All Hands On Deck

I spent Saturday morning putting the second and FINAL coat of paint on the workshop.  I would have taken a picture, but you can't tell the difference.  I wasn't planning that the last coat would be life changing, but I thought it would look a teeny bit different...but no.

So after painting, I started to sweat a bit.  Not literally, I don't drink nearly enough water to sweat.  But I did start to worry about my labor intensive paint job.  You see, we don't have any gutter up yet, so when it rains, the water pours off of the roof and splashed the dirt around the foundation onto the siding.  Now that the painting phase is complete, the last thing I want to do is drag out the hose and the paint brush to keep it looking good after a rain storm.  So some immediate landscaping was in order.

We spent a fair amount of time at the home improvement store trying to figure out what type of edging we were going to do and also what we were going to do about the step off the front of the door of the shed.  The best solution we could come up with and that stayed within our $200 remaining budget, was to use the black plastic landscape edging to do the back and sides and I'll show you what we came up with for the front in a few minutes.

This stuff is no treat to dig in.  It doesn't want to bend in the direction you want, impossible to stake down, maddening to say the least.  A garden hose works well for laying out a basic line for where you want it to go.

We found the best method was to have Brent dig the trench and I followed behind him to clear out the excess dirt.

Once he had a decent size section dug out, we layed it in and pounded a stake in.

15 bags of mulch later....

I love to lay mulch down.  Like, not as much as I love to budget or watch gymnastics, but a close second.  It's super easy and gratifying.

Since I was going to have some extra, I cleaned out some plants that were done for the year along the back of the yard.  Usually I don't cut anything back in the fall - for no reason other than because I am too lazy to do it.  But this year I had a reason to, so I suppose I'll do it.

Then I was done.  Total cost for mulch and edging:  $75

Brent's little afternoon project was a little more impressive.  Plus, it took him only 2 hours.  Showoff.

We had a hard time deciding the best way to do an entry for the front.  Stone, wood, we just couldn't decide.  The materials for this deck only cost us $50.  It's NOT a long term solution.  Cedar decking would have lasted a long time but this is just builder grade lumber.  Plus it is dug right into the dirt so  it is definitely only going to have about a 5 year lifespan before it rots away.  That's fine though, we just needed to do something inexpensive to buy us some time until we figure out a permanent solution.  I'll probably still stain and seal it since we'll have it around for awhile.

Not too shabby for a Sunday.  Not having to stare at a dirt pile anymore...hello...it's been a year since we took down our old shed so the back corner of the yard has been a huge mess for a long time, is a great feeling!