Planters and Gardens

 We got all of our planters planted and our hanging baskets up. We added a few annuals to the garden beds as well. Everything seems to be thriving.

 These new garden beds in the side/backyard turned out great. They have nice colors and have filled in since being planted last year.

 Our watering helper.

Cleaning the neighbor's house

 The neighboring house is in rough shape. It is a rental and not very well maintained. Years ago, someone ripped the siding off the side facing us to reveal the clapboards below. However, then never removed any nails, painted, or even cleaned the house. Since it is visible from our dining room, Kristen decided to at least go out and wash off the side of the house.

 As you can see, it was pretty dirty. She tried pulling staples and nails but was damaging the wood because it is so soft and starting to rot. It looks better now that it is cleaned off but we still bought some sheer curtains that we are going to put in the dining room to try to hide it better.

Back Steps

 After laying all the pavers last fall, we finally got the steps in place for the back door and garage door.

Garden Update

 Our back garden beds are looking good! They have been weeded and mulched and are ready for adding some annuals in the next few weeks.

The backyard space is so much nicer and more useable now. And we get this beautiful view off of the upper patio. We have been watching sunsets up there the last few nights before Sam goes to bed.

 We planted our vegetable gardens too. Beans, peas, lettuce, carrots, beets, leeks, and one tomato plant. We also have parsley, cilantro, and chives, as well as strawberries and rhubarb.

Blown down tree

 The plum tree on our neighbor's property that is by our front steps blew over in the windstorm we had last week. It was too mature a tree to re-stake so they cut it down.

Rebuilding Front Steps

Our front steps had seen some better days, the weather was starting to take its toll. There were some boards that were starting to rot in places. So we took the opportunity to refresh things this weekend and replace the boards. We also made the steps a little narrower in the process so that they lined up with the walkway going up to the house. As originally built they did not line up with anything. Here is a picture of the steps before (with the first couple treads removed).

After all of the old treads were removed we snapped a line and cut to the new edge.

And here they are once they all had been cut.

The stringer that was on the far end was cleaned up to be reused.

Once the stringer was cleaned up it was put back into place on the new end of the steps.

 

Kristen was able to get some paint on the treads before they were cut.

Once they were cut to length and width they were painted again.

And here is the finished product with the little helper at the top of the stairs. They look almost the same as the originals except for two things. The new stairs are a little narrower and the treads have a 3/4 inch reveal around the front and sides.

Grass is growing

 The warm weather has paid off and all of the grass has started to come up. You can see in this picture a light dusting of green.

Here is a closeup of the grass. It is only about one inch tall at this point.

Finishing up the pavers

Most of the pavers were done but we still had some to wrap around the back side of the house. This is an area where we are thinking that our grill will go. In the first picture you can see that the sand has been leveled out onto the gravel base and I have started to lay the first couple courses.

 

A little bit further along. You can see the pieces that have been left our because they need to be cut to fit. You can also see in this view the pressure treated wood that was placed between the fence posts on the left and you can barely see the paver edger strip on the far end.

And a view from the other direction. The pavers that are standing on end are my way of keeping track of how many pavers I need to use to fill in. I did not want to get to the end and have holes to fill and no pavers to cut!

And after all of the blocks have been cut and filled in.

And lastly once the sand has been swept into the cracks. We will have to do this a couple more times when this stuff settles.

Other than some cleanup and some small other projects this really does it for the back yard area. Now that it is starting to cool off I will have to move back inside with the next projects.

Grass in the back yard!

OK, so there is no grass there yet. But the grass seed has been sown. This last weekend Kristen and I made 4 trips in the truck to pickup compost to spread over the back yard prior to sowing the grass. Every time we do this it is a time consuming process to get it down to the yard. First the truck is parked at the top of the patio and the compost is unloaded into the wheelbarrow. This is wheeled only about 20 feet to the patio where it is dumped. From there we use a chute to transfer the soil from the patio to the wheelbarrow down below. Here is a picture of the chute.

Once the wheel barrow is full it was moved to a spot on the yard and dumped. This resulted in quite a spotted effect.

And once it has been spread out and seeded with grass.

And of course our little helper Samuel was there.

Plants in the Garden

 

We finally got the rest of the plants in the ground. It is a strange assortment of clearance bushes and leftovers from previous year's baskets at the moment. We plan on dividing up some of our flowers from the front and adding them to the bed. We will also plant some new plants next spring.

 

 The plants were surrounded by manure then the bed was covered in a fine bark mulch.

 

Tyler finished spreading the left over dirt on the lawn and filling in low spots. We still need to seed it and pick up a few remaining pieces of trash/compost.

Stairs to the top done!

The last couple of stairs to the top of the patio from the landing still had to be finished up. When we were working on the stairs we knew that there was going to be about three steps up and it worked out perfectly. First the area under the stairs was brought level with the pavers on the patio.

The next step was to cut the blocks for the base course. These had to be cut for both length and height (the bottom blocks were not full height). Here is a picture of the cut end of a block.

Here is a picture of setting out the bottom course. You can see in this picture that I was screwing up by making the stairs only two steps!... had to go back and fix that.

Next, rebar was pounded into the holes and the blocks were locked in place with gravel.

Here is a picture once all of the courses have been installed.

Next up the treads were placed on the steps. Only the top step needed to be trimmed where it interfaced the concrete patio because this edge is not very straight.

Here is what the new steps look like from the kitchen window.

Here is what it looks like from the area between the house and the garage.

And from the backyard. Next up we will be working on the new back garden bed at the base of the retaining wall.