Dana and I did some sprucing up around the house. A big part of that was getting the old couch into the garage (as it was too big to fit through the doorway in the basement). We also started getting the newly carpeted room in the basement put together. One end of the room now contains the start of our workout center and the other end has a desk and shelving containing our tools (nicely organized in bins). Check out the photos.
Month: June 2008
Watering
Dana got the sprinkler running out front. She started by saturating the area under the tree so the new plants have a good shot to take root. She then watered the yard.
Mowing
I came home and mowed the back yard. It has a lot of discoloration but it actually doesn’t look that bad. It certainly makes the plantings on the outside edges look nice. Can’t wait to redo the lawn out back.
Ground cover
Dana come home midday and went plant shopping with Annie, our neighbor from across the street, at Paulino Gardens, Inc. They came home with a variety of fun looking plants and planted them in the circle around the silver maple in the front of the house. They look dwarfed by the tree but they should grow to fill the area and even drape over the edging stones. Dana also picked up paving stones and more ground cover stones at Home Depot to edge the north edge of the front yard and began laying those out.
Watering
I decided I could skip watering this morning because the ground was so wet. Perhaps it rained overnight.
Carpeting and other such projects
Alright… not a yard issue but since we did the work all together I thought I’d report. First, Dana spruced up the back porch with a nice tablescape. Check out the photos. Then we went down in the basement and attempted to finish our carpeting project. Earlier in the day Dana called Home Depot to talk to their carpet guy. She asked if we could get away with just using the power stretcher or if we needed to use a knee kicker as well. He explained that the carpet that the saleseman at home depot sold us the night before, is not stretchable. He said the carpet, which we were told was stretchable by the moron who sold it to us, was actually limited to gluing. Because we have tack strips bonded to the floor, we needed something to go over the pad and the strips. He suggested that we hand stretch it. We gave it a shot and we were pleased with our success. It looks like a pro install (if I do say so myself). Check out the photos. As a result we now have a home gym and office space! This should also double the finished square footage in the basement (which is never a bad thing).
Removing the bandage
It’s been nearly 3 weeks since we planted the new seed. The growth, old and new, has been great. So great, in fact, that the old growth was about a foot tall. It was time to mow. We borrowed the power mower from our neighbors across the street. It took three trash bags full of clippings to clear the front yard. It was like removing a bandage after cosmetic surgery. It was amazing to see the thick green grass. It is almost as if the damage done by the previous owens has been erased. In addition to mowing, Dana and I removed the deformed Aspen which was growing on the northwest corner of the house steeling all the light and neutrients of the plants around it. The corner looks so much better now (and will look even better if we can get the rose bush that was struggling beneath the Aspen to grow). Check out the photos.
Watering
We took care of the final watering for the day. It was in the 80s today and after cutting the grass it was especially important to water.
More storms
When I woke up this morning it was clear the storms overnight left the yard water-saturated. No need to water again!
Thunder Storm
Mother nature took care of our evening watering so no need to run the sprinkler. To get out of the wet, Dana and I went to Home Depot, bought a shop vac, some supplies to spruce up the electrical in the former-basement-storage-room soon-to-be work-out-room and carpet and padding. We brought it all home and emptied the remainder of the stuff from the room. We cleaned the room with the new vac, laid down the padding, cut it to fit, and brought the carpet into the room. Photos on the Our-Yard page(even though this isn’t yard work per se). We’ll unroll, cut and stretch the carpet tomorrow night.