Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Hurry Up, Spring! I'm Dreaming of Hardscaping!!!

Our mild winter has me yearning for Spring's arrival.  Last year at this time, we had snow on the ground for weeks at a time and a blizzard soon approaching!  This year, we have had a few flurries and that's about it.  It's a bit disappointing but I'm ready for Spring.  My creative juices have been flowing and I'm ready to get my hands dirty!

Last Spring, we built a flowerbed in front of our fence and put in 200-plus plants.  It took us the course of  the entire Spring and Summer, but we finally got all 100-yards of our fence stained.  It was mind-numbing work and I was glad to have it behind us!  While I tended to the plants, Justin volunteered to be in charge of the grass.  He was slowly but surely getting rid of the crabgrass and Bermuda grass that came with our house.  His hard work was paying off!

After spending who-knows-how-much on chemical concoctions and grass seed, and hours working in the yard, we have since found out that in order to COMPLETELY get rid of the problem grass, we have to start all over!

 I figure that if we're going to tear up the yard, we might as well put in some hardscaping while we're at it!  And hell, if you haven't noticed, I find projects for us to do that DON'T have to be done!  So why not keep adding to our project list?! lol...

One of my hardscape projects is to build a permanent fire pit...kinda like this one:

After all, we have the perfect spot in our backyard for one.  It would be far enough from any fire hazards and it would be pretty to look at (unlike this picture that was taken in the dead of winter last year)!  I'm kinda thinking down by the patio area??? 

And just between us, our current fire pit scares the daylights out of me.  Justin thinks it is just fine.  When I say we could burn down the neighborhood with it, I'm not kidding!  See what I mean?!

One of my other goals is to tear out the garden from behind our house.  Our garden was HORRIBLE this year and ummm, we could walk the 1-block to our Farmer's Market if we really want fresh produce.  The other thing is that the garden would get big and overgrown--it drove my OCD/neat-freak self nuts!   My idea is to take this space:

And build a raised-flowerbed...either for flowers (gasp!) or herbs.  I'm leaning towards flowers as it will give us some color and something pretty to look at!

And while we're building walls, I want to tear out our existing "retaining wall" by the "patio" and build something more substantial.  Right now, we have crumbling cinder blocks separating the grass and former parking pad.  Not only is it ugly, but grass manages to grow in the little holes of the blocks. It is a pain to either pull by hand or weed-eat! Plus, by having an actual retaining wall, it could double as extra seating space ;-)

The big thing will be getting Justin on board with all my ideas--he's all about making things look better, but he's not so excited about all the manual labor (especially the digging) that comes with doing things ourselves.  But something tells me, once Spring comes around, he'll be excited about working in the yard again!

2 comments:

  1. You know how much Jared loves our fire pit!! :) I say move it to the top of your list!! Adult beverages, fire pit, and summer evenings = some of our best moments at our house!!

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  2. Beka, YOUR fire pit started this whole thing! I would kill to have one like yours!!! I think once the weather gets warmer, Justin will get on board :-)

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