Well, that "little" project took a turn for the big.
B had been throwing out the idea of a walkway in the front yard for the last year or so, but we've never had the resources or inclination to take the project on. But, this time when we went to look at flowers to plant in the pots, we decided it was just the right time to take it on.
First stop was Lowe's to take a look at what kind of stone or brick we wanted to use. We picked a sandy colored cobblestone that would look good with the brick for the house, but that we could also stain if we wanted. The next morning, before making any purchases, we did a rough design of what the pathway would look like with the water hose, then it was off to Lowe's to buy our supplies.
Here is the official before pic. I had already started to remove a couple of bricks from the original border.
The plan was to extend the plant bed out about a foot and half to add a few smaller plants/bushes in front of the existing shrubs then make a walkway/border from existing pathway around the side of the plant bed and stopping at the corner of the house. Eventually, we will probably extend the walkway all the way to the gate.
B spent most of that Sunday digging a trench with the edger (is that even a word?) and digging out the grass along our planned pathway. Do you see all that dirt and grass? It was crazy! Oh, and, no, we did not leave the grass and dirt in the City of Fort Worth trash bin. B just needed someplace to put it until I got home with lawn bags, which we initially forgot!
Next came pouring the sand, which really made it start to look like something.
Now, picture this scene. This was Sunday a little over a week ago. Game 3 of the Western Conference playoffs between our Dallas Mavericks and the hated San Antonio Spurs (that was just for my friend, Cris!). Game started a 6:00 and we still had a lot of work to do, so I opened the front windows and turned the TV up really loud. Let's just say that it is amazing that our neighbors did not call the cops on us--well, me--for all the yelling I was doing at the TV through screened windows. Yeah, next time we won't plan a big project during the NBA playoffs.
Finally, we start laying the pavers. B started on the ones up the side of the bed then I started laying some. We quickly realized that I seemed to have more of a knack for laying the pavers, so I spent Monday through Thursday evenings after work until dark laying out the pathway.
We hit a few snags.
Does something look a little different from the original plan above?
Yeah, we were unable to get the tool for cutting the pavers and they were a little too soft to chisel, so we decided to work around the issue and not have the walkway curve. I still think it turned out completely awesome.
Here we are late Thursday night (finishing up just in time to head in for Game 5 Mavs/Spurs) with the sand poured over the top and wet down to set.
Something we learned after this point. The guys at Lowe's do not always know best. B initially wanted to use paver sand, which is sand mixed with cement to set the stone. Guy at Lowe's said this was unnecessary and all we needed was the regular sand.
Wrong!
The pavers just weren't quite setting right, so when we went back to Lowe's Friday night to get planting soil, plants, mulch, and grass to fill in the bare spots we didn't hit due to the design change, we got the paver sand. We went ahead that night and did the first round of paver sand and by the next morning, the stone was setting in quite nicely.
Saturday morning, we finished up setting the stones and then I went to work on the planting. I didn't want to plant just flowers in the bed. Our original idea had been just more shrubs/bushes, but maybe some yellow or red/purple ones. Unfortunately, all the ones we found at Lowe's were going to grow bigger than the space we alotted for. So, Plan B was to find some perennials that would grow kind of big and give just a little color to the space.
They are a little hard to see because they are still small, but the two on the outside are Marmalade Rudbeckia, which will yield some pretty yellow flowers, and the two on the inside are Passionate Blush Gaura, which should show pretty pink flowers as well as reddish leaves.
We used a black mulch to really contrast the the lightness of the pavers and also to coordinate with the black shutters around the windows.
And here we are, almost all finished. B has put one coat of stain on the pavers, but needs to add another.
View from the sidewalk. I've still got my pots our ready to get some flowers in there to complete the landscaping look.
I'll post more pictures when B finishes staining. We're really pretty proud of this project and really excited with the way it turned out.
Happy Tuesday!!
A
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