In continuing with our “first summer backyard tour,” which is less of a bunch of reveals and more of a progress/update/learnings, today I have for you all things sports court. Originally, she was big and cracked and now she’s smaller and unfinished. Check this progress out (I love watching this over and over and over).
When we first bought the property it had the world’s largest sports court on it – basically a tennis court size with like 20 extra feet in every direction – HUGE. Like many things in this house, we thought it was fine “as-is,” thinking that changing it would be daunting (and we were right!). We figured we’d hire someone to resurface it so it didn’t LOOK so cracked and call it a day. Brian and I really divided up the outside workload based on what was important to each of us – which means he took the lead on all things sports court, driveway, farm animals, and the south play lawn. At this time, I was busy designing the inside of the house so I barely thought about these things. I couldn’t clutter my brain space trying to book a sports court resurfacer. I don’t know if I have all the details right of this process TBH – or perhaps I’ve blocked them!
Here’s a quick process video for you to check out too! (Just wait for the little ad to play:)
I believe the original court was 120′ long by 60′ wide – HUGE. Our property was big so we maybe we didn’t realize it before. But as Brian had different subs come over to consult on how to make it better, they all said the same two things:
- “We will not resurface this, No way”. Essentially it was so badly cracked – everywhere, that no one would put their name on resurfacing it because they all said it would just crack in a year and look like garbage. And…
- “This sports court is way too big”
Part of me wanted to try to just get a someone super inexpensive to do it knowing that it was a five year bandage. That’s the “let’s deal with this annoying and expensive situation later,” part of me who is a big part of me honestly.
So what were our options?
1. Hire an asphault company to just make it a big black top (cheapest and a two day process)
2. Resurface it ourselves, knowing that we don’t know how to do that and that all the experts say wouldn’t be wise.
3. Pour concrete over it, another layer and hope that it doesn’t crack?
4. Demo it out and start fresh (and smaller).
5. Wait and hope that whatever we decide wouldn’t ruin all the investment into the landscape we were about to make.
We ended up finding the most affordable concrete guy who quoted $18k (our first quote was $45k) to demo out and re-pour (but 1/2 the size), but when he came he said that unbeknownst to him there were many, many, many layers of concrete, poured over many years and it was going to be much more. I think it was up to 10″ in many places. That is a LOT to demo. And we had to do this NOW. We couldn’t decide this later because all of the landscaping was happening (irrigation, grading) and you can’t plant and landscape and then bring in huge machinery – it would literally ruin it all, break irrigation, destroy plants and trees, etc. So once again, a rushed expensive decision. The good news with this is that the hillside just off the end of the sports court was the one that we were going to bring the Soake pool up on. We were actually able ground the concrete into gravel to help get the crew trucks up. The less good news is that it remains there and we have no idea how to get rid of it.
At this point we definitely wanted it smaller and Cali put it into the plans:
That seemed like the wisest plan and obviously we were grateful that we could make this choice. Now that we are on the other side of this and we love how incredibly usable our property is, we have calmed down. But, needless to say there were huge financial implications for all of this and it was very, very stressful. None of this was budgeted for and I’m not a landscape content creator so it just didn’t seem like a great area be allocating so much money. But we would either need to pause the whole landscape project to get our brains around what to do and how to budget for it, OR deplete more of our savings from selling our LA house and just get it done so we can keep moving forward. This is also when the entire outside was mud (except for this broken sports court). Now that I’m writing about it, in hindsight, the whole year had this cloud of overwhelm over it. I’m not asking for pity, obviously – we are so privileged to be able to do this and have this space – but it’s just a reminder that if you’ve ever attempted a remodel/renovation and have felt extremely overwhelmed and depleted, you aren’t alone. If you’ve ever let your ideas get out of control and then you find yourself forced to make really expensive decisions really fast, you are not alone. And then the real question is was this even the right decision????
This kind of decision making is also hard when you have a guy there, with all his machinery to do the job! The availability of subs last year was SO HARD to lock down, especially for outdoor jobs during dry weather spells in Portland. So you make choices:) And here’s what we did.
Again, we removed the entire OG sports court, ground it into gravel, poured it like a fountain all over the then beat up driveway (which did help with the mud/machinery). “We” then re-poured the new concrete with rebar and the whole shebang – but half the size of the original. I will 100% admit that we don’t know if this was the best choice. If we could do it again were there other options that would have been better than concrete that we should have explored? Probably. I’m also not concrete’s #1 fan for a few reasons – it’s expensive, it STILL CRACKS, and it’s not porous. But is it a ground foundation for a sports court? I guess so!
We also did one smart thing and one stupid thing (at least). The day before we poured the concrete – we scrambled to trench for future electrical to go out to the barn – not knowing what we needed but making sure it can have at least lights and outlets. But we didn’t trench for plumbing/water out there, because we truly didn’t think we needed it and it was so expensive. Now that we have alpacas, we have to bring a hose (like 200 feet) back there to fill up their trough – every day. HUGE WHOOPS. We are trying to come up with a solution (and no we can’t trench now – it’s all landscaped with hardscape, french drains and plants/trees). There are options I won’t bore you with because they all kinda suck TBH.
This is the view to the now Soake pool area that I can’t wait to show you coming ASAP.
And Here He Is Now…
This is not an after, but it’s where we are now. We have yet to take it from concrete slab to sports court. But the kids certainly play on it.
We spent a night shooting photos and video for all the backyard posts (including the alpacas and pool) so we figured having some people in these shots would make it far more enjoyable to look at than just concrete.
Right now we mostly use this for pickle ball (all-four of us play), basketball, roller blading, sidewalk chalk, and they can ride their bikes but don’t as much on this.
Brian was desperate to ge the lines all drawn this summer, but I basically begged him to wait. I was so done with construction, the mud, the decisions, the WRONG rushed decisions, and this court was so usable as is – so for the love of god, just wait. I wanted to make sure we knew how we were going to use the court, where we wanted to face while playing pickle ball, where we wanted the basketball hoop – all based on the sun. We wouldn’t know this in a week of playing, we needed to experience the property for at least one summer.
So that’s where we are now – totally enjoying this court on our first summer post-mud. It’s been REALLY wonderful and we feel extremely grateful.
Do We Think It Is it Too Big?
Yes and no. If we could snap our fingers and have it be 12 feet smaller, just lining up with the shed house, I would. But I also want to wait and see how we use it before giving that full diagnosis. We have zero plans to actually demo it out anytime soon, but I do wish it had slightly less presence. I wonder if painting it green with the white lines would help? The rest of the property is just looking so pretty and natural, and it’s really hard for a concrete slab to integrate in design-wise.
But we also love it, and we don’t know what the future of this house/property will be after the kids graduate (small events? group retreats?) so maybe we would want this space for a use we haven’t even predicted yet.
More to come summer 2024 – surely by then we’ll have the lines painted (if we are even going to do that) and if we plan on installing a net maybe that will get done in the spring. Again, this is all Brian’s domain and he’s taking the lead because he cares about it way more than I do which works for us. We also have so much more to do to “finish” it – fix the backdrop behind the green wall (it’s falling down), finalize any outdoor lighting we want so we can see past 4pm in the winter, figure out where to put the BBQ (right now it’s just floating on wheels on the sports court) but I have ZERO rushes and no real deadlines. All of the timely decisions have been made so the rest we can piecemeal as we feel motivated to tackle them and take some time to actually enjoy the non-construction zone with our now 2nd and 4th graders!!!!!!
*Pretty Photos by Kaitlin Green
THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE.
