Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Fence finishing




We finally finished the new fence!
We stopped a few weeks ago about 8 ft short of the end because the old fence's last corner post was also holding up more of the neighbor's dilapidated fence. When we took it down it would make their other fence section even less stabile. Marco finally figured out how to shift the position of our last post so we didn't have to take the old corner post out. Way to think out of the box, honey!


So we took out the next to last old post, concrete and all, and put our new post near it.



Once we added the crossbeams perfectly level with the ground, we were ready to put up doors.


You can see the neighbor's old fence in the background.


Toby REALLY wanted to escape and go on an adventure. He kept slowly peeking around the corner to see if the coast was clear.





I even caught him in the act of slowly stretching a paw over! My little sneaky sneaky!


Then he looked at me with sad eyes. Can I pleeeeease just go on an adventure?

We got it all up and painted after all. Doesn't the finished fence look great?





My neighbor's view


Driveway





At the front of the house we wanted to block off the sidewalk on the side, essentially creating a fenced in back yard.


Marco used a door with a bunch of broken glass panels that we pulled out of someone's bulk trash pile.


He knocked out the rest of the glass, scraped caulked and primed it up, and cut a few inches off the top and bottom to bring down the size.


We attached it to some reclaimed posts (read: some more stuff we found on the street as trash) and framed out the opening next to it. Then we attached wire, hinges, a latch and painted it all the same green as the rest of the fence. It looks great!


It retains the open feel, but keeps the back yard, and my dogs running around in it, secure.





Next up: refinishing the floors again, painting walls, and getting the showroom downstairs ready for business.

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Friday, May 6, 2011

New grass









The yard never had great grass, but having a big horse of a dog hasn't helped!






We decided to focus on improving the one solid area of grass inside the fenced part of the yard by smoothing out the ground and giving it a NICE thick layer of St Augustine grass.

First we had to get out all the old grass and loosen up the soil. Home Depot has some great tools for that. Having a strong person the wield the tiller is critical!

















The dogs loved the tilled up soil. They ran all over it chasing each other and play fighting over their bone.

We loaded up the truck with a bed FULL of dirt that we shoveled out of the yard to level it. We took it over to Marco's brother's house for some new flower beds. I then spent a couple hours spreading out, flattening, and somewhat perfectly leveling the soil.

We found a guy on Craigslist selling grass for $115 per pallet. He had only been open for business a few days and was trying to attract business. It was perfect! Exactly the amount we needed and slightly more.
















For about three weeks I hand watered the new yard two or three times a day, nit soaking it but just keeping it moist so the new roots could take hold. Now I'm watering every morning. It's filling in and looking great.









We moved the fountain to another place in the yard and i still need to get a solar powered pump for it. It going to sound and feel so nice!



Marco's mother gave us a japanese maple. It looks lovely next to my corner garden filled with plants she grew and gave us too.






Next up is refinishing the wood floors inside, again. We learned a lot from the first time and want to do it better. Then we'll finally paint the windows and awnings. We tested the blue and may have finally decided we love it. Not sure. We'll see!

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