You saw the title and know what that means…another yard
update!
Before we get to that though, if you’re new here feel free
to catch up on our improvement debacle, er, journey (in order of completion):
With that out of the way…
The yard.
The pictures.
The fucking Arizona sun and our extreme lack of ability to
finish this project before summer.
Now, I know a lot of you reside in places where summer
doesn’t come until August, but in the central valley of Phoenix we’ve been
flirting with summer since March this year. Seriously, it was 88 degrees on
March 22. Better known as spring in these parts.
We lucked out for many of those linked posts above (because
the weather seemed to not want to kill us for a minute) and we managed to get
some not too hot weather to rake, till, power wash, move thousands of pounds of
stone, and everything else we’ve done so far.
That was, until the end of May.
As we neared
the end of the redesign. And the end of my effort for this project. However, the gravel and pavers just arrived last weekend.
As usual, pictures will tell the story better than I can.
Especially considering I’m still trying to figure out a way to establish a
permanent residence in my freezer.
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| So, yeah. We started both days getting up at 6, and wrapped work by noon. |
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| Matt started and completed the edging and weedblock over the past few weekends. |
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| It might look small but the patio will come in around 10' x 10'. |
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| A short fifteen minutes up the road to our gravel yard. |
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| The beachiest gravel we can get our hands on in the desert. We placed the order date. They charge day of delivery. Just that easy. |
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| As promised, they backed in at 7:30AM. And, that doesn't look like too much, we got this! |
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| Oh, wait a second. Wasn't I the one saying last night: "No way the pile will take up the WHOLE driveway." Technically I was right but that only counts if we drive a two wheeled vehicle. |
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| First scoop! (of about 350 wheelbarrows full) |
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| I told Matt nobody will believe this is him since he isn't wearing his "work outfit" teeheehee |
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| At least I know how to dress for the part. The long sleeves lasted about 10 minutes, quickly replaced by short sleeves and 50spf. |
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| Piling begins! And then we got to work, neglecting photos in favor of finishing without dying. |
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| Many, many, MANY raked out piles later and we stopped at noon. Side note, basically everything is covered but... |
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| How does it look like we haven't touched this pile yet? Looks like we might need to be creative during Sunday placement. |
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| Starting with this. Gravel was compressed over here by about two inches. Not anymore! |
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| Also, here. We haven't known what this concrete thing is since the day we moved in. So, let's cover it up! |
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| When the Lowes delivery guy showed up with a pallet full of bags of base sand, patio pavers, and polymeric sand we asked if he could get it in the garage. His response? "Sure, Saturday is for off-roading right?" My new BFF. |
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| See ya red gravel mixed with ten years of decomposing leaf goo! |
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| Like that weird concrete circle never even happened. |
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| We filled in all of this too, all the way up the mound in the far distance and to the front door. Buh-bye cracked and destroyed flagstone! I forgot to get after pics and it's dark as I type this so you'll just have to trust it looks killer now. |
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| The last remnants of gravel were swept up and dumped in the front yard. Work completed by 12:00 Sunday afternoon. We promptly came inside and watched a Naked and Afraid marathon for the next 9 hours while we cooled off and recharged. AKA: napped. Yup. Even me. |
Can someone please pass the sunscreen? And a refreshing,
fruity drink? It’s time to finally get in the pool and enjoy all this hard
work.
Just as soon as we lay the pavers next weekend…
In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.
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