Ell Alley

Monday, November 25, 2013

Nursery Trees

Steve & Rusty follow Tree Lady.

Tree Lady tags the Excelsa cedar we selected.

Jordan & Tree Lady head toward the field of vine maple.

Cascade Mountains in the distance.

Jordan inspects a vine maple.

We rented a cargo van & drove 45 minutes to NurseryTrees.com in Snohomish on Saturday, November 23. The day was beautifully sunny & somewhat cold. Frozen mud lay between the rows of trees. Tree Lady showed us fields of trees with snowy mountains beyond, across the Snohomish Valley. We chose 3 vine maples (Acer circinatum) & 1 Excelsa cedar (Thuja plicata 'Excelsa'). It took a long time for the 2 Mexican men to dig them up, wrap the roots in burlap & forklift them into the van. The trees were all about 8 feet tall with root balls 2 feet in diameter. We returned to Ell Alley, unloaded & placed the vine maples in their holes, laid the cedar on the path & returned the van. On the followed day, the cedar was set in its hole. The new garden was transformed with the addition of sizeable trees.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Bruksbo Veggen De Luxe

The carpenter at work.

Bruksbo Veggen De Luxe wall-mounted furniture in the dining room on 11-16-13.

Bruksbo Veggen De Luxe wall-mounted furniture in the office on 11-16-13.

Two weeks after we had moved into Ell Alley, the carpenter came to mount the Bruksbo Veggen De Luxe furniture on the walls. Most of the pieces went in the office, where there are 3 desks, drawers, shelves & a cabinet with sliding glass doors. In the dining room, right across from the table, are the remaining pieces: another cabinet with sliding glass doors, a cupboard, drawers & a magazine rack. Jordan's parents collected these pieces between 1961 & 1981. In fact we have a file with a check dated 28 Jan 1961, made by Colleen. The Veggen De Luxe line was designed by Thorbjørn Afdal for Bruksbo Tegnekontor & manufactured by Mellemstrands Trevareindustri in Norway.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Moving Day

Jetta at Ell Alley on 11-2-13.

The living room on 11-2-13.

The living room arranged.

The bed after delivery on 11-2-13.

The bed made.

The dining room & kitchen on 11-2-13.

Steve & Rusty at the dining room table on 11-2-13.

We moved in on Saturday November 2, 2013. We had moved a few things by car on November 1. But 11/2 was the day we got the truck & the hired guys came to load & unload it. Rusty & Steve spent the day supervised the movers at the apartment & the storage space. Jetta & Jordan stayed at Ell Alley while the delivery guys came from Sears with the bed, refrigerator, washer & dryer. Jordan arranged furniture & unpacked boxes. That evening, we had take out food from Thai Recipe.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Final Countdown

Forbidden planting under the ash tree at Ell Alley on October 22, 2013

The truck with the granite counter tops at Ell Alley on October 22, 2013

The new fence at Ell Alley on October 22, 2013

The buildings across the alley on October 22, 2013

On October 22, 2013 (when these photos were taken) there were only 9 days left before we took possession of the house. The truck with the granite counter tops was there. We had visited the site several times already that month. It was surprising to find that the critical root zone under the ash tree had been planted by the landscape crew as they worked in the area around the rest of the building. It was supposed to be left unplanted & covered in bark. It was obvious that, among our neighbors, only we had proposed & been given approval for an alternate landscape plan.

On another day, we ran into one of the owners of the development company. We talked with him at length. He was very pleasant & wore stylish construction-type clothes. After he left, we all said, 'What a great outfit!' The fence was being built then. The walls, roofs & most of the siding on one of the 2 buildings across the alley had been completed & work had begun to pour the foundations of the other. We met the new owners of one of the unfinished units. They expected to be our neighbors in about 9 months. On our side of the alley was one building with 5 units. On the other side would be 2 buildings with 3 units each. These were the last buildings to be constructed in our development.

Also during the month of October, we made several trips to buy a refrigerator, washer & dryer, dining table & chairs, & a king-sized bed. We were all very excited & full of ideas about the house.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Concrete

Entry walk from the sidewalk on Renton Avenue S in September 2013.

Entry walk across the front & down the side of the house in September 2013.

Front porch, which is actually on the side of the house in September 2013.

Back porch & stairs to garage in September 2013.

Retaining wall with very little space left for planting in September 2013.

New building across the back alley in September 2013.

By the end of September 2013, concrete for the walks & porches had been poured. There were stairs down from the street, in front of the house next door. The walk to our front door curved around the critical root zone of the ash tree in front of our house, crossing in front of the neighboring house, which seemed an invasion of their personal space. The front porch was a pad of exposed-aggregate concrete. The back porch was a much larger pad of smooth concrete, which left very little room (about 3 feet) for planting on that level. However, there was much more room for patio furniture & pots than expected. The kitchen island had been installed & some of the cabinets had been mounted. The interior walls had been painted a color that was not quite gray & not quite beige. The floorboards had been laid on the ground level, but not upstairs. The bathrooms were far from finished. We were giving the date of October 31 for closing the sale of the house, which seemed quite an inconvenient date for moving out of the apartment. The construction of the new building across the back alley had advanced at a rapid pace.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Painted Exterior

Ell Alley at upper left. August 2013.

North & west walls, plus garage.

North & east walls.

Front porch.

Back porch.

The ground floor is one big room.

Master bedroom.

View from master bedroom. Ell Alley August 2013.

By mid-August of 2013, the exterior was painted dark gray-blue, tan & cream with black trim. The sheet rock was hung on the interior walls. Construction had started on the residential units across the alley & foundations were poured for their garages. All of the building in the Allegro development had been built, or were under construction, except for the 3-unit building directly across from Ell Alley. Even more exciting, the Seattle Housing Authority approved Jordan's landscape plan.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Doors & Siding

Ell Alley at far right of building 8 in July 2013.

Ell Alley, east & north walls.

Stairs from garage to terrace & retaining wall.

Ell Alley at left with garage.

New building of 3 units begun below Ell Alley in July 2013.

By mid-July of 2013 the doors & siding were installed. The doors were locked when the workers left, so we were unable to see the interior very often. We did see that they were installing the wiring & plumbing. Work started on a building of 3 units across the alley below building 8, on the southern half of that lot. Another building of 3 units was planned for the northern half of the lot.

About Ell Alley

Ell Alley is the home of Jetta, Jordan, Kitty, Rusty, Steve & Toby. It is named for the alley beside & behind the house that forms an ell: the shape of the letter L. It is located in the Rainier Vista development, in the Rainier Valley of Seattle, which extends 7 miles southeast from Downtown Seattle to Rainier Beach, between Beacon Hill & the lakeside ridges of Mt Baker, Lakewood & Seward Park. Ell Alley is 4 miles from Downtown Seattle, 0.4 miles from the Columbia City Station & 0.7 miles from the center of the Columbia City Landmark District.

Rainier Valley History

The first settlers arrived in the 1850s, but settlement was slow until the forest was cut down & milled, as it was throughout the city. Developers bought logged-off land toward the end of the 19th century. They laid out the communities of Genesee, Columbia City, Hillman City, Brighton & Dunlap.

Cheap land in the valley, just outside the City of Seattle, attracted Italians of rural origins & they planted large, productive gardens. The north end of the Rainier Valley became known as Garlic Gulch. Japanese immigrants also had farms in the valley. The produce filled local markets including Pike Place.

The Rainier Avenue Electric Railway opened the valley to greater development, reaching Columbia City in 1891 & Renton in 1896. In 1907, the City of Seattle annexed most of southeast Seattle, including the Rainier Valley.

At the start of World War II, Japanese residents were forced into internment camps east of the mountains. Tens of thousands of war workers came to Seattle to work at the Boeing Company, the shipyards & the port. The US government constructed thousands of temporary housing units at Rainier Vista, Stadium Homes (now Mt Baker Village) & Holly Park in the Rainier Valley.

After the war, the temporary housing became public, low-income housing. Suburban development took many white residents away from the valley. Blacks moved into the Rainier Valley from the over-crowded, nearby Central Area. Interracial couples found acceptance here. Filipinos arrived in large numbers.

After the fall of Saigon in 1975, refugees came from southeast Asia: Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong, Lao & Mien peoples. Many settled in the Rainier Valley. Chinese continued to arrive, although most settled on nearby Beacon Hill. There was a small influx of Mexicans. Somali immigration began after US involvement in Somalia in 1992.

Work on new housing at NewHolly (formerly Holly Park) began in 1997 & continued for a decade, with 1400 units sold to private owners. The rebuilding of Rainier Vista began in 2003 & still continues. Columbia City rapidly gentrified starting in the late 1990s. Many units of new housing were built in the form of townhouses, condos & apartments.

The current population of the Rainier Valley is about 41,000. The racial breakdown is 34.1% Asian, 26.9% Caucasian, 26% African American, 1.6% Pacific Islander, 6.5% Mixed Race, 1% Native American and 3.4% from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race are 7.2% of the population.

Our Land & Climate

The city of Seattle rests between 2 bodies of water: Puget Sound & Lake Washington. Puget Sound is a substantial part of the Salish Sea & a very small part of the Pacific Ocean. The Salish Sea is set apart from the Pacific by the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington & Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia. The dense, wet clouds of the Pacific Ocean travel as far as the Cascade Mountains, near the Salish Sea & not very far from the ocean. East of the Cascades lies the desert of the Columbia Basin. The moist, temperate climate of Seattle extends south to northern California & north to southeastern Alaska. The Pacific Northwest Coast from San Francisco Bay to Cook Inlet shares a flora dominated by evergreen coniferous forest. The central portion, west of the Cascade Mountains, is called Cascadia. The climate is cool & wet from fall to spring, warm & dry in summer. The Olympic Mountains block Seattle from much of the Pacific rainfall. Seattle is drier than the Atlantic coast of North America & northern Europe, cooler in summer & warmer in winter. It lies near the latitude of Paris & Quebec City.

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