Taking it on Tuesday: The Great Landscaping Project of 2010

So, remember this little TioT from a couple of weeks ago?

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

Taking It on Tuesday: Gardening

This was not what I was planning on taking on this week. And, really, I probably get to any actual gardening and planting this week, but I'm going to start the planning process.

I have not had the best luck the gardening department. The lovely summer-in-Texas heat usually bites me in the butt.

We've been in our house for four years now. The first year, I got super ambitious and we bought all kinds of flowers to plant in our the bed under the front windows, which only held the itty-bitty, newly planted standard new house shrubs. I thought I'd just plant some flowers around them and also around our lone little Charlie Brown tree in the front yard. I encountered a few problems. First, I did not pay attention to the sunlight our yard gets. The tree gets quite a bit, so the beautiful begonias dried out and died. The bed, however, gets very little sun at all, which was not conducive to wide variety of flowers I planted there. Not to mention the fact that those lovely shrubs grew. I did fair a little better with the flowers planted in a few pots around the walkway, but eventually the heat got to them too. So, overall, big fat fail.

The second year, my grandfather, who has one of the best yards ever, asked about my attempts at gardening. He suggested I try only planting in pots and perhaps buying hanging plants and transplanting them. Sounded like a good idea and I certainly couldn't argue with his success, so that I did. I had a really pretty landscape:

Pretty, huh? And look at that lawn! I take no credit for that. The lawn is all B's baby.

So, that's how the front of the house looked for, oh, a month. Then the heat hit again and my beautiful flowers started to wither away, no matter how much (or little, as the case may be) I watered. The next year, much of the same.

Last year, I just never got around to it. I had a lot going on and I just couldn't bear the thought of spending money on flowers only to have them die away again. Actually, I did plan on planting. I even bought some books about Texas flowers and planting and such. But, life got in the way of on my planning and we went flowerless.

So, my plan right now is to plan and get to planting. My goal for this week is to study my yard. I'm still going to stick with pot planting. I'm cracking myself up right now because it sounds like I'm going to plant weed. Hehehehehe. No, no weed for me. How the heck would you say that? Anyway, I'm only going to plant in my pretty pots. Seriously, I love my pots. Got them at Garden Ridge. They are all a heavy plastic, but look like ceramic. Anyway, I'm going to place the pots where I want them and then spend a day studying the shade and sun patterns.

I already know the front of the house, especially right next to the house where the pots will go, does not get a whole lot of sunlight. But, I want to know for sure what gets sun when so I can plan my plants accordingly. Since I work from home on most Thursdays and plan to this week, that's the perfect day. I'm going to draw a diagram of the house (please stop laughing at the thought of me drawing a diagram; it's not that funny) and then write up a timeline. I'll go check every hour, I think and note where the sun hits or doesn't hit.

Now, all of this planning will not solve the lovely problem of the "awesome" Texas heat. But, the only thing I can do there is really know my flowers. Know how much water they are supposed to get and try to keep up with it. And also, know which of them are meant to last through summer and not just spring.

I know I do not have a green thumb, but damnit, surely I can keep a few flowers alive through summer. I hope so anyway.

Happy Tuesday!

A

Taking it on Tuesday: Sewing

I bought this yesterday.

I have only used one of these one other time in my life:  middle school Life Management class (fancy name for home economics). That didn't go so well. I got strep throat the entire week we learned how to use a sewing machine and when I came back, it was time to sew our chosen pillow patterns. I, thinking it would be so easy--I mean, my mom knew how to sew, so surely I could pick it right up--had chosen one of the hardest patterns to sew before I got sick. That result was not so pretty (however, my two youngest brothers took the same class many years later and it turns out my pillow was better than either of theirs, so that says something, right?).

Anyway, after that little foray into sewing, I thought I was a dud and never pushed my mom to teach me how to sew. As I have recently learned, she did not push to teach me because she doesn't really like it (even though, from my memory, she's pretty good at it). So, I grew up not even able to sew on a button. Yep, that's something I've mastered in just the last couple of years. For the first many years of our relationship, B did all button replacing and minor mending.

So, why the sudden interest? A few months ago, a few of B's pants came apart at the inseam. We really didn't want to spend money on new pants since these were not old, so I attempted to repair them by hand. It worked pretty well, but took a pretty long time. I said I probably needed a sewing machine. But, mending was not the only reason. Many of my friends know how to sew (some having recently picked it up) and have been making things I would love to know how to do.

My main "creative" hobby is cooking and baking. I love doing both, but that can be an expensive hobby and one that is hard to do a lot of when there are only two of us in the house. I can only take so many baked foods to share at work. Anyway, I also just really wanted to learn to be creative in a more tangible, long-lasting way. I envy my friends who can make baby blankets or clothes. Or my awesome friend Ginger who is a fabulously creative scrapbooker. And, like I said in my first "Taking it on Tuesday" post, I just want to challenge myself to try things I've never done before, especially things I've been afraid to try.

So, I bought a sewing machine. This was my first project:

A sad attempt at learing how to use the machine and sewing a straight line. Not to pretty, but not horrible either. I did manage to mend one pair of B's slacks tonight and they look pretty darn good. And it only took seconds!

Happy Tuesday!
A

Taking it on Tuesday: Hey! Look! I'm Updating the Blog!

I don't even know if anybody even checks to see if this blog gets updated anymore. Doesn't matter, it's one of my new goals. Blogging. I started this blog a year and a half ago and have managed approximately 6 blogs since then. But, I've been inspired as of late. I'm a "bloggie." Don't know if that term has ever been coined before, but in case it hasn't, for my purposes it means I'm a lover of blogs. I will at least check out any blog I come across and you would not believe the number of blogs I check out on a daily basis. I should probably use Google Reader to keep up, but I think it's more fun my way. I will try to get my faves listed on here.

So, are you wondering about the first part of this blog title? In an effort to make myself keep up with blogging, I need some type of motivation or goal. So, each day will be a different "theme." I'll explain them as I go along (no, that doesn't mean I haven't figured out what they all are yet; okay, I haven't; whatever).

Tuesdays are going to be "Taking it on Tuesday." What does that mean? What am I taking on? The plan is for it to be something different each week. Sort of challenging myself to try new things or remembering what I loved about things I've done in the past.

This week, I'm taking on my blogs. Yep, that's right, blogs. I do have the two. I'm working on this one first. See the pretty new background? I love it! Super cute. And here is the post. My goal is to keep up with this blog. I don't promise it will always be interesting, but it's more of an outlet for me. I hope to give B his own day, but we'll have to see about his motivation. Oh, and that second blog, my cooking blog, is next. Be sure to check it out if you haven't already. While I haven't updated it in a while either, it has lots more posts than this one ever did.

See you tomorrow for Wordless Wednesday (to be explained then because I need to watch Lost).

A