Set backs!

I was hoping to post the finished landscaping today but my mulch I get from the compost facility isn't available until next week.

In lieu of that, I was going to share a little organization project but my I-Mac just died as I was uploading pictures. Such a bummer :(  (I do have a backup hard drive though, whew). I'll share as soon as my mac gets fixed.  

Landscaping in the front yard- Part 1

This year, I'm beefing up my landscaping in the front yard. I wanted to continue with my original plan.

Remember this?

I added the landscaping right by the door and porch but so far, nothing by the driveway. So I wanted to cut out the herb beds in the front. But I decided the herbs weren't necessary (since I already planted them all out by the garden) and and wanted to incorporate more evergreens and my favorite flowers, peonies.

 Here's what it looked like out front a few weeks ago. Yes, the house is begging for a new coat of paint. But I have to be patient and work on one thing at a time. So landscaping first.

Here is where I started to cut out the bed.

The only problem was on the other side my flower bed would be in almost full shade because of this tree. It looks ok here but it was really a sad looking tree. We had to cut down a branch for the power lines, and another for the basketball hoop. And then Cruz attacked the tree with blue and yellow spray paint. Long story short, I decided the tree had to go. So I asked Cam while he was on a business trip if he could cut it down and he agreed. While he was gone, I got the pick axe out and worked on digging and cutting roots.

Cameron got home that night and on Saturday he was outside with his handy dandy chain saw. I was so excited I forgot to take any pictures of the take down. Bummer! To get the stump and roots out, Cam hooked the tree up with a heavy duty rope to his truck and pulled that sucker out. It was awesome!!

We were left with a huge hole and nasty weed grass so we decided to replace the weeds with bermuda sod. That required us to shovel out all the weeds and existing grass and level it out.

 Haha that's Cruz behind that giant sod roll.

 They were super heavy and Cruz just about fell over.

 Don't ask me what Kian is doing in the picture because I really don't know.

The sod is all in now and getting watered really good with all the rain. I'm hoping to plant the beds and then share the finished product next week!

Garden Update- May

I actually took these pictures right at the beginning of May but it sometimes I'm behind on getting things updated :)

 From the back, parsley and broccoli, then kale, sweet potatoes, a random pepper plant, and then the little ones are bok choy.

 Strawberry are growing well. Supposedly its not good to let them fruit the first year so they can build a good root system. But I let them fruit because I really can't wait :)

 This is lettuce with tomatoes and peppers mixed in. I will have the lettuce all harvested by the time the other plants get big. With a tiny garden I have to plant as intensively as possible!!

 Winter Squash coming up by the peas.

 And an overall look. To the left is onions in those plastic cups. I had a cut worm eating all my onions at the base so I put the cups around them and it's been working thankfully. Other than that, the bugs have been mild so far. Last year, my kale was demolished by cabbage worms but this year, only a tiny bit of nibbling from them. I've been picking eggs off so I hope it stays that way :)

Also, I got my soil results back for the topsoil I put in last month. Nutrients are good but my PH is 5.7! I'm surprised my plants are growing at all when it's that low. I'm going to add a little lime to bring it up to where it should be.

New Sandbox

This sandbox has been long awaited by the boys. Long ago, Cameron found some deck timbers at the dump and recycled them by making a frame for the sandbox.

We had to wait until the french drain was all finished to be able to install the sandbox. After that project was done the first thing we did was laid down some landscape fabric. As you can see this area is weed infested! Grass won't grow here since it gets all day shade.


After the fabric was laid, we added mulch on the outside and sand of course for the inside. I had one request, and that was a lid to keep out rain and leaves. Cam and I settled on plastic with a wood frame. He came home with these Real Tree Camo panels. Sigh...

Sometimes, I let Cameron have his way. This was one of those times. Unfortunately, the plastic camo panels were a little filmsy (aka easily destroyed by adventurous children) so he had to sturdy them up with some plywood underneath. As a result, lifting up the cover and closing it is a two person job because of the weight. This kind of defeated the purpose of using the plastic in the first place but oh well. It may need to be tweaked in the future but for now it works.

The lid is at angle so the rain can drain off. See that thing by the door?

Cameron rigged up a towel on a retractable chain for cleaning off before coming inside. It's been working great. 

The lid hinges in the middle and leans against the house when in use.  The wood in the corners is a nice place to sit in case you don't want to get completely sandy.

This little girl loves the sand. If you can't tell from the picture she was really sad but stopped crying once she got to play.

The Finished Floors

Yay!!! The floors are all done!

Here were my top 3 color picks- these are all Minwax stains. Our contractor advised us not to pick a specialty brand or color because if we ever need to match things up later it might be hard to do. Right when he put them down I knew provincial was out. It was way too red for me. You can't tell here because he sampled on different boards but the 50/50 mix still was really warm and red. The winner was dark walnut!


Now for some before and after pictures.

Before

After

 Before

After- sort of.  In this room I took the picture before they put the second coat of poly on. They had to fix a staining issue so it got finished later than the rest of the floors.

 Before

 After

 Before

After

Next project as you can see is installing baseboards and door frames. I'm excited though with how they turned out! They are so smooth and beautiful.

Garden Update - April

Spring is a busy time and there is always lots of work to be done outside. This year I'm experimenting with some new things.

 In my garden last year, the beds were 90% compost, 10% other stuff. This year, I made it roughly 40% topsoil, 10% peat moss, and 50% compost. Everything grew pretty well last year, but after some research, I'm convinced my plants may have been missing some minerals from having a lack of regular soil in there. I still need to send in a soil sample to the extension office and get it tested. I guess topsoils vary a lot in ph and nutrients. It takes 3 weeks to get back results so hopefully meanwhile what I planted will grow as long as the ph isn't too far off. I just direct seeded some lettuce so I'll see if it comes up ok. If it doesn't I'll have to buy a test from the store to make quick changes!

Before I amended my beds, I did plant a few things. They seem to be growing nicely. I hope the topsoil addition isn't a mistake!!

 Peas coming up

 I planted bare root strawberries this year. This is in the pure compost. I did add a bag of sand to the bed prior to planting because strawberries love sandy soil. I did half "cardinal" and half "ozark beauty" to see what I like better. I grew cardinal at our other house and they were great.

 My parsley self seeded :) This makes me happy!

This is outside the fenced area. I planted marshmallow root and since it's a perennial herb it's coming back. This year I'll be able to harvest some of the roots. I have plans to dry it and use it since it's suppose to help with acid reflux. It also get pretty flowers in the summer.

Wood floors installed!

Wahoo! The wood is all installed. Since it will be sanded and finished on site, we decided it was a job for the pros. We got four bids for getting the install/sand/finish of new floors on the main level plus sand/finish of existing floors. We are glad we got lots of quotes because we feel really confident we got the best price and so far have been pleased with the quality of work as well.

The new floors were laced in with the old so when its all refinished, it will look like it was done all at the same time (forgot to take a picture of this). We have solid red oak already in the entry and kitchen and just matched it. The plan is to go darker on the stain. But for right now, we are in the waiting phase because the wood has to get acclimated to the house for several weeks before they finish it off. Now for the before and afters.

 

 We are deciding on new trim in this pic too. 4 inch is on the left 3 inch on the right. We are going with 3 inch since it looks better with the 8ft ceilings.

I was so happy yesterday, I laid on the floor to do some wood angels. It was a good idea until I remembered raw wood can give you splinters :)