Cheap and Easy Garden Beds

When you live in a community where a lot of the houses are the same you have to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Not only do we need to stand out but we have to compete with extreme botanist who seem to be able to grow anything by whispering to it. I am no such gardener. Most of my plants do not make it a week. But I still wanted an array of foliage to welcome people as they entered. I had hoped for a sweet smelling flora and fauna arrangement that would whisk you away to sensory bliss. However I was not willing to spend any money on such a dream and so we went a very cheap direction.

Decorated Deck

I am obsessed with our pretty little deck. We have given our deck some special love recently. We added a fresh coat of stain, purchased some festive decorations, added a metal shelf (free and given an up-do), and of course there are some twinkle nights. Even more glorious than that a friend did the stain work for us - hallelujah and amen to that. It is amazing to think that almost a year ago we were chucking trash over the side of this deck during our furious renovation stage. Almost a year ago painting the deck was the farthest thing from our minds. And I think I've been talking about out door rugs for a year. I have what is called an obsessive personality... 

Chalk Paint Experiment: Patio Cushions

I am sure crafty dare devils have been painting fabric cushions for eons but I just discovered this clever little trick. We were the proud owners of a nasty set of patio cushions. We are ashamed to say that we grossly neglected them. We left them out side all winter (twice). At this point a new set was needed. So I got to researching cheaper, craftier options.

Patio Furnishings

Our patio finally looks finished and complete! We finally did something right. I am amazed at how many people we can seat back there. I am just itching for a party! Almost all our furniture was pre-owned and then re-loved by me. Our pots came from our rehearsal dinner and the end table is war relic. Like always we could do more but we are gonna settle into what we have and enjoy. We are halfway through the summer and we both just wanna flop into our comfy love seat drink wine and stop fretting about it. After all that work we can sit and say "it is good." :) I imagine thats how God felt about humans when he made them - a wonderfully imperfect masterpiece. Enjoy our tour of our masterpiece. Marvel with us at that hand lain patio. All the aches and pains were well worth it.

Newly Stained Patio

We weren't really thinking of staining our deck - mostly I have been sick of painting. I don't know why painting is such a love hate thing for me. I love colors and the idea of making something new with paint but to be honest I am not a very good painter. I am impatient and hasty and sometimes I don't even tape - I just wing it. Needless to say we have some touching up to do all throughout the house. Sorry hub I just wanted it done. 

Laying a patio: Oh boy we're Jimmy Jacked

The last and final step (what step are we on even) is to sweep Quickrete Power-loc Jointing Sand into every crevasse and them use a shaker head (I call the Jimmy Jack) to force all the pavers into a locked positions. Then you wet everything down every 10 minutes for an hour and your patio is as solid as a rock! The only thing left to do was to fill in those edge pieces with halfzies. Because we had an alternating pattern we needed to cut half pieces for every other edge row. We attempted at first to cut these piece with various power tools. It turns out a good ol fashion hammer and wedge did the trick. Hub got so good he could split them with one whack. 

Laying a patio: Laying bricks is the easy part

The beautiful thing about laying your own patio is you get to literally touch every brick that goes into the ground. I think we touched each brick 3 times. From moving the bricks into the trailer, then into a wheel barrow to get from the front yard to the backyard, and then from the wheel barrow to the ground. Gloves were the most vital tool for this job. This is the final post for a 4 part series to get to patio bliss.

Laying a patio: I was not made to dig

             

So far on our patio journey we have purchased pavers see: Laying a Patio: Craigslist Pavers and made a level perimeter see:  Laying a patio: Why do we need a retaining wall?

If you are wondering why is it taking them longer than most...well this is for many reasons and I have come up with the following list of explanations for this endless project.

1. People on pinterest lie about how easy stuff is

2. We have no idea what we are doing so it takes longer to figure out

3. We are working with a very unleveled surface

4. The soil is clay based so hard to move wet or dry

5. We only have time to work on this every other weekend (if that)

6. Our adorable puppy distracts us and we cannot help it 

7. We need to eat every 2 hours so we have to take breaks for that 

8. rain 

Ok so enough with the excuses, here we are in the next phase - Digging and Screeding 

Laying a patio: Why do we need a retaining wall?

The night before we dove into patio laying we had spent 5 hours loading and unloading craigslist bought pavers. See our post Laying a Patio: Craigslist Pavers to see the insanity. We both felt the excitement of getting our pavers and seeing our dream of having a large patio area, we of course wanted to start laying right away. But our patio had to remain in the trailer for a few weeks until we had finished preparing the area. (of course we didn't do this ahead of time, we got ahead of ourselves but that is normal) We had to address the number one issue of having a patio - making it level.

Laying a Patio: Craigslist Pavers

Before

Now that the grass is in we got the backyard "bug" and just want it all done. When we laid the sod we left the right side undone because we planned on eventually laying a patio.  So we spent a few weeks scouring craigslist looking for free or well priced used patio pavers. On a Friday night, we found a guy selling unique pavers. He lived about an hour away but he had 1600 patio pavers plus 400 edge pieces and a good amount of red patio clay called Red Breeze (you use for leveling the ground). We haggled him down a bit, unloaded our utility trailer, borrowed a friends bigger, more powerful truck, grabbed Subway and cash on the way out of town and headed to Denver. 

Sod in 5 hours

Lately a lot of our projects get started on accident and come down to God's funny timing. We had talked about what we'd like our backyard to look like and how someday just someday we'd like flower beds, a patio, a L shaped couch, outdoor rugs with moroccan patterns, and lush green grass that we can walk barefoot in. Our current state of affairs is quite dismal. Our grass was patchy at best and was not grass but weedy, dry crab grass (not ideal for bare feet). The yard was primarily dirt which in spring time translates to mud.  Our back yard isn't large only about 500 square feet but we wanted it that way. When shopping for the burrow we both agreed we did not want to take on a large yard at this time. Hub had lived and owned a home with a yard three times as big and lamented often over the time it took to maintain. He wanted a yard that could be mowed in less than 10 minutes. We time him now when he goes out there. It probably takes more time to get out the mower than to actually mow. As for me, up until now I hadn't been able to keep anything green alive - every plant, herb, flower, and frog died on me. I was a little apprehensive about keeping a while backyard ecosystem alive. But one happy day in April we got a sign that it was time to start the backyard reno.