Landscaping
I decided to do some landscaping. My yard was looking rather bleh, so I asked Husband to help me get some measurements down and then I sat down to make some budget plans and sketches. We basically had 3 options: cement, wood, or pebbles.
For the surface that we wanted covered, cement would have required about a 400 investment, wood about 1000, and pebbles around the same as cement.
Out of all cement is most durable and since we have a 2 door gate we could have placed the cars inside the fenced area for more protection. But while cement is a good price, I know little about the mixing part (and leveling) so I would have had to hire a couple of people to help me out, shooting up our costs. Dad said we could have purchased a mixing truck with formula - the big mixing truck comes to the house with the cement already mixed and spills it out wherever we need it and then we just spread it and brush it accordingly. The only thing we would have needed to do then was to scrape the ground, set the wooden frame, set in the metal maille, and after the cement was there then we distribute it inside the frame, wait a couple of hours and then brush it (to give those lines on the top to prevent having a slippery surface). That’s not too hard, ‘cept that I don’t know how to level stuff.
Wood is out of our budget for the moment.
So the pebbles was the other option... and I could do it in parts as opposed to having to do everything at once. I took 100 bucks from my savings and drove over to Home Depot to look at the pebbles. I have seen people around the neighborhood using white stone and it looks very pretty so I wanted that. The only other thing I needed were the stepping stones. I bought 10, 50-lb bags of white pebbles and just 5 stepping stones (23 lbs each) to start, oh and that black surface needed to prevent weeds from growing in between the stones. That was 66 dollars and change. ^_^ Took forever to load those bags, though.
Stepping stones, white marble pebbles, and tools
So the bags were unloaded at home then and I began to scrape the ground to take off all the grass and such. It’s tough work! It had rained last week so the ground was not hard and that was an advantage. It wasn’t overly muddy either so I did not feel all gross, which is good too. I started working at around 6:30 pm and finished a 6x10' area in about 45 minutes, then I began setting the black weedstopper and held it down with the stepping stones, which went from my door to the doggie house’s door. ^_^ I can now feed her without getting my shoes dirty! (Yeah, doggie’s been sleeping outside for abotu a week and a half now... right after she tore a hole on my wall. ~_~ ). Set the pebbles and ta-da!
It looked so bleh.
The first area covered
But only ‘cause it’s not done! ^_^ I need to do the rest so that it looks prettier. Husband and I went back to Home Depot to purchase more stepping stones, this time we got 33 (‘cause any more and our car would not have moved) and at around 9:30 pm I started deweeding another area of the yard. Ideally I should get rid of all the grass everywhere first and then set up the stuff, but I get discouraged and bored quickly, so I need to see some sort of result. Seeing how the areas were looking got me into it. I finished close to midnight. If husband would have helped I would have finished deweeding the entire place that night, but he said it was my project, so he just went inside to watch TV.
Sunday I woke up late because I felt tired. At 4 we went to buy another 30 stones and more black stuff and I began to work. Another 3 hrs or so later and I had finished the area where the table and chairs would go. The ground was not leveled properly... ~_~ so my stones looke uneven. But, oh wells. If they are really uncomfortable I may take them off and throw sand on there and then set the stones again. It all depends.
I haven’t finished. Woke up with a heck of body ache today and can barely move. Aerobics, running, or anything else never pained me as much as this. No wonder manual laborers are so fit. I won’t touch the yard again until the weekend. :p hehe I’m so lazy.
2 Comments:
Hey. Thanks for your comment. Replied to it thus -
Thanks Kitty. This was supposed to bring out the irony in someone actually going through the pains of collecting so much history. Your link further pushes the point that somone out there has too much time on their hands to -
1) make a theory
2) refute it
3) go on debating and on and on
Hope your landscaping is going well...
hehehehe
It's going alright. ^_^ I will post more pics when I finish the next part. My muscles don't hurt anymore so I will be buying more bags of rocks tomorrow. ^_^
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