Handywork Around The House

Finally, the stump has come out in the front yard, which means we can finish the landscaping project we started about a month  ago. They were out two days earlier than expected to remove the stump, which is perfect timing.  I have tomorrow off work, so I will be spending the day landscaping.  Here is a shot of the machine they brought in to take out the stump.  Yes, the picture was taken through the curtain, but considering the window is right by where they were working, I didn't want to look like a creeper hanging out the window with my camera!

I realized when logging in to update the blog that it has been almost three weeks since I last posted here; total slacker.  I have to be honest, I really don't know where the month of May went.  Seriously guys, how is it summer already?  

We have been pretty busy these last couple of weeks.  Andrew has been working on a table for our deck.  We couldn't justify the cost to buy one from the store, so our solution was to make one!  Here he is working on the table top.

Last night, we finished up with the table leg.  I say we because he built it, I tested it and broke it and then he fixed it!  I had the important job of breaking/testing.

Today, Andrew has been working on getting the benches for the table constructed.  The plan is for the benches to be done tomorrow so they can be sanded down.  By Friday, we hope to have everything constructed and sanded so we can get a couple coats of stain on everything before Saturday.

Our plan was going fine until we came home tonight to find a puddle of water on the floor in the kitchen.  Random standing water anywhere in the house is never a good thing.  After tearing a hole in the ceiling (in a location that was previously patched due to water damage), we discovered that it was the toilet in the guest bathroom that was causing the problem.  Two hours later, we have a hole in the ceiling, the toilet missing from the guest bathroom, and a shopping list for tomorrow morning.  Thank God for YouTube!  Through watching several videos and having my Step-dad on speaker phone, we figured out that the prior owners, who remodeled the guest bathroom, didn't raise the flange on the toilet up when they tiled the floor.  Consequently, the toilet has started to leak due to the seal not being completed properly.  Here is the lesson learned from this, if you are going to DIY a project, have a pretty good idea of what you are doing.  And, if you have problems once, don't just make a quick fix.  ALWAYS, I repeat, always find the root of the probelm.  If you make a temporary fix, you could be causing larger problems down the line.

Off to the store we go tomorrow morning to buy a new seal and a riser to put on the flange so we have a better seal and can try to avoid the problem in the future.  Of course, all this happened after I cleaned the bathroom tonight; go figure.     

So, there is a little glimpse of what we have been up to. The joys of home ownership!  Thank God for a handy husband who isn't useless with power tools.   

Major Landscaping Projects Ahead

I can't believe it has been almost a year since we bought our house; time flies!  Since we moved in last July, it was too hot to work on any major landscaping projects last year.  We also wanted to make sure when we began to tackle landscaping projects that we had thought through things.  With our landscaping projects at the last house, we took some shortcuts and learned some lessons.  This time around, we want to do things right.  Our big question to start the spring out was if we should tackle the front landscaping or the back landscaping first.  Andrew begged all winter to take the pine tree out in the front, so that came down a couple of weeks ago.  Since that left a huge bare spot in the front yard, we opted to work on the front landscaping this year. 

In addition to taking out the pine tree, we also removed three evergreen bushes and two burning bushes.  No, there was nothing wrong with the bushes that were removed other than we didn't like them.  I chopped the burning bushes back last fall because they were blocking the view of the house.  The evergreen bushes took a beating this winter and were brown in several spots, so they were an eye sore. 

I debated all winter about what to do for a border out front.  Pinterest is my best friend when I'm looking for good landscaping ideas.  Initially, the idea we went with for the border out front we were going to use in the back.  We have a different idea for the back, so we decided to move the original idea to the front. 

The picture above is what things looked like the spring before we bought our house.  You can see the evergreen at the left front corner of the house.  If you look, you can also see along the front walkway the burning bush that were way too tall for that spot. 

Here is a close up photo.  There are the lovely brown evergreen bushes and what is left of the burning bush I chopped back last fall.  This picture gives you a good idea of just how close the tree was to the house. 

This is at the start of our weekend project.  The first things to come out after the tree a couple of weeks ago, were the evergreen bushes.  As you can tell, Andrew does the digging and I do the photographing. 

 Here is Sunday night when we finished up for the weekend.  We stopped short of landscaping around where the evergreen tree used to be because we have to wait to have the stump removed.  Once the stump is out, we will finish with the border around the rest of the front and around the side of the house back to the fence line. 

I am pretty excited to have my hostas back!  I really missed my hostas from the last house and was pumped to have a spot to plant more.  I finally got the guacamole hosta I have been eyeballing since last year!  Because of the two large trees in the front yard, this spot get shade most of the day.  I have started here with a few hostas, and will add to it each year.  In addition to hostas, I also have a few astilbe plants, a white bleeding heart, a pink bleeding heart plant, and a couple of columbine plants.  I can't wait for everything to start growing and filling in. 

Here are a few tips we have learned along the way with our landscaping projects:

1. Don't buy all your supplies from the same store: most of the time, we have to make several stops to get supplies for a landscaping project.  While it is a pain in the butt at the time, you save money in the long run.  With the internet and online ads, it is pretty easy to price check things without driving from store to store. 

2. Don't be afraid to ask for a price adjustment: this is a tip from my days working at Target when I learned this is actually a thing.  The landscaping bricks we used for the border were purchased from Menards on Friday night.  In Sunday's ad, they were on sale for $.10 off per brick.  When you buy two hundred and eighty bricks, that adds up.  Monday, I made a trip to Menards with my receipt and asked for an adjustment.  We now have about $30 in store credit to use.  I could buy more hostas with that money! 

3. Don't underestimate the time it will take to do a project.  If you are going to tackle a landscaping project, don't cut yourself short on time.  That will lead to cutting corners to try and get the project done.

4. Earlier is better: I can't emphasize this one enough.  If there hadn't been snow on the ground, I would have been out in the yard in March working on this project.  I would much rather work on a landscaping project when it is still cool out rather than blazing hot.  I always tease my mom that we did the hardest landscaping projects on the hottest days.  We were tilling up the front yard one 4th of July weekend when it was 100 degrees out; that was not cool. 

These are just a few of my tips; I have many more if you want to hear them! 

Since we have to wait for the stump to come out of the front yard, we will be taking a couple of weeks of from landscaping in the front yard.  Luckily, it is time to plant my flowers pots!  Happy growing season everyone!