Rock Solid Landscaping

We're solidly in the "spring showers" part of spring and it's been impeding some of our work on the front yard...but we're actually making decent progress nonetheless.  By "we," though, I should specify that the lion's share of this work was done by Brian and his friend Tim, as I took the weekend off to head up to see family in Burlington, VT (and was struck, again, by how far behind New England is from DC weather-wise - here, everything is budding and green; there, it's still coooold).  Tim's strength is second only to the bobcat so he was very helpful when it came to moving around boulders and planting large trees - and we owe him a huge thanks for coming down to help out!

We still have a couple weekends worth of work even if we get some unbroken sunshine as there's quite a bit of grading to do, sod to plant, and, eventually, flower beds to add in.  But, on the good news, the boulder wall is just about done (with the exception of mulch to add) and we've planted a number of the trees so hopefully they will get established and start growing.  Pictures from last weekend and before below:

Laying out the rest of the rocks and the trees.  We have three heritage birch trees and a dogwood on the corner

Nothing planted yet but rocks in place

Now with burning bushes in place in between the birches

This is starting to look a little better - birches planted and bushes in place.  Still need more mulch to cover the rest of the boulder wall.

And now with dogwood planted in the corner, along with some maiden grasses.  We've also started adding phlox, japanese juniper, and blue spruce between the boulders.

Moving along!  Still need to plant the evergreens on the left hand side and add mulch on the right but it's all starting to come together!

Concrete changes

Notwithstanding our brief, recent foray back into winter around here (complete with snow flurries after a week of 70+ degree weather, at which point I nearly packed up and moved further south), we've been making a good deal of progress on outdoor work.  We've been tackling the front yard, taking out the old concrete pathway and pouring concrete for a new bluestone walk and, more recently, starting to install our boulders to follow the natural rise of the front yard.

It's been a big project, made bigger by an initial miscalculation on how much concrete it would take to pour the base for the new walkway.  We didn't even look into ordering a truck of concrete, thinking that a relatively shallow base for a relatively short walkway couldn't take that much concrete and so we would just buy bags and mix it ourselves.  This plan seemed to make a lot of sense - right until we went through the first, oh, dozen bags and realized we had barely made a dent.  Last weekend, we went through all 25 80-lb bags we had on hand.  So, on Monday evening, it was back to Home Depot to load up (in two trips) on 45 more bags.  And Tuesday night, we spent a couple of quality hours mixing and pouring to finish the walk...which took a total of 64 bags of concrete.  Lesson learned - next time, concrete truck!

This past weekend, we started tackling the install of the boulder wall in the front yard.  Since our house is on a relatively busy street, we wanted to have a distinct visual break between the road and our house.  We thought about building an actual wall out front but decided to go with the easier and more natural looking option of adding some boulders, trees, and other landscaping.  The land naturally slopes into a bit of a berm at the front anyway, so we only needed to add some nice big boulders to it to provide more of a break.  It's still very much a work in progress but over the next two weekends, we should be close to finishing it up, adding trees, sod, flowers, and grasses...and installing the stone on the walkway.  At that point (if all goes as planned - never a guarantee with big projects!) the somewhat rough current look should be transformed into a much more polished appearance.  But, it bears noting that none of this would be possible without the bobcat - as we often say around here, the bobcat is the best cat!  Many pictures below.

Removing the old walkway - easy work with a bobcat!

One by one, picking up the old pieces and stacking them for removal

Moving right along

Making piles of old concrete pad

Smoothing out the yard for the new walkway

Leveling the pad

More bobcatting

And cleaning up the yard

Getting started with the new pathway - smoothing the ground and marking everything out with string lines

Forms are up and starting the pour - this was the end of the first day, when we realized that 25 bags of concrete did not go nearly as far as we thought they would

That's better!  The after picture, once we finished the concrete and took the forms off

Hello materials!  Four pallets of boulders and a shipment of fill dirt.  Ready to get started now!

Definitely could not move these by hand.  Go bobcat go! 

Getting started on the far side of the front yard as we move the first boulders into place

And moving across the yard, adding the rocks

We didn't do a great job with taking pictures as we went but after a long day of work, we're roughly two thirds of the way across the yard, with some mulch in to hold down the dirt

Still lots of work to go but it's starting to come together!

Don't Fence Me In

Or, in this case, do fence me in!  We've finished the first (of three) sides of the fence and, if we may say so ourselves, it has turned out really well!  It took about a week of work - with some breaks, of course - from start to finish, we brought in two helpers for one day (because post hole digging is no fun), and required (or maybe didn't require but was certainly facilitated by) an auger, a lot of string lines, and a good bit of advance planning but it's just about done now.

The first thing we had to do - other than rip down the unattractive old chain link fence - was decide on design.  Because shadow-box fences make me crazy (you can see through them from this angle!  you can't see through them from that one!  it makes no sense!), I knew I wanted an absolutely solid fence.  So we decided on a board-on-board design to make sure there would be no gaps or cracks.  We then decided to move the middle brace to the top third of the fence, instead of the middle, to give it more of a designed look, and added a cap to the fence to really polish it off.  And finally, we wanted to make sure it looked nice from both sides since we were putting it on the property line and essentially sharing it with our neighbors, so that meant trimming the outside as well as the inside.

So, what did this all add up to?  Here are the specs and then we'll get to the pictures - we used 2 x 4 posts, sunk 36" into the ground, with one bag of quick-set concrete and, generally, two more bags of regular concrete per post.  We started with 10' posts and then trimmed the tops to 3" above the fence cap (we'll add post covers later).  The pickets are standard dog-ear, spaced 3" apart from each other.  We used three 2 x 4 cross bars per panel on the inside and trimmed the outside with 1 x 4 pieces to make it look almost exactly the same on both sides.  Lastly, we added a 2 x 6 cap on top of it all.  And now, the pictures:

Marching down the line of posts

Looks straight so far!

Starting to get cross-bars up

Faint outline of fence from our side - and our outdoor workshop.  The bobcat came in very handy for moving the pallets of material around the yard!  And we were able to save most of the foliage on our side of the property.

Here we go!  Adding the slats to make a nice solid fence

View from the other side - without any trim yet

Moving right along now

Adding the first part of the trim on the outside of the fence - we cut the fence posts to 4 1/2" above the pickets and added a 2 x 6 cap on the top of the fence

Getting started on the side fence to close in this corner

In progress

Pickets in

Now with trim

Outside of the fence, finished with trim

And inside with trim

Cabinet Changes and Fence Installation

Has it really been nearly two months since our last post?  This might be the one downside to tracking our progress - or lack thereof - on a blog.  It's so obvious when we aren't doing much work or, at least, much work that can be photographed!  So let's see - what have we been doing?  We did finish the hardwood floor installation on nearly all of the first floor (but somehow forgot to take pictures) so we finally have a little more room since the flooring is on the floor instead of in boxes everywhere.  We also got our second shipment of kitchen cabinets, which allowed us to install the new refrigerator, finally, and will let us build the banquette.  But before we tackle that, we pulled down the second (of three) sides of chain link fence and are now building a new privacy fence.  We've been wanting to tackle this project since last summer so I'm glad to get it out of the way now.  Brian is home this week so we're moving right along and hopefully will have a new side fence by the weekend.  Now, the pictures:

Prepping for cabinet install - we decided to pad out the side wall by the beam so built a frame

Drywall in

Now that's a wall again!

Setting cabinets in the laundry room

Installed!  Just need countertop and sink now

Redoing the kitchen cabinet install - we swapped out a 27" cabinet for a 24" on the side of the stove to allow room for a larger fridge

New cabinets in, time to see if the fridge fits...

It all fits!  And with fancy plywood countertops (which will be replaced with marble soon)

Setting the cabinets for the kitchen built-ins.  The banquette will go between these two cabinets.

Dry fitting everything - still need countertops, trim, and the banquette

Old fence.  This is not attractive.

Trees growing through the fence!

Chain link down.  New fence posts marked.  The old fence was off the property line and the neighbors asked to share the new fence so we're installing it right on the property line this time, which also means we can remove these old posts at a later date (our side is the one with all the trees).

So much brush to clear to get at the fence line...

Setting a string line

Digging the holes - that auger in the background was incredibly useful but it still took a lot of manpower to fully dig the holes

Now there's some progress!  Getting a nice line of fence posts going.  More to come!