digging in the dirt.

It was sunny today. And kind of warm. So after a long winter that was not really much at all winter except for maybe a week and a half of clear cold days I finally got to dig in the dirt a little. And mow the lawn. It was quite wonderful.

patio.

So we had our first really nice weather weekend these last two days and that, well, makes me want to work on stuff outside. So yeah - the bathroom sits, still mostly gutted, waiting for ... I'm not sure what.

But now - like I was out of nowhere completely random about building new stair railings and the subsequent complete painting of my house - I am motivated on something just as ridiculous ... putting in the back patio and then - building a patio cover over it.

I know - I should be doing a lot of other things. The garage overhaul will also for-sure come this summer. But during the month of May I'm now thinking I will spend it finishing the backyard landscaping and, well, putting in a patio and such.

So once I put in the two front sidewalks using a combination of 6x6 and 6x9 cement pavers, I realized it (like most - er, all - of this remodeling business) ain't rocket science and decided at once to use the same pavers for the patio I've been planning for something like four years = since I had the yard tore out, regraded and planted anew. Which is just to say at that time I measured out the 12x20' space that would become the patio and didn't plant any seeds so ... it turned into a 12x20' weed garden. Good times.

But that just say I've had this plan for a while now and it's time to act on it. Building the patio will be easy, if not a bit back-breaking but hopefully all-in-all not terrible. It'll take a truckload (or two) of sand from the landscaping place I pick up my mulch and now stones. And a truckload (or two) of pavers from the Depot (haven't been able to find them anywhere else). Removing a lot of weeds and leveling the whole two-hundred-and-forty square feet before dumping in the sand. Tamping it all down then starting to insert the pavers. One. At. A. Time.

It'll be tons of fun, but it'll look nice (hopefully) when it's done. Then the real fun will start ... building a patio cover.

Luckily - like the space - I've had a plan in mind for years based off this random structure in the middle of a parking lot at a nearby elementary school. Yeah, I have no idea why it's there but the first time I saw it I remember thinking 'that would make a cool patio cover.' And so today I biked over there with my camera to take some detailed photos of how it was put together, then with a tape measure and some graph paper to sketch out all the measurements and dimensions so I could figure out how much lumber I would need.

Yikes - that's a lot of lumber ... must find a place to get cheap - ideally recycled - lumber.

And a couple notes to self -

- run an electrical conduit from the garage to one of the posts and put in a double-gang outlet - for Christmas lights, the charcoal lighter and the iPod dock or something

- build the plans from knockoffwood for the chaise lounges

- incorporate a clothesline on the patio cover
- put in a fruit/vegetable garden in the strip between the patio and the garage

landscaping.

Well this weekend has been pretty busy. Let's see ... Saturday ...

After forgetting I put my wallet in Katie's purse and having to drive to Tacoma and interrupt her girls' lunch at the Harmon to grab it, I then had to haul it all the way back to the awesome Toyota salvage yard in good ol' Buckley to pick up a set of original alloy rims for Stuart. Yeah, I've never been a fan of his 'mudders' as Trevor called them (never knew big, fat obnoxious truck wheels had a name, but there it is), the two back ones had a constant slow leak, the tread on all of them was pretty much past the end of their life and I just wanted to be rid of them. So Stuart got a makeover -

He was excited. Now he feels more like a normal, cool old-school Toyota truck instead of some pimped-out thing.

And this also meant I got to experience (for the first time) the land of the used tire business. Yeah, there was no way I was buying new tires for Stuart (just did that exciting business for Spencer). So off to find a used tire place I went yesterday afternoon. They seem to be everywhere so it must be a thriving industry. Makes sense, I guess.

So anyways, I found one right here in town (umm, no surprise there really) and hit them up for a set of four 175/75R15s (cash only of course) ... of which he had a couple piles out back. After scrounging through them, we gathered four (uhh, one ended up having a gash in it - had to go back and select another from the lot) and whisked them around to get the water out. Good times. Then he mounted and balanced them - dumped them in a tub of water to check for leaks (one had a leak - had to seal it up) and about an hour later I was off to install them myself.

So after probably another hour and having to drag out at least half a dozen tools to get one of the hub caps from the chrome mudders off (including a sawzall armed with a metal blade), Stuart had four new feet and was all happy. So was I.

Oh - and I had also run over with him to the local landscaping yard to pick out half a yard of rock. The plan has been for awhile now to get some and make borders around all my flower beds. Last fall, while waiting for the bulldozer driver to come around - I noticed they sold a lot of crushed rock options of which one in particular I thought would make a nice border.

So I finally hit it up yesterday and had the guy dump in half a yard of rock. Whoa - Stuart's suspension was like 'hurry home and unload this stuff!' Which I did.

So then today it was landscaping time. And for which I thought I was properly dressed -

Complete with Mountain Hardware 3/4 pants and my beloved Tretorn Strålas (no, seriously those boots are awesome for yard work) that I found rummaging through the clearance racks at REI ... I was at it.

Had no idea what I was doing of course, but it couldn't be that hard. Afterall, I've put in an entirely new yard and laid two sidewalks so this should be a piece of cake.

Well, it started off slow as I figured out what to do. First, used my flat shovel to cut away the grass, then a skinny one to peel it out and toss it in Trevor's wheelbarrow (mine was full of the rocks I had got) -

The biggest pain was the edging I discovered I had stashed up high on a shelf in my garage - the stuff was impossible to bend and get into shape (I ran out, so a trip to Mclendon's produced better edging and another box of spikes) but I figured out to jam the spikes through it to get it to stay better -

Then I threw in some strips of the über-weed cloth to hopefully keep weeds from growing up in the rocks -

Then tossed in the rocks, flattened and spread them out by running the shovel across them and ... wallah -

Rock borders. So next then is the bed in the back of the house of which now is a pretty big mess (though thanks Katie for weeding it the other week). I planted some heather last week but it needs an overhaul, along with the rock edge treatment -

Then there is a bed all along the south side of the house, in the front where the trees are, one on the side and another surrounding the back corner. So a lot more landscaping to do this spring/summer. Hopefully to include putting in the back patio (which will be the same cement pavers I used for the two front sidewalks).

Oh and in that second-to-last photo (the one of the front of the house), the screens I built last weekend are up (all the windows now have screens - I used the idea I came up with last fall to build them).

Now just bring on the warm weather so I can open the flippin' windows!

uhh ...

But I took this in the beginning of February ...

For what it's worth, February or not I really enjoyed getting my hands dirty in soil as I went around to all my flower beds and pulled weeds, checking to see what was all coming up. Apparently the daffodils think it is Spring.