It’s been quite a while since my last post- sorry guys! But no one ever said remodeling a house was easy! We’ve been so busy that I’m not even sure whether I’m coming or going lately. Although I’m mostly going. Going to work on that big house, that is. And the projects are just piling up! It seems like we are just in the middle of everything. The bathroom is half finished, the bedroom is waiting to be painted, and the downstairs is semi cleaned and liveable (if you forget about the lack of furniture!). This past weekend we really did make HUGE progess on the backyard, though! Things went very, very smoothly with all the help we had! I can’t say enough how lucky we are to have the family and friends (aw, who am I kidding?! They’re family, too!) that we have.

The landscaping project started back up again on Friday afternoon. Raul’s uncle Francisco was back and so was his step-dad Beto. His sister Ivette and little brother Pavel pitched in, too. While I finished off my afternoon at work, Raul and Francisco went to purchase two tons of rock for our landscaping plans. One ton was just a coarse gravel that would form the base of of our firepit area. The second ton was a load of river rock that we would place under the two enormous pine trees. Although the pine trees provide a lot of shade, they prevent grass from growing and also shed a TON of needles. We decided a large rock would be best under the trees for easy yard maintenance.

I picked up Ivette on the way and Beto and Pavel joined the group at the house. Here’s what we started with.

The first step was to create a circle with heavy duty edging that would establish the perimeter of our entertainment/firepit area. Creating an even circle with no measuring device was a lot of fun! 😉 We got it figured it out though eventually using a long piece of string and a few mathematics principles that I had all but forgotten from high school! 🙂 Once the edging was staked into place, a layer of black cloth was added to prevent any plants from growing into our gravel area.

This stuff comes in rolls and in order to get it to fit into a circular shape we utilized little metal stakes…and a few boxcutting knives. After the black mat was secured, the real fun started. Shoveling a (literal) ton of gravel into the biggest POS wheelbarrow ever (flat tire, anyone?) was about all the exercise that I could bear for the day. Raul, Ivette, and I took turns hauling the gravel from around the side of the garage and dumping it into the circle so that Francisco and Beto could rake and level it. About halfway through we remembered that we had forgotten to dig the hole for the firepit. But better late than never! We quickly utilized our geometry skills again and dug a hole for the firepit to sit into. I still need to go check out some landscaping blocks to build up the sides of the pit but we made sure that a few sticks could burn okay in the hole in the ground. 😉

Soon enough (well, not really soon enough!), the circle was filled and my new bangs were sticking to my forehead from so much exertion. But we were all set to go so that we could really make the most out of all the help we would have on Saturday.

Saturday brought cool weather (Thank God!) and an early start for some of us. Francisco and Raul headed off to get a few more materials and I bribed my sister’s boyfriend out of bed with McDonald’s for breakfasat. Corey and I started by hauling away a huge pile of concrete that I had broken up and set to the side a few weeks ago. One of the previous owners or tenants had poured concrete all over the roots of the pine trees which didn’t maintain any sort of shape for long and was crumbling into huge and heavy pieces when I bought the house.  Although you can see the pile of rock stacked against the garage in one of pictures above, the photo really doesn’t do it justice. Between the two of us we probably hauled 10 wheelbarrows full of this stuff to the driveway so that I could load it (at a later date) to be dumped somewhere else. We managed to rake out the area in front of the garage and have it all prepped for mulch before Raul and Francisco returned.

They got back in the nick of time as Raul’s mom, stepdad, and brother as well as my own dad had just shown up! Beto got right to work assembling the most important of our new purchases- a brand spankin’ new wheelbarrow!

We tested out our new toy for stability. Check!

Soon, it was back to work, though. The first step was to carve out the shape that we wanted the river rock to take on and place edging to mark the boundries. Then we had to rake out all the dirt and fill in other places in order to get a good slope so that the rain water would run away from the house. Although more shoveling and digging sucked, we did find a bonus. There were several nice, big stones that we unearthed that we recycled to use as stepping stones leading into the garage entry door. Score! We are sooo fortunate in that we have been able to reuse and recycle so many items that were left at the house. I am glad that I negotiated to buy the house as-is 😉 We probably have discovered more than $1000 worth of useable treasures.

After the dirt was spread and leveled we began laying down more of the black liner along the west side of our backyard, under the two pine trees.

While a few worked hard at securing the liner, others started transferring another ton of river rock to the backyard. I am sooo glad that our friends Phil and Sarah and their little family showed up at just the right time! Having two more able bodied workers was a giant help.

With four shovels and two wheelbarrows, moving the rock wasn’t nearly as bad as shoveling the gravel had been the night before.

Oh yeah! And look at all those concrete pieces that Corey and I moved in the pic above! No wonder my biceps are hurting today!

Check out this (not so great) picture of the river rock under the trees.

While the transfer of the river rock was under way Raul’s mom, my mom, and I all stepped away for a little bit to start preparing lunch. The best part about having a large group of people working on the weekend is the delicious meal that Margarita prepares! Beans, rice, carnitas, and Nelson’s chicken tacos with salsa and guacamole and some great lemonade made by my own mom. YUM!!!

By the time lunch was prepared, the guys had moved on to the last part of the project; creating a bench out of some old landscaping timbers (I told you we’re big fans of reusing and recycling!)

Lunch was a great time to relax for a bit and chat with all the people who had come to visit and help us.

But little Maliah wins the award for cutest visitor by far!!! She got to take the nap that the rest of us wanted!

After lunch my dad and Raul made a quick trip to Felger’s Peat Moss for some mulch to fill in the pathway from the steps to garage and also along the exterior garage wall. I can’t believe I forgot to take a picture of the finished project but I guess after 10 hours of landscaping my brain (and body) were fried. My mom snapped a quick photo to tie you guys over to my next landscaping update!

I can’t say thank you enough to EVERYONE that helped out this weekend!! What we accomplished together was incredible…and fun! I appreciate and love you all so much!!!!