Life's Laundry

Another Phase Completed

Before......

 

During:

 

And After:

 

 

 

It's amazing how open and roomier that area of the yard coming in the driveway looks.

Oh - and look how my Nandina's have already responded to being in full sun.....

 

In the past 3 years that we have lived in the house - there has never been more than 15 red "leaves" on all those bushes....now they all have a red tint to them that keeps spreading.  They already have new growth on some of the ends of the branches.

I've wanted that huge shrub/tree gone since we moved.  I can't wait to design that space and bring some color/texture to the beds along the driveway.  One phase completed; another phase begins.

Holes

For weeks I've been coveting these beautiful crepe myrtle trees at a local garden store.  The color was a magnificent deep fuchsia and every time I'd ride by the front of the store (which was just about daily) I'd glance at their beauty and think how gorgeous they would be in our yard beside the driveway.  I did watch them for weeks but didn't purchase because they were almost $100 each and I wanted all 4.  Ouch.  Our budget just wouldn't allow them right now with me setting funds aside for my trip to Dallas at the end of the month and the party that my family is throwing in honor of my 40th birthday this weekend. I guess we could have afforded them but we didn't want to at that price.

Last week I noticed in the paper that this particular store was about to begin their 30-70% off clearance sale the next day.  I stopped by the garden center that next morning and inquired about the crepe myrtle trees.  They were heavily discounted. I asked if I could pick/pay for what I wanted and have them picked up the next morning with hubby's truck.  They said sure. Was this an answer to prayer or what?

Wondering what this has to do with holes?

They say you gotta dig a $100 hole for a $50 tree.  We had 4 trees.  $400?  Good Lord almighty!

Just so you don't get bogged down in where I'm trying to go with this story - and because I've got to go and get my kids dressed - we (hubby & I) realized about 10 minutes into digging the holes that we weren't going to be able to do it ourselves.

We hired 2 muscular young men who play football at our local high school to dig the holes.  We found them compliments of the athletic director of that school who lives 2 doors down from us. Digging those holes was hard work. Just hard for someone else, thank God.

We don't have the best soil and ground on our property. These holes had to be dug with a mattock and shovel - break apart the ground with the mattock and then scoop out the shale/dirt with the shovel.  Because of the size of the root ball on these trees - the holes had to be 18-24 inches wide and equally deep so that we could supplement the soil that went back in around the root ball. 

It took both those boys digging almost non stop over 3 and a half hours to dig those holes.  I insisted that they rest for a water break after the 2ND hole. I wasn't sure they were going to make it near the end and had to do a bit of prompting to get it to completion.  The temperature had already soared to over 94F and that last hole was the most difficult.  They did finish; however, and we paid them $40 each for their work.

Please disregard the date on the picture.  Someone dropped the camera and the battery popped out which caused everything to reset.  I wasn't aware of this until after I was uploading the pictures last night.  All future pictures will have the correct date, I promise.

One side note is that we were able to salvage and transplant ALL of the grass from the tops of these holes and successfully move it to around the mulch/play site.  Hubby and I did that 2 days ago when we realized we couldn't dig the holes but we could move the grass ourselves until digging help arrived the next day.

See that white rock?  Those are clumps of cement. I can only guess that when the driveway was poured however many years ago (at least more than 10) that there were clumps that were just smoothed over and graded even.  The ground is full of rock, bricks and chunks of cement like you see here.

While the young men were digging, I was working with the weed trimmer and supervising the depth of the digging.  Hubby was reorganizing the garage. We accomplished a tremendous amount of work yesterday. 

Hubby doesn't tolerate the heat as well as the rest of us so after lunch, when we was still feeling funky, I suggested that he nap for a while.  While he napped, I put 3 of the trees in the ground.  He awoke and came outside as I was back filling the 3rd tree. I had hoped to finish everything before we woke up. He helped me finish up the 4Th tree and wanted to know why I didn't wait.  He understood when I said I was trying to get it done to save him from the heat and as a little surprise.  I didn't tell him that I wanted to prove to myself that I could do the physical work.  I am; after all, about to turn 40 and I guess I have something to prove. He doesn't read my blog - so it shall remain our secret, right?

Someone has to play :)  He kept telling me that he was a gopher and would scrunch down in the hole and then pop up with an exclamation.  I just laughed to keep him busy.

We finished up around 4:15 yesterday afternoon - just in time for me to shower and take some food to the church for a funeral.

Here's the finished product from a few different positions. 

This is the view from our kitchen door.  Besides the fact that I adore crepe myrtles, the main reason that I choose this location for this landscape is for needed privacy.  This is the first step to having some privacy for our back yard from the neighbors.  When these reach a more fuller existence next year - we'll be able to be in our driveway without everyone knowing what we are doing/wearing. The next phase involves some shrubbery that will not grow higher than 3 feet.  We will position that shrubbery about 2 to 3 feet towards the road in front of these crepe myrtles.  The crepes will provide the color screen up top and the shrubbery down below.

This is the view when you are driving in the subdivision (just a little closer).  This fall, we plan to remove everything from this planting bed beside the house.  Eventually, the two beds and the entire area will all run together as one. Whatever we plant in these areas (beside the house and in front of the crepes) will get morning sun but not afternoon sun.  Sometime in the next few weeks, we will remove the rest of the sod between the trees and the driveway.  All of that will be covered with mulch.

Here's the view when you come up the driveway.  See how once these trees fill in, how it will provide a privacy screen for all our spring/summer backyard activity .

Also notice that our van is parked INSIDE the garage.  I was excited about the trees.  Hubby was excited about the van being in the garage.

Holes dug.  Trees planted.  Garage reorganized.  Yard further prepared for party on Saturday. Van parked inside garage.  Slept well.

More to share in a day or two.

Another List of Projects Completed :)

Nannie and Popa graciously agreed to provide the swingset for J's birthday.  Both J and K are taking full advantage of the daylight hours and spend a great deal of time in the backyard.  We wanted to provide a "safe" play area so we decided to mulch the area around the swingset and then put edging around that.  We also discovered that, due to the shade from the tree, grass will not grow in the large area surrounding this tree....so we decided to mulch it and then fill the grass in around the edge of the border.

39 bags of mulch......over 100 feet of edging with rubber safety top, 4 hours of intensive work (with a few gatorade breaks :) and a tremendous amount of satisfaction on a job completed and well done. We didn't realize it until we saw the evening news  -  but it was 97 degrees on Sunday.  No damn wonder we were so hot and sweaty.....even in the glorious shade of this maple tree.

We plan to fill that inner circle with these:

Last year - for Mother's Day or my birthday - I can't remember - A gave me these two hosta plants.  They each had just a few leaves that were no bigger than a child's palm. Look at how they've grown in just one year. Today I plan to split the rhizomes into 6 individual plants and then place those plants in the flower bed around the tree.  I'll fill in the remainder spaces with either caladiums or Purple Heart.

Here's a few more shots of things going on in our backyard:

This is just 4 days old and yes....that's ivy growing in the 5 o'clock position.  Yes, I know that I said that I HATE all kinds of ivy.  Yes, I said that it would be eradicated anywhere on our property. No, I don't know what possessed me to include this except that I already had it, it was a gift from someone and with it being in a container - it wouldn't be able to spread anywhere on the property.  There's sweet potato vine, two variations of coleus, some white petunias, and that tall grass that turns purple in the fall.

Take a look at these ....

My only guess is that the sunflower plants came from seeds knocked to the ground by the birds when they visited the feeders above.  We have 3 sunflower plants that are about 18 inches tall so far.  They only get morning sun - so I'm not sure how well they will do.

More landscape pictures tomorrow.....and some opportunities for you to help me identify some plants. Gotta get outside and in the flowerbeds before it gets too hot.

Later,

Instant Yard Part 2

We've had a bit of internet difficulties today so my apologies for not having part 2 up sooner.

Yesterday you saw the before:

Today you can see what we have now:

I'll have to work on filling this planting area/flower bed with items.  We did get our new mailbox since this image was taken.  I've tilled this rock hard area and the ground is soft and almost ready to receive planting.  Hopefully I'll get to that next week sometime.

This fall I plan to fill this front flower bed with hundreds of bulbs and then wait till spring when the entire bed and whole corner of our yard will be colored with blooms.  Won't that make a nice compliment to that street corner and the front of our yard?

We will eventually remove the light post and that flowering clemantis attached to it.  I didn't want to move the clemantis yet because all of the shoots are still tender and I want it to be stronger before I move it to a container on my patio.

This area is where the most improvement can be appreciated.  Remember how horrible all this was?  Rocks, holes and tree stumps growing out of the deep slope?  Look how nice and smooth the slope is now and how wonderful all that green grass looks.

I'm standing in the bulb bed facing west towards the curious neighbor's property line.

The grass less area above is where I"m going to put my rose garden.  This area gets full sun all day and will be the prime area for my roses to thrive.

Notice anything missing?  Our sidewalk is gone.  We took it up and opted to fill it in with sod so that we didn't have a sidewalk that went to nowhere in our yard.  Perhaps in a few years we will put a circular drive in our front yard but for now - its just endless green grass.

I'm pleased with how the sod turned out.  I just wish it would rain more so that we don't have to water it every single day and buy water from the city.

Now you know what our instant yard looks like.

Till next time when I share some pictures of my flower beds....

Instant Yard

It was so weird to look back through the collection of images that I gathered while the process was happening.  I thought that I remembered what it all looked like "before" but now realize I was a bit mistaken.

The roofers finished the last part of March and we moved to the next phase - the yard.  I had researched and interviewed several landscaping companies and had it narrowed down to two that I liked.  One man was a solo job (had a few people working for him) and the other was a larger, more established company with several landscaping architects and a crew of over 40.  I actually liked the single guy more (personality wise) but when push came to shove and we asked when could the job be started (this is a very busy time of year) the larger company promised to begin in 4 days and the single operation guy couldn't start for 2 weeks.  Both companies promised the job would be finished in less than 4 days.

I remembered the wisdom of one of my blog friends when she said last fall that everything takes much longer than they say...and I'm glad I did.  My hubby made the decision to go with the larger company and set it all in motion one day while I was out on a business call.  At first I was a bit put out, but let it go just as quickly as he had arranged the schedule.

A week went by and nothing on our yard.  To make a long story short - I got involved and put my foot down and reminded them of their promises and the reasons that we went with them.  I was professional and clear.  Our yard was done (with some reworks and do-overs) but it took 11 days.  We only paid the deposit of one half the amount.  We haven't had anyone from the company to follow up or seek the remaining balance due.  I've had sod for over a week now.

I'm pleased with the work.  Some of the very ends of the sod rolls are not greening up and I hope they will.  Other than that issue - I love my instant yard.

Again, it was weird looking back through the 'before' pictures.  The edge of the yard area nearest to the street was so infested with weeds and rocks and the ground slope was terribly uneven.

Here's some befores:

Yes, our mailbox is duct taped together.  The mail person ran it down in March and we've been waiting till the landscape is completed before they install the new one.  Notice how rocky and uneven the edge of our yard is.

This is the right side of our driveway and the area between us and my favorite neighbors.  The slope is very steep and we arranged to have it smoothed out so that we could run our riding mower across this area safely.

This is the view from the west end of our front yard.  While most of the area is green with fescue grass..... it is full of rocks and other weeds that just so happen to be green as well. There's no way we could safely run our mower across that area.  Remember the crepe myrtle that my dad accidentally dropped the pine tree on last fall?  That's it with the stubby looking 3 prong dead limbs to the left part of the middle.  It never was able to revive itself.

So here's what things looked like once the grading began:

I hate to do this to you; however, my post size is getting too big and my kids are awake.

I'll have to put the "afters" in another post tomorrow.  I promise.

See you then :)

What's New At Our House?

This is what we looked like in September of 2005:

Here's a few shots from month before last:

The upper/middle part of the roof has already been completed in this picture above.

We had a bit of excitement with the dumptruck (the top of it is black and pictured in the extreme lower left of the picture).  When the roofers moved it around to the other side of the front yard, they moved it over our old septic tank and it caved in.  The entire back end of the dumptruck was sitting in our old septic tank for over 6 hours.  They finally had to have a heavy duty (I don't know the official name for it - I only know that it can lift over 40 tons of weight) wrecker come and lift the dumptruck straight up and move it over 20 feet.  The roofer purchased a set of new lids and then backfilled the area with fill dirt.  I'm not sure that he made any money on my roofing job after he paid his workers and then paid the wrecker call, new lids and fill dirt.

The roof job was a pleasure for me because I so enjoyed the "view" of 2 of the workers.  I might be knocking on the door of 40 but I darn sure know how to appreciate something good looking.  I had no trouble admiring those young men :)  and I'll leave it at that.

Here's the job once it was finished:

Other Pictures

I took this one week before last when our entire ground was covered with leaves.  I don't remember ever living in a house where there were so many beautiful hardwood trees.  Our property tells the wonderful tale of the seasons around here..... and the leaves are still falling 2 weeks later.

I think I mentioned that our area rug has been put down and the bookcase/wallunit has arrived.  Here's a view of the family room:

That's the edge of the bookshelves there on the right....and all the electronic equipment that belongs to my hubby.  We're waiting to have all that hooked up with the new flat screen TV as a whole room system.  I've got to paint the doors and put another coat of paint on the wallunit.  Realistically, it will probably be the end of January now before I can complete this project.

Here's a better view:

Day by day we get more and more accomplished.

I've still got pictures to hang.....but its coming together. I love how the carpet lightens and brightens the room, just setting off the furniture and tables.

Kinda starting to look like a home, huh?

Remember what it looked like before?

It was wild to look back through these pictures files and see the work.  Man!  We've gottan a tremendous amount accomplished in 60 days, haven't we?

More Pictures of Progress

Be sure to check the last few post since I'm sharing pictures in multiple post.

Here is the bedroom and the window treatments and custom duvet cover:

The bedskirt will hopefully be finished before Christmas.  It will be made from the dark plum/eggplant fabric on the windows (which happens to be the same as the reverse side of the duvet cover).

Add the bedskirt and a few pillows and the pillow shams.....and this room will be done.

Better Late than Never :)

My apologies to those who have checked back for the pictures that I promised earlier today.  We've had a bit of drama this evening at our house.  Baby K somehow got up onto the toilet in our masterbathroom and lost her balance and fell.  When she fell, she hit her chin on the edge of the countertop.  I couldn't tell where all the blood was coming from and put her to the breast to nurse and stop the bleeding.

A few minutes later, when the blood was still soaking her clothes, I discovered that it was coming from her chin where she had cut a slit in the skin.  While it was only about a 1/4 of an inch, it was deep and I closed it with a butterfly/steri strip.  It seems to be ok now.  I'm watching it with a close eye.  I'm sure that a trip to the ER for stitches would be much more traumatic than what she has survived this evening and the hole/slit seems to be ok.  The bruise has already turned the chin and jaw a bluish black.  She also bit through the edge of her tongue. She has practically demanded that she be held and rocked since then and has finally drifted off to sleep.  I'm stealing some time away to share the pictures that I promised earlier.

Since you asked Dale, here is the table:

My mom brought the placemats with her last weekend as a housewarming gift.   We will have to wait and get new chairs when some more funds become available.  These chairs are the ones that we've been using for the past five years.  They'll be ok for another year or two.

Here's the kitchen from the doorway:

This pictures shows off the bay window area and the rest of the wallpaper.  This was taken before the curtains were finished and hung.

Here's what it looked like right before we put the food on the table: (that's my mom with her feet propped up on the piano bench)

And the other side of the room where the cabinets are:

And here's when the curtains were done: (quality of picture is poor but you can still get the general idea of what they look like)

I still need to get the doors for the pantry and laundry painted and installed back on the hinges.  Once I complete that and paint the backs of the two remaining doors, the kitchen will be finished on our part.  The cabinets still need some remaining things done but it isn't affecting the function of the cabinets.

Our kitchen has come a long way from this, hasn't it?

or even this.....

and this....

What A Difference A Few Days Can Make

The beginning of this past week was not really good for me; I was stressed out and worried about when/if I was ever going to make headway with all these boxes.

A few days can really make a difference.  I can actually walk in our garage and items are slowly (but surely) finding a home in my cabinets/closets.  We even had some friends over last night for pizza and wine (Boy! I drank a lot of wine). My head is telling the tale this morning, LOL.

They helped us break some of the boxes down and we counted 38.  That's a lot of boxes that we've unpacked in the past 3 days.  I knew that we were making some great progress - but didn't realize it was that great.  This gave me a great feeling of accomplishment.

Earlier in the day, we took a break and rode over across the state line to a furniture store that everyone raves about.  Their prices are lower but the service sucked.  I called in advance to find out if they carried the table that I've been looking for.  The sales lady told me that they did and it was in stock.  She quoted me a price on the phone that was $70 less than the place that we went last weekend.  According to the directions, we could be there in 40 minutes and save some money. It took us over an hour to get there (which was much longer than the directions said it would) and I kept thinking that this better be good since it was taking up so much of my time.  We got there and waited over an HOUR for someone to help us.  This place was huge - a city block long and buildings hooked together by walkways....if there was a piece of furniture to be found...it was there.....except my table.  When it was finally our turn for the salesperson I almost cried when she said that it was the larger table that she had in stock and not the smaller one and that it would be 8-10 weeks before she could get it.  We just left.

The day wasn't a total waste though because when we left - I phoned the salesperson from the store from last weekend and told him that I'd found the same table at Dogtown (the nickname for the huge furniture store that we just left) and they were offering the table for $529.  I asked could he match the price.  The worst that he could do was say no. He said he was with a customer and took my number to call me back.

About 6 last evening he called back and said that if I'd buy the table today (which was actually yesterday) then he could sell it to me for $499.  That was $100 less than what he was asking last week when we were present in his store and $30 less than Dogtown.  I bought the table.  It will be here in 2 weeks. 

How did I pay for it?  In the past two days, I've had over $600 in sales off my webpage for my BeautiControl business.  Thank you! to those people who are joining my client list and discovering how great our products are.  Thank you also to those clients that have been with me for 10+ years and are still faithful.  You've all helped me to reach my goal to buy that table.  I thought that I was going to have to wait until after the first of the year before I had enough to get the table.  I'm beyond happy.  A few days can make a big difference :)  For those who aren't yet part of our client base - I'm putting together an "end of the year" sale and almost all of my instock inventory will be reduced 25-60% off.  You might want to go on over to the website and take a look around and make a wish list so that when I get it (the sale) together next week - you'll be ready to go.  Those who place their order earliest will receive the greatest discount.

The cabinet guy is *supposed* to come this morning with my wall unit/mantel and finish the kitchen cabinets while he is here.  Stay tuned to see if he shows up or not.

Until then, I'll keep taking one box at a time and keep moving forward.

Oh - seeing the beautiful fall foliage yesterday on that ride over to dogtown was just breathtaking......another simple pleasure that salvaged the trip.

I'll report later on if the cabinet guy showed up :)