Posted: August 24th, 2010 | Filed under: DIY, Landscaping, Our Projects | Tags: pea gravel patio | 7 Comments »
So operation stucco will commence (perhaps) at the weekend…in the meantime, the patio shoveling is basically complete. After things settle, there might be some touch up, but for now…done.
The sad thing is… now that I can have some fun and get the furniture in, I’m not feelin’ it. I’ve dragged most of the available furniture up here and dragged it back down.
I want the butterflies to live here, and since we are a family of four, we really need at least 4 seats up here. I haven’t found more vintage flies yet. Everything else is variable. I thought I’d move the red chairs to the back and just have the loveseat and the flies… I dunno. I’ll keep rearranging….
The Things and I sat out here at sunset under the tree and read. For once, the outside temp was cool enough to truly enjoy. I think this new lounging area will be heaven for us once tweaked and finished.
Let’s play musical side tables, shall we?
Can you say Christmas? Blech. Back to the drawing board…
Oh, and in case you were worried about what we would do for exercise now that the patio gravel is down….
Yeah. That’s the rest of it, slated for other areas that interest me very little at the moment, but we need the parking spot back…so it must resume. $#!@.
Posted: August 19th, 2010 | Filed under: DIY, Landscaping, Our Projects | Tags: pea gravel, pea gravel patio | 5 Comments »
We’ve had a lot of rain (again) which makes the horsetail and other plants happy. It makes me wet.
Horsetail is easily blown over by those high winds……
I’m hauling the peas every morning after the Things are off to school so I can avoid working in the triple digit weather with 100% humidity. If it drizzles, I work, if it pours, I wait until it stops. I try to take several breaks anyway. When I start, I can fill the buckets 3/4 of the way..after about 10 trips, the volume starts creeping down and I know it’s time to knock off for awhile.
So how far have I gotten?
I’ve gotten one layer down now. Problem is..we need about 3 more in order to hide the exposed areas where the “stucco” ends…like here…..
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Perhaps we should stucco further down the wall on this side! Ya THINK!?!
The guy we used to build all this in the fall was scheduled to come back and do some “touch-up” on the stucco this spring, but he never showed. We didn’t chase him since we figured the touch up wasn’t really totally necessary at the time and we were all square with him financially.
If we had all the stuff, it would be a no brainer DIY. This has it’s own set of issues since I don’t know if we can replicate the “formula” for the color to match. If I go through my receipts, I can find the brand etc he used and try? If I remember correctly, he used 2 bags of black to one bag of brown…but I’m not sure. I should just call him and just say..”Hey, how have ya been? Gimme the recipe!”
I dunno, in the meantime, I need to haul a bit more (ARGH!) to cover some thin areas, then the CC and I need to sit down and discuss this other, much less exhausting option.
Posted: August 16th, 2010 | Filed under: DIY, Landscaping, Our Projects | Tags: pea gravel, pea gravel patio | 11 Comments »
Well, it’s only been about 9 months since the walls were built…we are finally finishing the top patio in the front. In our feeble defense, it’s just been lower on the list since we wanted to spend spring and summer filling the new beds and getting stuff planted.
It was tough to decide which gravel to use. Since we needed massive amounts, the budget needed to be less than $50/yard. That pretty much left us with limestone or pea gravel. The granite chips were 3 times that so…no dice. We can’t use decomposed stone fines (my 1st choice) because they set up too hard and the water will run off away from the tree …we need the water to drain down so that it gets at its roots.
I’ve used limestone before for gravel patios and it worked great, but I wanted to explore something softer and easier on the feet. I’ve always hated pea gravel…it felt very dated and ugly to me, but I found a few nice gardens that changed my mind.
This patio used pea gravel in between the hardscape…
Photo via Studio G
… and this post showed a nice pea gravel patio
Photo via Rock Stock & Quade
Now we have a monster sized pile of pea gravel to put on top of the large limestone. I started spreading it in the rain since it’s as cool as it’s ever going to be (only 87°!). I discovered I can only fill the buckets half way or it hurts. Up all the steps, dump and repeat. 2 buckets are best since it keeps me balanced instead of bending over a single full bucket.
Phew…gonna be a long week. Problem is….I think I might hate the color….stay tuned for a hopeful improvement…maybe when it’s dry…maybe.
Posted: August 6th, 2010 | Filed under: DIY | Tags: Housepet, La Residence | 3 Comments »
I’ve been under the weather this week and getting f-all done, but I have, over the past few weeks added some new links I thought I’d point out for your enjoyment in my absence.
La Residence (sorry, I can’t get my special characters to add the accent mark for some reason)
Ah. Maze. Ing. Reno junkies…start thumping your veins cuz it’s some good stuff. That sink is a DIY from an old support beam…yeah.
Another one that I’ve been loving is Housepet….another amazing whole house transformation….check out the tour here.
Have a great weekend….
Posted: July 13th, 2010 | Filed under: Copycat, DIY | Tags: DIY Spin Art | 4 Comments »
So, who didn’t love spin art as a kid? I don’t think I could trust someone who didn’t like spin art…what’s not to like?
When reading through Laura Day’s Spin Party inspired by her Damien Hirst print, I thought…why not improvise and go big…Hirst style? I need bigger pieces of art in this house… I have lots of little things that look crappy on these big walls. Since my art budget is nil right now…time to improvise…and have fun creating something special with the Minors in the process. Perfect summer project. Thing One has an ear infection, so when pool time is out…craft time is in!
Although this is a clever DIY, I wanted something bigger….We have this lazy susan base in the garage that we use when painting small things so we can rotate them on the workbench. Perfect, I’ll tack the paper onto the lazy susan and we’ll be good to go…right? If it works, then I’ll attach even bigger pieces of paper to it.
Um….maybe not. It’s not exactly spin art. The LS just couldn’t spin fast enough. Until I can figure out some way to MacGyver a drill powered spinner…we are back to that clever salad spinner version. Visions of our giant Hirst-ish creations would have to wait. So, here we go…small scale!
She used construction paper, and I used both watercolor and painting paper both of which worked equally well. I thought the construction paper would be too flimsy and absorbent. I traced out the bottom of the spinner basket and cut it out with a blade. Pop the circle in the bottom of your spinner and it’s time to squeeze and spin! I used craft acrylic paint in squeeze bottles…they are only $.59 each at Michaels.
We’ve started playing around with some other textures of papers and edges…like this slick silver paper I forgot I had…
I think in the end we can make a big piece with all the small ones compiled some way….
Back to spinning!
Posted: July 8th, 2010 | Filed under: DIY, Landscaping, Our Projects | Tags: deck staining, modern compost bin | 3 Comments »
It doesn’t look like much, but we did actually accomplish more than stuffing our faces with carnitas over the July 4th holiday. We have finally had a break from the Nashville Monsoon so I could finish that pesky spot of deck floor staining.
The old railings were really getting in the way of completing the stain job, so, even though we don’t have the hog panel yet, buh bye.
We’ve kept up the support posts since we will reuse them, but now we are thinking of rebuilding and widening the stairs. We didn’t change them when they added onto the deck since they were attached to the old section and were perfectly fine. We’ve got some planning and potential reconfiguring to do….of course…UGH!
So while deck progress is now at a potential screeching halt, the CC tackled a little work on the compost pile…
We are now using it although far from done…he has finished one gate, but could only find the ugliest hinges ever. He has promised to paint/camouflage them since we grudgingly conceded that mail order stainless hinges were not required for a compost pile….although it would look SO much better.
AND, groan…we started to deal with the fallen tree. One solid day of heat and sawdust. I dragged branches to the road and stacked future firewood while the CC got all manly with the chainsaw. There’s more to do, but what’s left is hidden from public view in the jungle so we can take our time finishing up.
We were so exhausted after that day…we packed up Thing One and Thing Two and headed to the pool. I cracked out an old find from the depths…I think these were my dad’s. Love ‘em…even though the Things thought they looked “funny”. I was too whipped to care if I looked “funny” in them or not.
