Solar Walkway Lights

So, remember our walkway we put in last summer? Well, "summer" is a loose term - we actually started it in late spring last year, and worked on it all the way up until the first snowfall. But we got it completed, and we've been using it for a while now. I love it, and it's so much better than walking through the mud or the grass to get from my car to the door, or vice versa.

This spring, we planted new grass in the dirt around it, leftover from where we dug out the area. It seems to be growing pretty full, and now we're just waiting for it to be a little thicker before we mow it.

Trent was really excited about some new solar lights he recently added to the walkway steps. They were on sale for a good price, and there were 2 in a package. Trent got 4 lights total - you just screw them onto the steps, and they are completely solar powered. No wiring or electrical installation required!

I don't know why Trent was so excited about adding these, but hey, it's the little things! 

They probably weren't totally necessary, but they do add a nice little finishing touch to the walkway, and they look pretty cool at night.

Just for kicks, this is how Saleen feels about the lights...

She could stare at them all day. ;)

And I couldn't resist taking a picture of these two best buds sitting on the porch. They looked too cute sitting there together.

Saleen just turned 13 years old at the beginning of this month, yet she still likes to act like a pup sometimes. She's 13 years young, for sure. :) 

5-Year Housiversary and First Snowfall

Hello all! Today marks five years to the day that we started living in this house together! How time flies. I've been calling it our "Housiversary." And how perfect to mark the occasion, than the first snowfall of the year?

And what a snowfall it was. We've heard it's coming all week, and today on this lovely Saturday, it's here. I thought I would be mad, but instead, it oddly has gotten me into the Christmas sprit. More on that later...

We've had a nice little Saturday around the house today. Trent made strawberry banana pancakes this morning. And we watched Ernest Saves Christmas at breakfast.

I took a jaunt outside to check out the snow.

It seems the trees weren't really ready for all of this!

And neither was Trent. I guess it's not so fun when you have to shovel it all.

I'm not sure how many inches we got, but I think it's somewhere in the 6-10 range.

So I guess I would say winter is finally here in full force. It is kinda pretty, though.

The sad thing is we were ALMOST finished with the walkway. Just about 5 bags short of river rock is all that's left. 5 bags! Which means, we almost made it before the first snowfall...but not quite.

Now it's a little snow covered. Trent has been a trooper this week and has gotten supplies right after work, then worked to lay it all down in the dark when he got home. We knew we wouldn't have much time left to get it finished. But it's almost done, so at least it will be so much nicer this winter not having to tread through as much snow.

Can you believe there are even still leaves on some of the trees?

Oh well.. And back to being in the Christmas spirit now, I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet, and usually I put up the Christmas tree the day after, but.... I put the tree up today. :)

I'll have all the deets tomorrow. Stay tuned!

The Walkway Work Continues

It's been a long time since I've blogged about our DIY walkway out front. We've only been working on it all year. No big deal. Actually, the last update I blogged about was in May, before summer and all the craziness of planning the wedding set in.

But Trent has been working on it still, little by little. It's a long path to create, wrapping around half of the whole house. And we've run out of supplies countless times. (Only so many bricks and bags of paver base and rock can be hauled in the back of a GMC Canyon) Plus, daylight hours are few and far between this time of year when you work full time.

There's always the weekends though, and we've been lucky enough to have some really nice ones this fall. In fact, it's the middle of November, and it's sunny and in the sixties right now! You couldn't ask for better late fall weather like we have today.

It's Saturday and I've been in the house watching episodes of The Wonder Years on Netflix. But I've been sneaking outside every now and then to check out Trent's progress on the walkway and cleaning up the yard.

Here's where we are now...trying to finish before the snow comes!

We just need to pick up more paver base, pavers, and rock. It's getting close to winter, so I'm hoping we can get it all finished. Then at least we'll have something to walk on when it gets messy out there.

The yard is full of leaves at the moment, so Trent's out raking right now.

It seems like forever ago when we started at the very beginning, laying out the path where it would be. It was early spring - March in fact! 8 months later, and we're still not finished. I guess it was a bigger project than we expected!

We have gotten a lot of compliments from neighbors on how good it's looking. Just wish we had more time to work on it.

Here's a panoramic view. I'm not sure how many feet it actually is, but I'd say it's a pretty long way. We might have the best DIY walkway in the neighborhood after it's done. Ha.

Of course, Trent has had a little help...

In the form of a four-legged furry pup.

Here's hoping by next summer, we'll have a nice, grassy yard again, won't have to walk through the mud to get into the house, and the landscaping will look a lot better than it does now...And best of all, be finished. Fingers crossed!

I'm also hoping I'll be able to post a breakdown of all of the supplies we've used and the costs when it's all said and done. It just might take a little while to add up (and find!) all of those receipts! Wish me luck! :)

Flower Garden, Part 2 and Walkway Progress

Hello all, and happy Friday. Back with an update on our two current outdoor projects: my flower garden and the walkway. I'm proud to say the flower garden is now all planted and mulched! See Part 1 here. The next step is waiting and watching our wedding flowers grow. Oh, and the occasional weeding will probably be beneficial, too, and maybe a gate or some netting to keep the pests away. But hopefully the landscape fabric and mulch will cut back on the weeds a little bit.

Are we crazy for growing our own wedding flowers for our reception centerpieces and decor? Maybe, but I guess we'll find out! Ready to see my progress? Here's what the garden looked like after I got all of my seeds and bulbs planted:

It took 3 nights of work, and I was so glad when it was finished. I planted them all myself, too! For the next few days I had to wait to mulch it, since we've gotten quite a bit of rain since then.

Last week I put down around 8-10 bags of mulch, I can't remember exactly how many. That's the light colored mulch you see in the photo below. It faded in color a little from the rain. Wednesday night I put down the remaining bags - about 7 more I think.  So I'd say there's around 17 bags of mulch total on this garden!

There are a few flowers that are starting to sprout up, and a couple of my mini zinnia transplants are still growing. I've made a colored diagram below so you can see all of the holes that were dug and different flowers that were planted:

Here is the list of which flowers coordinate with which color in the diagram:

Pink: Dinnerplate Dahlias

Purple: Lavender Dahlias

Burgundy: Hollyhocks

Red: Ranunculus

White: Alyssum

Kelly Green: State Fair Giant Zinnias

Light Green: State Fair Giant Zinnias and Pink & Purple Zinnias

Blue: Green Envy Zinnias and Pink & Purple Zinnias

Peach: Mini Zinnia transplants and French Vanilla Marigolds

Turquoise: Marigolds and Ox Eye Sunflowers

Yellow: Poppies

Most of these are just annuals, except the Hollyhocks in the back which are perennials. So the hollyhocks will return each year, and the others will die out after the summer. I also have other perennials seed packets, that I'm planning on planting around the sides of the house. I just have to wait for another nice day to plant them! It's been so rainy lately, and I've been trying to get everything ready for the upcoming yard sale and get all of our wedding invitations out. Hoping to plant all the perennials soon, though. I have some Carnations, Baby's Breath, Dusty Miller, Sweet Williams, Achilleas, and Astilbe. Our neighbor also gave us some Cannas, that we're hoping to plant by the garage. So we should have lots of flowers growing around the yard in the near future!

And speaking of flowers around the yard, our Bleeding Hearts have bloomed and are super pretty looking! See for yourself:

The hostas and hydrangeas are all growing along that side of the house, too. And Trent's been out working on the walkway when it's not pouring rain. He's finishing up the steps right now - here's one of the steps complete:

Wednesday night he finished up the second step, so now it's pretty much a straight shot to the driveway. Ya know, just about 30 more feet to go.. Ha. Hopefully we'll get it done sooner rather than later. We picked up some more supplies a couple of nights ago, so we'll see how far that gets us!

I'm looking forward to summer weather, and maybe a little less rain, so we can get more outdoor projects done. We definitely have big plans for the yard!

The Walkway Progress

About a month ago, we started work on the walkway from our front door to the driveway. It's been hard to find the time to work on it, and we're limited on days when the weather is nice, and when we have the supplies. Trent's been working on it off and on the past month, and he's definitely made some good progress so far.

Here's how far we've gotten at this point:

It's about the entire length of the front left side of the house. After this point, there will be steps carved into the hill, then it wraps around to the west side of the house and to the driveway. Once the steps are done, the rest should be pretty smooth sailing, since it's a straight path the rest of the way.

We both really like how it's coming along, and how the colors of the rock, edgers, and paver stones all coordinate together. Trent did a good job of making it all perfectly level too, so it's easy to walk on...and so much better than walking on grass or dirt! 

It will be nice in the winter, too - less slushy and messy when the snow piles up and starts to melt. I think it looks great from the edge of the road, too. 

We're hoping to get most of it completed by the time we have our yard sale, which is in less than a couple of weeks now. Trent was able to get some more supplies that we need, which was good. We'll see when he has time to work on it, though! And of course it's dependent on the weather, too.

Ideally, I'd also like to get the front porch painted. We have the paint and worked on cleaning it all up, but we'll have to wash it down again, make sure the surface is nice and rough, then put the paint down when it's in the 70's and nice, and allow for it to dry at least a day or two.

I can't wait to get that repainted - the chipping has been an eyesore for a while now! But, on the plus side, doesn't the new mulch in my flower beds look nice? :) I only slaved away on that for a couple of hours, and got a sore wrist in the process! The things I do to make the house look good.

Another Nice Spring Week

This past week has been absolute perfect spring weather! It's supposed to rain this afternoon and start getting chillier this week, but for the past several days, it's been nothing but clear skies, light breezes, and lots of greenery all around. 

I cleaned out my car, and we got the oil changed yesterday and ran a few errands in town. Trent's gotten a little further on the walkway, and is going out to work on it some more today. I had to stop him for a quick photo earlier this week. :)

I also snapped a few pics out the living room window, because the trees were blooming and it was starting to look a lot more colorful outside! You can see part of the walkway from here - the part where the steps are going to be. We're thinking about doing them a little simpler than concrete - maybe use some wood and stones. Trent put a few of the bricks we had on hand just to get an idea for now what it might be like. This is where the ground starts to go downhill, so we'll be kind of carving into that slope.

I can't wait to get most of the walkway done so I can put the new mulch down in our flowerbeds and get those cleaned up. We want to make sure it all looks nice for the yard sale in May.

Here's another view from the living room. Pretty blooming trees. :) And see our peonies coming back up in the yard? I love when those bloom..they're always super pretty. 

Well, here's hoping we get another dent in the walk path today. And let's hope the rain is few and far between!

Work in Progress

Just popping in to share what our front yard is looking like as of late:

Yep...it's a work in progress! I think this may take a while...And there are several more feet left to go! Don't enjoy my yard being dug up very much, but the end result will hopefully be worth it! 

More progress to come in the next weeks!

Yard Work Has Begun

It's not quite summer yet, but it's been feeling and looking more and more like spring lately. So I'll take it. Sunday was still a little chilly, in the 50's and windy, but it was sunny for a majority of the day, which allowed for us to start on our first outdoor project this year: The walkway! I'm super excited to start on this and have been wanting to get it done for a while now. It will be a nice paver and rock path from the front door to the driveway. And will definitely beat walking in the dirt (sometimes mud), and through the lawn.

Trent spent a few hours getting started on it Sunday afternoon. First he outlined where the edge of the walkway would be with some stakes and string.

It starts from the front porch and wraps around, along the edge of the landscaping, to the driveway.

The grass has been patchy here for a few years now, since we walk this path everyday on the way to our cars and back. Things aren't looking that green yet either, being March still and all!

The path is about 2 1/2 feet wide in the front, and after it curves around, it's about 3 foot wide. It goes slightly down a slope, so we're planning on carving out some stair steps into the path, too.

 

After he laid out where the path would be, he tilled the ground, which really made it start to take shape. We could definitely start to envision what the new walkway would look like.

Since there's a slope on the side of the house, Trent had to level out the ground at the bottom but leave it tilted just a tad, and leave a slight hill for drainage to run down. We'll probably build some kind of additional retaining wall between the landscaping and the walk path.

Here's where the steps will be:

Trent kind of carved them out with the dirt, but our plan is to build them with rock and concrete forms. The concrete will help to hold them together and keep them sturdy.

It's really hard to capture on camera, but there would be 2 or 3 steps there, depending on how you look at it!

So we've got a start on our first outdoor project of the year. I'm pretty excited for the nice weather and to get lots of things done outside this summer.

And, while Trent was laying out the future walk path, I planted our first flowers for the garden. Since it's best to wait until April or early May (after the final frost) to plant them outside, I thought I would get a start early and plant some in containers inside. Then on nice days like we've been having this week, I'll set them out on the porch to soak up the sunlight.

I used what I already had on hand for containers. So classy, right? Styrofoam cups, filled with soil in cardboard containers. Whatever works!

I just filled all the cups, poked a hole in the bottom of each for drainage, then planted a few seeds in each cup. Then I put a teaspoon of my organic fertilizer in each one.

I didn't have very many containers, or I would have planted as many flowers as I could. But I only had 16, so all I got through was one packet of Mini Zinnias. I don't know really how "mini" these are, so it will be cool to see what they look like when they bloom!

I wish I could have planted the large ones too, but this little packet went quite a ways. The back of the packet says it only takes 5-10 days to germinate, so we could see some seedlings coming up pretty soon! Though they don't bloom for 36-60 days. So technically, we won't see any flowers probably until May or June.

In a month or so we'll transplant them into the garden out back. And plant our other seeds and bulbs. I'd like to get some more containers to start my other flowers inside, too. I'll either have to pick some up or get creative again! We'll see what happens...