29 April 2006

Our wedding. The backyard looked gorgeous. Worth every second of the blood, sweat, tears, and herniated disks. Well, maybe not that last one.

More wedding story to follow... with pictures.

There was grass... if only for a day

Well, the big day was 48 hours away and as I raked away the straw, lo and behold- there was grass.

More like a little fuzz, but I can't afford to be picky. Just look a little closer, I swear its there...

With the rental company, their tent, and dance floor inbound, I asked Sarah to document this moment, lest it never come again.

So here it is. My grass.

The Patio

One week until the big day. Surprisingly, things are going quite well. I have dedicated most of my evenings and weekends to completing the backyard in time, and the patio has turned out quite well. All are impressed. I'll break it down into three categories.

#1: after digging the hole, we added stone dust to create a layer for drainage and levelling (cheaper than sand and just as good). Despite what people say, apparently level is a personal opinion. Being a perfectionist, I consider level to be perfectly level. So far as I can tell, that's impossible when putting in a patio. We came darn close, but know that when some jacka*s says "make sure its level!" when you tell them you're building a patio (which they will) you should just kick them in the groin and continue about your business. Next came the paving stones, which I got at the Depot. I would suggest renting a trailer to cart them home (if you've got a truck with a hitch) or you will end up making 5 trips to the store. I know, it happened to me. While I did make a lasting friendship with Jim the garden center worker, it did suck. We used 230-something stones. Easy math will get you through. Lenght x width. It helped that my pavers were 1'sq. We used bricks as a border as well. Just measure linear ft. there... We needed about 105 at 8" of length each. It took a whole day, but it was worth it. The last step was to shovel stone dust on the surface of the pavers and sweep it into the cracks. Then you wet it down with a hose and you're done. I would give it a week or two to settle out before making any judgements. I couldn't sleep for two days because I thought it was horribly uneven. I even thought about taking it all out and meticulously placing each paver back in. I'm glad I didn't.

#2: The margin. Okay, with the patio all squared away, it was time to work on the details. Through a connection at Luck Stone, we got a discount on Colonial Pea gravel. Yet another friend of mine with a truck lended a hand and we made two separate trips to pick up .5 ton per trip (once again, trailer would be key). I spent my evenings shoveling pea gravel into the wheelbarrow and spreading it around the edge of our deck. I tried to dig out some dirt leading up to the patio so that it would act as a retaining wall for the gravel. Then I cleared out the pea gravel to add the slate stepping stones. It looks really really nice.

#3: Finally, the rest of the yard. Well, I've revived my campaign to grow grass with less than stellar results so far. I have to keep in mind, growing a nice lush patch of grass in two weeks is a little demanding, so I've gone ahead and rented a dance floor for the event. While I doubt much dancing will occur, it'll at least cover up the dirt patch. I put down "sun and shade" seed and covered it with a bale of straw from Southern States. Yesterday, my friend Zub came over and helped cut down the tree branch that hanged over the patio. It was mainly to accomodate the arrival of the tent in 7 days, but I think in the long run it will give more sun, and thus more possibilities, to the yard. But that branch did make it kind of cozy... :(

The Big Dig

So we're off to Germany tomorrow, but I figured I'd get this one in since I was clearing out the memory card on my camera. Our wedding is April 29th, and it the reception will be in our backyard. Or our back dirt pit would be a more fitting description. So to appease my soon-to-be bride, we are putting a brick patio in to eat up 300 sq. feet of that pesky dirt. I will put crushed stone or pea gravel between the deck and the patio as a border, and I still hold a candle of hope that I'll get some grass growing in the back 40. But that's a whole other post. Chrissy is lending her wealth of knowledge for actually laying the bricks down. Apparently (although I'm not surprised) her dad made her and her brother build a similar patio when she was 11. Good times at the Fehskens ranch. In the meantime, there's plenty of digging to be done. It's a good thing we have dogs!! Thanks for the help, Trooper...

S.A.D.

So I've been meaning to post this since the weekend we did it, January 6th or so... but that's the way it goes. Anyhow, we decided to mix things up in our dining room a little. Originally we had a rich chestnut brown on the walls, and that seemed nice for the first few months. But especially with the dark days of winter here, I began to notice I hated sitting in the dining room. Plus, we "inherited" some beautiful dark wood furniture from my aunt and it never quite looked as good as it should have against the lighter, but still dark, chestnut.

So, here's the finished product. We placed the center of the chair rail about 36" up the wall, left the old chestnut on the bottom, and then added a nice light creamy yellow to the top. Actually, we saw the combo in one of those idea books at the paint center in Home Depot. It's great for this room, because it doesn't get very much natural light through the day. So it helps brighten it up a little. Also, for those who haven't yet discovered it, there's a program called "ColorSmart" at Behr.com which allows you to browse their color selection and then add it to the walls of one of several pictures of rooms. Back when it first came out, there was only one version of each type of room. But now they've got several different styles so you can probably find something reasonably close to what you're working with. Its pretty neat. As for the chair rail, I used a mitre box and a regular old hand saw. Just make sure when you start your cuts that you get the angle right on the mitre box. They will be 45 degrees, but the chair rail isn't symmetrical so it will matter which side is which. Just take your time. Then use some Bright Finish 1-1/2" nails (yellow label) to nail it in and some wood filler to fill up the corners and nail holes, paint it, and VOILA!

It's a brand new room.

It's About Time

This little baby has been incubating in my brain for six months at the very least. That was right around the time we moved into our beautiful 60 year old home, our first, and realized that it was 60 years old. Don't get me wrong, I love it. And it's pretty cool to own a house (because it's MINE, damnit). But then the kitchen cabinets start falling off the hinges, one by one. And then the oil tank (which was 60 too, mind you) springs a leak in the basement. And you reach for the phone to call your landlord.... and it hits you. I AM the landlord. SHIT. But out of necessity comes some pretty cool learning experiences.

So this blog is dedicated to my beautiful home, and all of the learning experiences it has blessed me with in the 7 short months I've lived in it... and the thousands that will follow. I hope that some poor sap will find it, while cruising the internet for the answer to "How do I run that dryer ducting through my 60 feet of crawlspace?" or even just "How do I get in the crawlspace?" and take comfort in the answers I've found.

At the very least, I'll enjoy the idea that my mini-homeowning triumphs are being documented in some small way.