Finishing up

Sometimes you buy a fixer-upper, and you think you'll live there for four years and do all the work yourself. Sometimes you end up having to move twice instead and rent the place out. And then sometimes it feels surprisingly good to pay someone to finish what you couldn't. 

This house finally got the full makeover it deserved! Now time to sell...

Meg vs. The Backyard: Cleaned up!

A friend of mine does some landscaping/yard cleaning on the side. I knew that with the baby, exams, and the bathroom still out of commission, we weren't going to get to it any time soon, so we contracted it to my friend. We basically told them to clear everything to the ground so we can rototill. Here is the result:

Clearly we need to make a trip to the dump before we can get to tilling.

The yard looks SO much bigger! We have a lot of work to do, but I am excited. I can envision letting my kids play here without wondering what animals are in the bushes (there really was a raccoon one evening, and we have tons of squirrels). Hurrah!

Meg vs. The Back Yard: The usual.

Thursday: Clear more brush, weeds, and trees from the back yard. Re-fill the green waste bin.

Done! And the bonus to this is always that the kiddos spend the afternoon happily playing in the yard. I am excited to make it more kid-friendly.

Meg vs. The Garage & Yard: Cleaning up.

Wednesday: Take at least one box of junk from the garage to the thrift store.

Did not happen. Ended up babysitting and having other stuff going on. But hopefully I can catch up by the end of the week!

Thursday: Fill the green waste bin (weeding, de-tree-ing, raking leaves, etc.)

John took care of this; pulled out the chainsaw and cut up all the branches we had sitting around, took down most of the dead tree, pulled weeds, etc. etc. I went out and raked leaves after the boys headed to bed, and we babysat and got a bit of cleaning done, too. Go us.

Meg vs. The Back Yard: Garden #4

Monday: Finish mixing soil in the side yard planter and plant the rest of the melon plants. Put away/cover new fire wood.

I have got to do something more visually stimulating so it will be worth posting a picture on the blog! For now, here is a picture of our first strawberries of the season. In blurry, chubby toddler hands no less!

Meg vs. The Back Yard: More of the same, to infinity!

Tuesday: Weed, cut branches, and re-fill the yard waste bin. Get another planter ready for planting.

I did this as far as I could; I realized I was out of soil for the last above-ground planter, and all I had was Amend for the in-ground planters that aren't really close to ready yet. So I cleared a spot and set up the planter, and it's ready for dumping and planting. I'll add the mix to my shopping list for tomorrow.

The rest of my time was spent battling a gnarly rose tree at the end of the side yard. I think it is a normal rose bush that was left to itself for 30 years; it is crazy! Lots of dead growth and ivy, both living and dead, wrapped up with it. But the side yard is almost clear! Now to decide what to fill it back up with...

Meg vs. The Backyard: Someday I will be done clearing, but not today.

Tuesday: Clear more of the back yard, re-fill the green waste bin.

Check! I could pack down the foliage and add in some more during the week if I'm up to it. Weeding days to not make for very exciting reading material.

Meg vs. The Back Yard: The never ending task.

Friday: Re-fill the green waste bin! Clear as much in the side yard as possible.
 
Someday I will get the side yard cleared out completely. And then I will have about ten times more than than to do around the rest of the yard. The work itself is good for me, right?

Saturday: Plant more seeds with the boys. Work on decorations for the living room.

We didn't get to planting seeds. It is 9pm and still 80 degrees in our house, so we only were outside for an hour or so after dinner, and that's when I worked on weeding. However, if I can count "Think of ideas for the living room" as "Work on decorations for the living room," then that goal was done.

Meg vs. The Yard: More weeding!

Thursday: Finish clearing out the side yard. Re-fill the green waste bin.

This is the project that never ends, since we need to clear about 1/2 of our entire yard. It was a crazy morning and we all fell asleep for the afternoon, so we got a late start, but we definitely re-filled the bin and made good progress on the side yard. John meticulously removed the ivy intertwined in most of the chain-link fence, so now I just have a small section at the end of the side yard to finish so that we can get to cleaning and planting. I also worked on clearing a spot for a second raised bed, since our boys were being whiny and wouldn't tolerate both John and I being secluded on the side of the yard.

We are having guests for lunch tomorrow, so tonight's post-bedtime schedule includes cleaning the whole house and starting to get our room ready for painting. Yikes!

Meg vs. The Back Yard: Weeding and more weeding

Tuesday: Clear a place to plant sunflowers and put a planter in the side yard. Re-fill the green waste bin!

Clear part of the side-yard. Check!

Fill up the bin. Check plus!

Un-cover an existing planter that sits exactly in the sunny area. Check Check! There are actually pavers and rocks surrounding the planter, but you wouldn't know it by looking.

Verify that someone actually grew something here aside from weeds once. Checkity-check!  (It was rosemary - only a step above a weed, but I'll take it.)

Clean up the milk spills, dish pile, and crushed animal cookies under the furniture because my awesome mother-in-law will be here in 2 days, followed by my wonderful father-in-law 2 days after that: I suppose I had better get to that.

Meg vs. The Backyard: Name that plant!

Okay everyone, time for a game. It's called Name That Plant, a.k.a. Keep It, Transplant It, Trim It, or Kill It?

Mom, I'm counting on you for this one.

 This one is spreading across the ground.

This one is an overgrown tree.

Meg vs. The Backyard: Clearing and planting

Monday:  Clear a place and plant the boysenberries.

Well, I technically did this one, but not exactly how I originally intended. After an hour in the backyard, the "place" we had decided on for the boysenberries looked like this:

After an hour or so more, it looked like this:

And the waste bin looked like this:

So much for my other goal this week to get rid of more of the tree!

I decided that with all the roots and trash in ground, I should probably do more to clean it out before planting anything. And then I second-guessed our decision to plant the berries next to the house (I am nothing if not indecisive). So finally I just did this:

I both cleared a place and planted the boysenberries. I love buying time for more indecisiveness =).

Aren't you jealous of how splendid our back yard looks already?

Overgrown side yard, complete with decomposing cardboard

The trees my hubby wants me to leave alone (yeah right)

 Ivy everywhere! I am thisclose to convincing John that it is a noxious weed and shouldn't be his favorite landscaping feature.

 One of two dead trees.

 Dirty deck, shaky trellis.

 Junk.

p.s. That bit about our splendid yard was a joke.

Meg vs. The Yard: Our first plants

Saturday:  Go to nursery, get advice, and buy plants/supplies for square-foot gardens and fertilizer for fruit trees. Start putting planters out. 

As it turns out, I am a couple of weeks early for planting garden vegetables. That was a relief, because I kept worrying that I was too late since it has been so warm recently. So I came home with nine bags of soil (I don't trust what's in our yard, what with squirrels, cats, raccoons, and probably lead paint), a flat of strawberry plants, and two thornless boysenberry starts. The little guy and I pulled out our upside-down planters that we found on clearance at Wal-Mart and planted the strawberries, I pulled out the planter boxes, and now we have a couple of weeks to plan the rest of our garden.

For some reason I completely forgot about the fertilizer for the trees.


Another week done! It is nice to be making progress, even if it's slow going. I think next week I'll ease up a bit, because I thoroughly exhausted myself this week.

Meg vs. The Yard: Potting Trees

Thursday:  Re-pot fruit trees left by the previous owners.

We noticed three baby citrus trees--a meyer lemon, a naval orange, and a mexican lime--in our yard when we were doing our walk-through of this house, and assumed the owners would take them. But apparently they came with the house! We have always wanted fruit trees, but weren't sure if we were going to bother with this house since there are so many other things needing our attention. But since we had them, we decided to pot them for now to give us time and flexibility to move them around as we do the rest of the yard. I bought the pots and soil months ago but haven't taken the 30 minutes to go out and put them in. The guy at Home Depot said that a pot twice the size of the original container should be sufficient for a couple of years' growth. And these trees are barely twigs, so I think they have plenty of room for now.

Before:  Can you tell a little one was playing with my camera?

After:

Definitely worth 1/2 an hour during nap time. Who knows if they'll get big enough to fruit before we leave this place, but at least they have room to try!

John vs. The Backyard: 10-minute fire pit

My wonderful hubby brought his friend Eric over after school today to try to hook up our antenna. They took a trip to Home Depot for one cable and came back with 40 paving stones and a cooking rack. I had shown John a tutorial for building a fire pit on Pinterest, and he had been hooked on the idea ever since.

Step One: stack stones in a ring. John did 10 around, 4 high. We already had sand underneath, so we didn't need to clear room or put anything down. If you don't have sand, laying gravel would be another good alternative.

Step Two: start a fire.

 
Step Three: enjoy.

Some additional shopping tips from the hubs:

• Don't pay more than $1 per stone. The cheaper ones are toward the back, often on the end cap.
• Grab a big cart!
• Instead of buying a fire pit rack, which will run upwards of $100, go to the barbecue section and get a grill rack from the accessory section. Find the widest one so it will reach all the way across the pit. They run $15-20.
• Don't forget to grab some firewood! $5 for a bundle at Home Depot. One full bundle will burn down to a good amount for grilling.