The House at the Bottom of the Hill

Loma Rica, CA — 2024. Ten acres of horse property, and a house sitting at the lowest point of eight surrounding parcels. Every one of them drains toward it. We were hired to build a deck and spent four months making the water go somewhere else.

The finished Loma Rica house at sunset with its new covered porch, lit stair treads, paver walkway and new lawn

Concrete Blocks and a Sheet of Plastic

That was the flood defense when we got there. A low wall of stacked blocks with plastic sheeting behind it, curving around the lawn toward the house, rebuilt by hand every time the sky opened up.

Water had been inside the house more than once.

The cause was not mysterious. The house sits at the low point of eight neighboring parcels. All of that ground drains toward one building. Nobody had ever dealt with where the water was actually going — they had just kept stacking blocks in front of it.

We were hired to build a deck.

Stacked concrete blocks with black plastic sheeting behind them forming a makeshift flood barrier along the lawn edge

Water First

Regrade, Trench, Drain, Pump

Before a single deck board went down, the ground around the house had to stop pointing at it. We cut the grade back so the whole perimeter falls away from the building, trenched a drainage system around it, set catch basins and a sump pump, and built a retaining wall to hold the new grade.

That work ran the length of the job. We were still moving soil and setting drainage next to the new walkway in September, four months after the first cut. Water management on a site like this is not a task you finish in week one — it is a thread through the whole build.

Mini excavator working the new grade with an open trench and a drainage basin grate set in the foreground

First cut through the lawn, raw graded soil where the ground used to slope toward the house — May · The first cut

The house with the entire yard stripped back to bare graded dirt — May · Regraded to bare ground

Four Months Apart

Same House

Bare graded dirt across the whole yard in May, house with no covered porch — May 30 — regraded, nothing planted

The Deck We Were Hired For

Plus the Storage Nobody Asked For

The original deck was weathered through — gray boards, tired lattice, a rail past its life. We rebuilt it on the new grade with composite decking, a white rail with black balusters, and a new stair.

The space underneath was going to be wasted, so we framed it in and hung a door. The client got an enclosed storage room out of the deck build without adding a structure to the property.

Finished deck and stair with white railing, black balusters and white lattice skirting

The original weathered gray deck with aging lattice and railing — Before

New deck framing, beams and joists set over the regraded ground — Framing on the new grade

Deck framing with new stair stringers cut and set — Stair stringers

White railing components and balusters staged on site before assembly — Rail staged

Finished lower steps and deck with composite boards down — Steps done

Under-deck storage room with its access door standing open in the lattice skirting — Storage underneath

Covered Porch

A Heavy-Timber Overhang Across the Front

The house had no shelter on its main elevation — a pair of patio umbrellas and nothing else. We built a full-width covered porch in heavy timber: posts, beams, rafters, roof deck, shingles matched to the house, and lighting.

It went up over about three weeks in late summer and it changed the front of the building completely.

The new heavy-timber covered porch roofed and lit at dusk with the paver patio below

Rafters framed across the full width of the house for the new covered porch — August · Rafters across the span

Heavy timber posts and beams with the roof deck going on — September · Timbers and deck

The finished porch shingled with columns wrapped and lights on at dusk — September · Shingled and lit

Site Work

Driveway, Walkway, Sprinklers, Sod

New compacted gravel driveway. A paver walkway on a proper base, curving from the drive to the porch with a set stone border. Sprinklers throughout, then sod across the regraded yard.

All of it laid out to work with the new drainage rather than against it. A walkway on the wrong contour is just another dam.

The completed paver walkway and set stone border at dusk, with the new porch still framed above it

Pavers laid out loose on bare dirt to plan the walkway run — Laying out the run

Paver walkway going in over a compacted base with the stone border set — Base, pavers, border

Second Property

An A/C Unit Came Off a Roof, and the Roof Came With It

The same client owns a second property about ten miles away. An old air conditioning unit had been sitting on that roof for years. We pulled it, found what was underneath, rebuilt the roof structure where it had been sitting, and re-roofed.

That is the part of this trade nobody photographs: you remove one thing and inherit the condition of everything it was hiding.

The roof opened up, shingles stripped back to bare rafters and skip sheathing where the air conditioner had sat

The old rooftop air conditioning unit on the ground after removal, surrounded by tear-off debris — The unit, down

Shingle tear-off underway across the roof — Tear-off

Full Scope

Water

Regraded the ground around the entire house
Perimeter drainage system
Catch basins and sump pump
Retaining wall to hold the new grade

Structure

New deck and stair
Enclosed storage under the deck
Full-width heavy-timber covered porch
Siding replacement

Site & Second Property

Compacted gravel driveway
Paver walkway with stone border
Sprinklers and sod
Rooftop A/C removal, roof rebuild and re-roof

A Pattern Worth Naming

Two Properties, Two Water Problems, Same Answer

The year before this, we rebuilt a four-unit apartment complex in Arcata that sat below grade and flooded repeatedly — during the job. This house sits at the bottom of a bowl formed by eight neighboring parcels.

Different scale, same discipline: find out where the water actually goes, then regrade, trench, drain, pump and wall until it goes somewhere else. Most of that work ends up buried and invisible. It is also the only part of either project that decides whether everything built on top of it lasts.

If you own a property that takes on water and you have been told that is just how the lot sits — it usually isn't.

See the Arcata project →