backyard landscaping complete

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but I think it looks awesome if I do say so myself. Now I can actually enjoy my backyard without looking at it in disgust and frustration. Check it out here.

sod baby, yeah!

It's amazing what a blanket of the green stuff can do for your yard. Especially when you've gotten used to all brown, all the time. Wow. Sorry, no pics yet. You'll have to wait for the big reveal. :)

tour of homes 2009

The Sunset Heights Neighborhood Improvement Association is hosting the annual Tour of Homes on saturday 3/21. If you're in the area, stop on by and check out some cool old houses. Admission is $15 purchased at any of the homes on the tour, from 12pm to 4pm. All homes on the tour will be serviced by a free trolley and we're hoping to have some folks in period costume from a local group. Below is a sampling of the homes on the tour.

victorian apartment building, ca. 1903

Burges home, ca. 1912

Trost home, ca. 1908

Sunset grocery, ca. 1913

excavation complete

It seemed never ending, but I can finally say my little excavation project in the backyard is done. It's amazing how much dirt can be in a few inches. Some spots only needed to be dug out an inch or two, others nearly a foot. The grading is still rough and I plan to do some final finish leveling with some good starter soil I picked up. There's no way in hell I'm letting this grass die an early death unlike before. The irrigation will be installed tomorrow and day after that my massive dirt piles will get hauled away. Then we're ready for the sod baby!

I don't know, but I think I shoveled the equivalent of two small cars.. this is one of them. :)

screen door fixup

In an effort to make the exterior of the home a little less ghetto, we finally got around to getting a wrought iron guy to replace the screens on the kitchen door and the side door that goes down to the basement. As you can see the kitchen screen door is pretty huge as it encloses the inner door and the transom. Someday I'll get the transom operational again, but for now this will be the setup. My ideal solution here would be to get rid of this screen door alltogether and replace with a period wooden screen door the size of the inner door, leaving the transom exposed. Unfortunately I don't think my dogs would let it live a very long life, so metal it is (at least for now).

Come the warmer months this will be much nicer since we always have to combat flies and mosquitos. A screen door that actually does what it's supposed to will be a plus when you don't want to have to crank the AC. Below is the new steel mesh screen that is far superior durability-wise.

Tada! I still need to repaint them which should be in the next week or two. My main priority is to finish excavating the backyard by wednesday. This backyard is going to look completely different in the next few weeks. I'm psyched!

man 1, concrete 0

I never thought I'd be so excited about a 10x10 ft piece of dirt, but oh man. Does it look beautiful. Ok so this was the last major hurdle with the remnants of the concrete slab I started taking apart last summer. This was maybe 1/3 of it. The other 1/3 is under pavers and the rest is under the unfinished corner of the yard. That's a future project. I'm not sure what used to sit on this slab, but I imagine it was something sizable. The concrete layer was about 4-6 inches thick. A storage shed maybe? Don't think it was a garage as it wasn't adjacent to the alley. Let's take a look at what my yard coughed up.

Ah progress!

man vs concrete

I've been procrastinating for a reason.