 Take one small step and take in Laurel Murphy and Ed Phillips’ hou se on the Kalama River. Take two steps. Take 364.
Laurel claims she’s no artist, but the house that she and husband Ed built is testimony to their talents.
They combined 80-pound bags of premixed cement with water, poured the concrete and turned out those 364 stepping stones. Some are painted, others made from concrete tinted before going into the mold.
The couple moved here in 1993, removed the original hunting lodge, built a new house, and started the stones in January 2005. “We kept a journal,” said Laurel. “We had 313 by that July.” “All you need is a rake and wheelbarrow,” said Ed, a retired energy economist. “God gave man a strong back.”
Geckoes and grapes
Concrete can be colored, molded, carved and imbedded with stones or glass, or laid out in patterns, placed in pathways. Theirs sprouted flowers and fishes, geckoes and grapes.
Make way for the guttermobile
Not that their work was set in stone. When the gutters went in, they pulled out a veritable sunburst of stones, lest it be crushed under the gutter installers’ cherry picker. And put it back.
The couple got their first whiff of concrete watching the pros pour the foundation for their house, which was built by Kalama contractor Bill DesRosier. The airy, three-story design by Seattle architect Laura Kraft, an acolyte of Susan “The Not So Big House” Susanka, is a riot of color. “I want a lot of color in my life,” Laurel said.
When they answered an architect-client questionnaire about how they’d use each area, “Ed said he wanted seven places to r ead,” Laurel said with a laugh.
The house, practically papered with books, is a roadmap to places they have lived or loved. One is their 13 years in Alaska, where Laurel, a graduate of Golden Gate Law School, was the state’s Deputy Director, Division of Mining. When people move to Alaska, they often collect with a theme: Moose. Puffins. Wolves. Laurel’s niche? “Friend of the Musk Ox.” Musk oxen frolic over three stories in every genre, every size, whimsy intact.
After moving here, she has coordinated, marketed and supported Greater Columbia Arts Network, Longview Downtowners and Longview Stageworks. “I’ve had 33 jobs,” she said. She’s tallied them up. She’s also attended 10 different institutions of higher learning.
A glittering garden gate
Laurel taught computer literacy to seniors for Lower Columbia College in Longview, a gig that showered her with AOL programming disks. All those disks and nowhere to spin gave her an idea. Pop them in the microwave for a second or two for a sparkly entrance to the garden, a plot well-plotted by a woman on the ground floor of the Lower Columbia Farm to Table movement. (Editor’s Note: the CD-embellished garden entry is a project on the edge of evolution, Laurel explained; therefore no suitable photos were possible. Watch for a future story.)
This gardener also cooks
Two recent successes: a wonderful nutty bread from Nancy Baggett’s “Kneadlessly Simple Bread” and a rhubarb sorbet. The tart vegetable became a sweet treat with but two tablespoons of corn syrup. “Add enough sugar and everything tastes great,” Ed said.
Boxes of blue bottles
This gardener is the master of the “found object.” Ten boxes of blue glass bottle s await reincarnation as fence and tree. A few have already shown up in the yard.
This month the couple will mark the “9th biennial” of their 18-year union – once described as the marriage of “the libber and the lout.”
“I was going to be Ed’s fourth wife – everybody said it wouldn’t last,” Laurel says. They’ll celebrate with a chocolate peanut butter cake and a jazz band.
Wait, is that a lobster? It emerged from a Jell-O mold.
That gives whole new meaning to stepping out.
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STEPPING INTO A PROJECT
"All you need is a hoe and a wheelbarrow." ~ Ed Phillips
"To remember which comes first, cement or concrete, E goes before O." ~ Suzanne Martinson
Nurseryman Curt Nelson stocks 28 different stepping stone molds in his St Helens, Oregon store. With a “couple of pointers,” he said, crafters can make each mold last for seven or eight pours. “Anyone who’s tried them has had good luck.”
There is a cost difference – 60¢ for a do-it-yourself stone versus $10-12 for those typically purchased at home improvement stores. Even more is the creative satisfaction homeowners get. “They did it themselves,” said Nelson, who paved the floor of his gazebo for his daughter’s wedding nine years ago. using handcrafted stepping stones.
Here’s a sampling of sources for raw materials:
• Molds: St Helens Market on the River, 1904 Columbia Blvd, St Helens, Ore, 503-396-5128.
MudArt Decorative Landscape Molds, Pocatello, Idaho. www.mudart.com
GardenMoldsCatherine Failor Design.
www.gardenmolds.com
• Factory outlet for recycled glass tiles, rock by the pound or palette, and recycled glass gifts: The Bedrock Stoneyard, 1401 W. Garfield St., Seattle; www.BedrockIndustries,com
• White cement or silica sand, bright cement coloring: Construction Specialty Supply, 1050 California Way, Longview.
• Concrete colors, textures and tools: Byron Goodrich, 110 W. Marine Dr., Kalama. www.absoluteconcretecolors.ning.com
• Tile and stone: Pratt & Larson Tile and Stone Seconds Sales Room, 1201 SE 3rd, Portland, www.prattandlarson.com
• Cement: construction supply stores, such as Home Depot or Lowe’s.
 Kelso, Wash. resident Suzanne Martinson returned to the Northwest when she retired from her newspaper career. She is the author of The Fallingwater Cookbook: Elsie Henderson’s Recipes and Memories. E-mail her at acesmartinson@comcast.net
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