Yard Reworking

It has been a year and a half since we moved into our house and the only room we did when we moved was E's. New construction is great because it is a blank slate, but that blank slate is also a bit overwhelming. There is a lot of white space that needs some color and decor. We have finally started making our way through some of the projects to make our house more of a home.

This first project was a combination of want to and have to. We get a lot of rain here in FL and that water needs a place to go. There is not a lot of room between houses in our neighborhood and that means that sometimes rain goes where it is not wanted. In our case the rain was cutting through our landscaping, washing it out and then rapidly flowing across our paver driveway. Not really where we wanted it to go.

Step one to fix our issue was installing gutters. Not really what I wanted to do to the house, but they were needed.

Before we really got to work

Next up was fixing the landscaping. This is where the work really started. It was one of those projects that start out with, "since we are doing X, we really should..." Famous last words. By this point, I should know better than to use this phrase, because it never ends well.

Instead of just replacing what the builder had installed and calling it a day, we wanted to make a few changes to make it more our style. By the time we picked our landscaping, we were getting a bit loopy and chose the first one on the list. Needless to say, it ended up not being my favorite. 

First was pulling out all of the small bushes and grassy plants. This wasn't too bad, except that the roots for these guys went all over the place. Then we pulled up all the pine bark mulch. 50 or so trash bags later we had a lot of dirt with a few trees. I was already realizing how much work we were in for.

We picked up the plants, soil and 22 pieces of sod and then headed back home. Note to self, sod makes a giant mess, so picking it up in my new car was not one of my best idea.

The plants went in and the mulch went down. Then came the hard part, where making just a little change, wasn't quiet so little. We had 4 tons of rock to move. The good thing about rock is that it would help with drainage and we liked the look better than the mulch. The bad thing about rock is that it is expensive and that meant that we got to be the labor. Fun times!

Dumps like a truck

The pile was even bigger than it looks

After a day and a half of moving rock, my husband and I were sore and tired, but the project was done and we love it. The changes seem to have helped with the water issues as well. Now, time to work on the inside.

Finished project