A Weekend Outdoors

To go with the theme from the last post, we wanted to give an update of the outdoor projects we've been tackling. We didn't get everything we wanted done, but this weekend we did a TON.

We'll start with the patio area. We rented a manual sod cutter which Kevin and my dad used to pull up the grass in the area we want the patio to go. We laid down some weed block to act as a tarp and mud barrier for now. We'll pull that back up when it comes time to actually build the patio. The ground still needs to be dug down deeper and leveled before any pavers can be laid. But hey at least its a start.

Sadie had a need to be in as many pictures as she could on Saturday

While they were at the fun, they pulled up the grass in the area of our vegetable garden too. Then Sunday, I got all the fruits and veggies planted. I still need some more mulch, though. We have tomatoes, green and orange peppers, zucchini, squash, cucumbers, eggplant, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, blueberries, two types of lettuce, and chives.

I also got some flowers for pots and the front garden.

And last but not least, Kevin and his dad did some work on the deck. They popped off the top rail and the spindles, then replaced the top rail. The spindles still need to be put back on and the stair rails finished, but it was a great day's progress. Also, another day I'll finish staining the rest of the deck and all the new pieces.

Hopefully some nights this week and this coming weekend we can finish some of these projects up. We still have to finish up the front landscaping and the rock garden too.

The Great Outdoors

We wanted to give everyone a quick preview of some upcoming outdoor projects we have planned for the next month-ish.

We'll start with the parkway rock garden. Weather permitting, this weekend we plan to tackle creating a rock garden in the area between the street and sidewalk in front of our house. We decided a rock garden would be a good idea for the space to keep it low maintenance and also allow for a good place for people to get out of their cars and not kill any grass/plants by walking on them.

We also plan to create a vegetable garden in the backyard. There is an area on the side of the deck near our hoses and rain barrel (and a/c) that we feel would be perfect for our first vegetable garden. It should actually be a pretty decent size, so we're hoping to be able to plant enough to carry us through most of our summer fruits/veggies. Some quick measurements and calculations say we should be looking at just under 100 sqft of garden. For a city garden, we think thats pretty good.

Next weekend (again weather permitting-come on mother nature, work with us here...), we plan to makeover our deck a bit. The previous owners decided to not do the rail and spindles quite properly, not to mention the delightful squirrels have eaten the rail, so we're looking to fix it. Our lofty future goal would be to eventually redo the entire deck (redesign and rebuild) with composite materials, but for the time being this fix will do.

And our final plan is to build a patio. We bought new furniture and fire pit, and we're going to build a patio for it to all go on. It will be right at the bottom of the deck stairs under the big tree in our yard.

Hopefully things will go to plan (and mother nature will cooperate and let us get these projects done as scheduled). I'll try to keep everyone up to date on each project as we complete them!