One of my neighbors rebuilt his home, garage and added a big workshop to his property and the a-hole assessor doubled the assessed value which raised his taxes to over $14K per year. He appealed (his case was heard right before mine was) and his only argument was that he couldn’t afford the increase (unfortunately that is not a valid argument). He lost his appeal and the assessment stood. He wasn’t lying that he couldn’t afford it on his retirement, and they were forced to sell it. The county bought it and added it to their county park facilities that were adjacent to it.

I would kill to only pay $7700 a year, much less $5600. Your taxes in some communities in my area would be 3-5 times what you're paying !!!!!

 

[Richard Cranium]

The township had been using a private assessor and he just loved my “waterfront property”, so he kept placing an inordinately high value on it. I always argued with him that if it was such great “waterfront property”, why was the creek in my backyard instead the front of my house facing it? I kept appealing every reassessment and being an engineer, I was able to construct strong enough cases to get each increase reduced significantly. But when the a-hole retired and the township hired a national firm to do the next reassessment, they finally gave me a fair value and my taxes dropped from $7,700 to $5,600. When compared to a house that I owned in Tennessee, I paid $240 per year in property taxes, I realized that NJ sucks! One of my neighbors rebuilt his home, garage and added a big workshop to his property and the a-hole assessor doubled the assessed value which raised his taxes to over $14K per year. He appealed (his case was heard right before mine was) and his only argument was that he couldn’t afford the increase (unfortunately that is not a valid argument). He lost his appeal and the assessment stood. He wasn’t lying that he couldn’t afford it on his retirement, and they were forced to sell it. The county bought it and added it to their county park facilities that were adjacent to it.

I don't consider $5,600.00 that bad, nor was $7,700.00. Here in MA, I'm paying substantially more than that for my barn-house an 1.28 acres.

 

[Ironbuilt]

Me too. Hudson County, home of the crooked politician (think Senator Menendez, now on trial) !!! What part of Jersey were you from?

Union County, the City of Plainfield to be exact. Those high tax issues are one of the many reasons that the wife and I decided to make the move 2 1/2 years ago. In a city overrun with illegal immigrants, destroyed by high crime and the negroes that commit them and having some of the worst schools in N.J., they also have some of the highest property taxes. I lived in the "historic" district on 2/3 acre, in a 90 year old modest home. The neighborhood was nice, big historic homes, towering Oak trees and wooded lots. The only problem was the housing projects were one block behind my house, and the night air was riddled with gunshots and sirens. My property taxes were $10,900 until I installed an in-ground pool. Then all of the sudden I was paying $14,400 a year to a city that does NOTHING!! They tried garbage removal, but the trash that they hired couldn't pick up the trash at my house, so it went back to private. They were supposed to do leaf removal several times in the fall, instead they would freeze to the street in the winter making for wonderful driving conditions in the snow. Not that they plowed ANY of the side streets. I would plow my block with my own equipment, just to make my life easier.
Add to that the fact that ALL of the industry and major retailers left after the riots in the late 60's-early 70's. Mack trucks had their largest factory outside of Allentown, Pa. right on Front St. Not to mention Sears, Bambergers (Macys), Woolworths and a Myriad of smaller industrial and retail companies. Add that to all of the rental properties and housing projects, taxes were astronomical.
Now I live on 25 acres, have a beautiful little country home, 3 large out buildings and can build or do anything I want on MY property, all for $1200 a year. Of course that is offset due to 22 acres in active farm production. When I hear gunshots now, it might mean some fresh Venison from a friendly neighbor, not loud sirens in the night. I just wish I moved 20 years ago!!

Here's a picture of our house and my pickup in front of my barn and part of one field. The 440 picture shows the entire field, which is mine til the trees jut out. Sorry, no pics of the field on
Roughly 100 ft. of those woods line the entire back of my property.

Needless to say that I don't miss NJ.

the other side available.

Roughly 100 ft. of those woods line the entire back of my property.

Needless to say that I don't miss NJ.

 

[Richard Cranium]

Very nice.

 

[super-bee_ski]

Gorgeous place Lt. Col!

 

[68gtxman]

Just a couple more workdays until the patio is finished. (The bottom photo was taken today.) Then comes the pergola and the landscaping.

 

[Ironbuilt]

View attachment 540080 View attachment 540081 View attachment 540082

Just a couple more workdays until the patio is finished. (The bottom photo was taken today.) Then comes the pergola and the landscaping.

That,Sir, is going to be one gorgeous patio!!

 

[68gtxman]

Photos I took today. Very windy and no work on Sunday. The contractor needs to get the pillar caps (out of stock), add 4 more LED light sets, and glue down the bench wall caps. We just added landscaping too, plus we asked for a price to frame out a bar (we already roughed in the plumbing and electrical conduit so it can have a refrigerator and a utility sink. The sink will be plugged, filled with ice and used to serve bottled and canned beverages mostly. When not in use, I will fab a cover for the sink to make it just another part of the bar-top. I plan on making the bar surface from cast concrete - probably with a textured surface and dyed dark gray.

The pergola will come shortly, and the arched cutout in the patio (that I have to keep from smothering the beech tree, as seen here

will be covered with herringboned patterned Trex decking to square it off. This will match the rear patio decking seen here:

 

[68gtxman]

 

[747mopar]

Wow, I love it! Amazing what something like that will do to the overall appearance of the property. Congrats

 

[Richard Cranium]

Awesome, but what's the significance of the giant "Q".

 

[Budnicks]

Nice patio project & nice older projects too...
thanks for sharing your little piece of heaven
in NJ

 

[68gtxman]

OK, the contractor’s work on the patio has been completed. This is what it looks like now. The contractor has been in touch with the paver manufacturer (EP Henry) and he showed them some in progress photos. They want to put it in their catalog (2018?). They want to see the finished pergola and bar before they pull the trigger on it.

I need to complete the small circular decking, the bar and the pergola myself. My neighbor volunteered to help me with the pergola. I just need to pin down my wife on the covers for the 5 columns before we can start it. (I want fluted round columns.) Then I can order them and after they get delivered, we can build the pergola.

For now, I am working on the decking portion. The semi-circular portion under the tree (so hopefully it won’t choke the tree and kill it) will be Trex decking which will allow rain to seep into the ground at that section.

I received the contractor’s quote for the bar base alone, it was $2,200, so I nixed that. That quote covered building the base from the same style block as the seating wall. I went to the paver dealer to get a quote for veneer of that style and it was $1,000 just for that. I decided that I will build the base out of solid concrete blocks (4x8x16 inches) from Lowe’s at $1.45 each and then parge/paint it to match the house foundation. Total cost would be around $300. Then next, I will cast-in-place a concrete bar-top.

When everything is complete, my thought is to have a local awning company come out and fabricate/install a drop awning similar to the following photo along the hypotenuse of the pergola at the far ends for shade.

Thanks for following along with me and all the words of encouragement!!!

 

[68gtxman]

Here was the concept plan:

Here’s how close I got to it:

OK, here is the update. Pergola is complete. Just need to add a few more curtains and finish the Tiki bar.

Here is the new carport (20x30 with a 9 foot lean-to and 12 foot tall walls):

 

[Richard Cranium]

Let me know when you are having the belly dancer over.

 

[68gtxman]

Let me know when you are having the belly dancer over.

Yeah, some friends said that they felt they should be wearing togas while sitting here. Toga party!