Category Archives: backyard

07/13/10

getting estimates

Finally! We’re a bit closer to tackling the two things we plan to spend our $8000 on (well, we did spend part of it already on carpet and a new door, so we have about $7000 left). I mentioned here that we have issues with our yard flooding every time it rains. Water flows from our neighbor’s yard into ours, and doesn’t have anywhere to go. Also, our gutters aren’t very effective in getting the water away from the house. We had to quickly install gutters before we were able to close on the house (we couldn’t get a mortgage otherwise), and we didn’t want to spend any more money or time than necessary because we didn’t technically own the house. All this water pooling is causing one corner of the foundation to sink and also for lots of mosquitoes!

I found out that some landscapers specialize in water problems, so I made a list and called for free estimates. I also found one company that does both water problems and foundational repairs. We should be having someone come out tomorrow (Tuesday) and Wednesday.

I’m really praying that everything combined will not exceed our $7,000 budget. We’ll see what solutions they offer for our water – it might be something we’ll need to try and tackle ourselves if we can’t afford a landscaper.

I was thinking through what I’m going to say to the landscapers about what we’re looking for. I’ll stress the budget, because if we don’t have the money then it’s not going to happen. But I’ll also mention that in the future we might be needing a landscaper to come and help us with the rest of the yard, and if we like their work there’s a good chance we’ll be calling them again. Right now, I am just excited to be moving forward on these projects!

07/3/10

Groupon score!

Yesterday, I found a Groupon for Atlanta that was exactly what I had been looking for! $20 for a one-time lawn maintenance by Trio Lawn Care. According to the site, they’ll mow and edge my grass, trim the bushes, and identify the weeds. I am excited about this, because maybe they can give me some direction as to what to do with our yard. And also it will look nice when it’s done!

I’ll have to take some “before” shots of our yard. I can’t wait to see what it’s “supposed” to look like!

06/6/10

adding to our list

Originally posted at twentysixcats.com

The arrival of summer has shown us a few more issues with our house that we’ll need to take care of. First off, it’s really really hot in here! I have the A/C on, and the thermometer reads that it’s only 78 or 80 inside, but sweat is just pouring off me! I don’t tend to be warm by nature, so I am wondering why.

I have a theory but I’m not sure how accurate it is. Our house is really humid – it’s not vented properly so we have had some issues with humidity even in the winter. I notice it mostly with the windows – mold builds up on the frame, so we have to keep cleaning them with bleach (like, every 6 months… it’s not REALLY bad). Humidity doesn’t really bother us much (heck, we live in Atlanta) but now that it’s summer my guess is that it’s REALLY humid inside. And that is making it feel much hotter than it is. What do you think of my theory? Plausible or totally off-base?

It could also be an issue with our A/C. The inspector told us that it was hooked up wrong, and we would need to get a professional out to take a look at it. Worst case scenario, we need a new unit, but I don’t think that will be necessary right now. I need to get someone out here; I’m just worried about the cost.

The biggest thing that will help with the humidity will be to put in attic vents. Our inspector last year told us that the easiest way to do that will be to get them put in when we reroof the house, which is still a few years away (hopefully!). I know putting a vapor barrier in the crawlspace will help, too – we’ll get that done when we fix the foundation. Any other ideas of bringing down the humidity in the house, short of putting a dehumidifier in every room?

I already mentioned the mosquitoes we’ve been having trouble with. Not sure what to do about that, either. What are the things that make those pesky bugs worse. Standing water? Tall weeds? We need to try and figure that out. It’s worse around our carport, so that’s a place to start.

We have been daydreaming recently about what we want to do with our yard. Those of you privy to my Facebook updates will know that we have some trouble with people walking through our yard since it’s a corner lot. Also, the way our house is situated, our side yard is actually the biggest area and probably where our kids will play. I’d love to have some sort of natural barrier along the sidewalk to keep our kids in and unwanted people out – perhaps some poplar trees?

We’d love to get our yard to a place where we can spend time outdoors. Keeping the bugs to a minimum is key, but also making it a nice place to be will help. We talked today about tilling the whole backyard (there isn’t a blade of grass, only weeds) and planting grass. Someday, someday! There are some things we need to think about first, like how to divert the water from pooling in our yard when it rains. I really know nothing about landscaping so what I have in my head might not even be possible. We’ll see!

Today with the help of some friends we moved a few pieces of furniture downstairs. I am excited! We also moved down our desktop computer to the den, and a few other miscellaneous items. I’m trying to turn a corner of the den into a small office, and the rest of the den will be a playroom. I think it’s going to be a really nice living space when we’re done! I told Paul that I’d like to make the living room upstairs a nice place to have guests and entertain, and the den a place where we can relax and let the kids have fun.

I look forward to working on making the living room look nice decor-wise. Though, I’m about out of money so I better start coming up with inexpensive solutions. :-)

05/20/10

my attempt at landscaping

Originally posted at twentysixcats.com

I have a feeling that our yard looked awesome when the original owner lived in the house. Then she sold it in 2006 and it became a rental property. Thus began the next 4 years of nothing being done to the yard, except the grass being cut.

(Unrelated side note: Shortly after we moved in, a man rang the doorbell. He was with the mortgage company of the previous owner. He said that he was investigating, because apparently the previous owners did not disclose that the property was a rental. I thought that was interesting.)

As the weather has gotten warmer, I have desires and hopes for our yard. I want to make it a nice place to be – right now I spend as little time there as possible. Our yard is more weeds than grass. There is poison ivy and poison oak all along the fence in our backyard. There are lots of mosquitoes flying around – bug spray is essential when working outside. The yard is so unkempt and overgrown, but I have no idea how to start to fix it. I don’t know the first thing about plants. I’d *love* to pay someone to come, work their magic, and then teach me how to maintain it, but I know that would cost money that is better spent elsewhere.

There are some bushes along the house and along the street that were in desperate need of trimming. So today, I bought some hedge clippers and hacked away. I hope in my ignorance I didn’t do TOO much damage! They look much better, but not perfect. There were three bushes along the side of the house that I cut down to the stumps. I am excited because I think it looks a lot better.

I started raking up all the magnolia leaves in our side yard, but quit out of weariness. There are so many! They haven’t been raked up in years. I have visions in my head, but it takes so much work getting there. Hopefully day by day, I’ll be able to tackle things and get all the leaves raked up, bushes trimmed, weeds pulled, and maybe return the yard to its previous landscaped beauty. It doesn’t need to be this summer… I keep telling myself. :-)

When it is winter again and the weeds die down, we’ll tackle the backyard. There is a HUGE pile of sticks that need to be removed, as well as a bunch of junk and trash that the previous residents left. And of course there is the issue of the poison ivy. I think we’ll focus on the front yard this summer and the backyard in the winter.

In other house-related news, we are getting carpet installed in our den/playroom on Monday! I am so excited. I will take pictures and post them when it is installed. :-)

04/7/10

clean-up, part 2 – pictures!

I wrote about how we cleaned up our yard about a month ago here.

Unfortunately, I don’t really have any before pictures, except for this one. This is the front flower bed with the cement in it:
DSC_1123

My dad helped us dig up all the cement, and then we got rid of the pieces that day that we cleaned it all up. Here is the after picture that I took with my cell phone:
Our cement-free front flowerbed!

As you can see, we still need to sift all the stones and tiny pieces of cement. But, it’s getting there!! The day after I took the pictures, it rained and our flower bed becomes a pond when that happens! (As does the rest of our yard.) So… I guess we’ll have to figure out what to do about that before I can plant flowers. There is another flower bed on the other side of the front door that still has cement. Someday I’ll tackle that one. Someday, someday…

I wish I had a before shot of our backyard! But here is the “after” picture:
Our backyard - cleaned up!

The trash was all piled high towards the left. Afterwards, I raked the whole backyard:
Our backyard - raked for the first time in 6 months!

I know, it looks less impressive when you don’t know what it looked like before. :-) Our Bagster bag after we were done:
The Bagster bag with all our junk

We couldn’t pile it higher than the sides of the bag, or we would have put a LOT more stuff inside. :-) It’s good to get rid of everything we did, though! It really made a world of difference in our yard.

03/9/10

clean-up

Originally posted at twentysixcats.com

It’s finally warming up here in Atlanta, it seems! I am so glad! I hope the warm weather is here to stay. I have been itching to get outdoors!

On Saturday, we helped some friends move. Paul switched his work schedule so he’d get Saturday off (and work Sunday instead). I was glad that we were able to both be there, because we were the only ones who showed up to help! One by one, all the other people had things come up and weren’t able to make it. Our friends were totally cool about it though – I would have been freaking out! Paul and Doug loaded the truck with all the furniture, and I put Savannah on my back and helped Christine load the smaller boxes.

Helping friends move

We stopped for pizza after loading, and then our friends decided to call some movers to help unload, especially because they were moving to an apartment on the second floor. So, we got there and watched the movers easily unload the truck in half the time! Paul said he was glad that he didn’t have to unload too because his muscles had about reached their end.

When we got home on Saturday, we found a citation on our door for the trash in our carport and yard. When the previous owners moved out, they left a ton of junk that we didn’t know what to do with, so we piled it up where we could. Then we added our own trash. After 6 months, it had gotten looking bad so I don’t blame them for citing us. They gave us until the 9th (today) to clean it all up.

Since Paul had to work on Sunday, we didn’t get a chance to work on it until yesterday. We bought a thing called a Bagster, which is a big bag like a dumpster (but a bit smaller), and you fill it up with junk/debris, and then call a company and they come take it away. It seemed to be the best way to get rid of the junk financially. Yesterday, we filled that thing and didn’t even get everything in it! Here are some of the things we put it in:

  • Shortly after we bought the house, the wind pulled the storm door in our back door off its hinges and smashed it to the ground. A million pieces of glass went everywhere. I had to pick up all that glass!
  • Our county has a low-flow water law, so we had to replace one of the toilets when we bought the house. The other toilet has been sitting in our backyard since then. I thought about try to give it away on Craigslist, but I’m glad I didn’t try because when we moved it yesterday we discovered that the back had cracked and broken.
  • The previous owners thought it best to cement over the flower bed in the front of the house. And not even nice cement like a sidewalk… but cement mixed with rocks spread unevenly around and looking horrible! Weeds had sprung up regardless. My dad helped pull all the cement up and we threw all those pieces in the Bagster. I hope to mulch it and make it look nice again! (Maybe one day I’ll attempt flowers, but I don’t want to get too carried away!)
  • Miscellaneous trash and debris we found in the backyard, most of it garden related. There were tons of empty plastic bags of potting soil, plastic cups from seeds, and broken plastic plant pots strewn around. Also random things like one piece of a rusty bedframe, cable, a few pieces of chain link, etc.

We worked for 4 hours yesterday. At one point, a friend watched Savannah so we both could focus on the yard. After filling the bagster, I raked the entire backyard. It needed it! It looks 1000 times better. As we were working in the yard, we kept coming up with ideas of things we wanted to do. It’s going to be a lot of work to get it just looking nice (and I’m not talking landscaping!). There are tons of branches and of course all the leaves and pine straw, not to mention pinecones and whatever the pinecone equivalent that comes from a magnolia tree. Oh and the more time I spend in the yard the more I really want to move the shed out of the backyard. :-) It really takes so much room! But I can’t for the life of me figure out how we’d get it out of there without a LOT of work.

We cleared all the stuff that the citation asked us to, and we called and scheduled a pickup of the Bagster. We didn’t get all the junk cleared out, though. Our sunporch is still full of stuff that we need to get rid of – namely, carpet. We aren’t quite sure what to do about that at this point. One option is to try and fit it all on my sister’s truck when she’s visiting next week, and take it to the local dump. I’d really like to get it out of here! Now that the weather is nicer, it would be great to use the sunporch.

I was going to take some pictures but my camera is out of battery. Oh well! I will try to take them tomorrow before the wind blows the leaves back over the ground and it doesn’t look awesome anymore. :-)

02/5/10

when it rains, it floods

Originally posted at twentysixcats.com

We have the pleasure of having a yard that’s lower than our neighbor’s. So, when it rains, all the water goes pouring into our backyard. We need to make some sort of irrigation system that will divert the water to the stream that is back behind the property, because the water is making the ground soft and the foundation weak. But in the meantime, this is what we see every time it rains:

Flooded backyard

It has been raining hard all night and all morning. This picture was taken a few days ago, but that’s pretty much what it looks like now. I am not sure how to go about solving this problem – you would you contact with a problem like this? Landscaper?

By the way, I was thinking about how a year ago we were praying for rain because Atlanta was in a drought. There were watering bans and restrictions, and we weren’t sure if there was going to be enough water for the city! God has a sense of humor because he answered our prayers – and sent us all the rain we’ve been missing over the past few years at once. :-) I sure am getting tired of rain. Especially when it’s cold, but not cold enough for snow. :-(