One of the problem with Bell’s Palsey is that I cannot blink well. Especially with my IT Profession, I pretty much sit in front of computer whole day, which results in Dry Eye… I found myself, being computer addicts, even at home I ended up sitting in front of computer screen, and never give a chance for my eyes to rest. Thus, yard work…
I figured if I’m out, and rolling in a dirt, I won’t have chance or urge to get back on my computer. Weather was good, my finger is almost healed and need some workout, and there’s a project I want to tackle.
Next to our driveway, there’s a small section of lawn where its always be a pain to mow, and also with not so well maintained flowers, vines, and a some weeds under shaded area, I always wanted to do something with it… After short thinking, and a sudden light bulb flash in my head, I decided to replace lawn and flower bed with some river rock, and place a nice wooden swing. I’ll put plants in some big planters.
Step One. Clear the area…
Most work involved, and with least fun… I need to remove flowers and plants and replant elsewhere or to planters.
wait… Roll back…
Step One: Find a place to replant the removed plants…
This often happens to me because I don’t plan ahead that well.. often sudden idea and jump to a project, ended up a huge job…
I didn’t want to spend too much money into this, so I decided to make a flowerbed using firewoods.
process is very simple. Mark the area, clean the area by remove lawn, weeds or anything in the area, and then dig a trench around the border to put firewoods. However, under hot sun in the humid air, it took me pretty much a whole day creating this new flowerbed at the corner of our backyard.
Then, I moved some lilies to the new flowerbed.
Step 2: Clear the area…
I removed all the vines (which was on the decorative wall and garage wall as well as on the light post in the picture), and then need transplant the Myoga (Japanese Herb), and remove the grass/soil around the area.
The temporally location for the Myoga is my Wheelbarrow.
and here’s the turf removed from the area, roughly 40 square feet.
Step 3: Pace Paver so that I can drive over with my riding mower.
As you can see, the weather did not work out for me… in middle of laying grave/sand it start raining… and by the time laying the paver, sand was all wet and did not help leveling them… but… oh well, it’s just a small path, and can’t tell from the distance… so it’s okay… I guess…
Step 4: Prep the swing!
We found this swing on Craig’s List for very good price. Needed a couple bolts/nuts/washers, and some sanding and staining, but over all, it’s in good condition. It turned out a great little project while I was rained in and could not work outside.
Step 5: River Rocks…
This was a back braking job. 1 cubic yard of river rocks weighs roughly 2 tons! They were delivered to our drive way, and even though I just needed to move them 3-4 feet and spread them, took me a couple hours, and soar body… not just my back, but arms, shoulders and fingers!
Step 6: Finishing Touch
We decided to round the edge of the lawn so that its a bit easier to mow. of course, we don’t have a tool to cut the concrete paver, we decided to make our own paver using concrete mix.
I put down a sheet of paper so that in case we need to redo the area, the self made paver will come out easily (I hope…) It was very simple. Mix concrete, pour, and flatten, and we put some decorative rounded glass as an accent.
Step 7: Sit back and enjoy
For less than $200 in cost for all the material, it turned out very nice. I’m planning on planting some kind of trailing plats on the light post, but something it’s not as invasive as the Ivy we originally had. also I may need to adjust the foot of the swing to be a little more stable, but for now, it’s all looking good!
