More Time in the Yard

Yard work kept on through Friday. The vines came down off the fence.

Before (side view):

After (looking straight on):

Then Norm came over to help us remove the holly. It was growing too close to the house and was well on it's way to damaging the eaves.

Saturday I spent several hours stripping one side of the closet door for the office/guest room.

It's not quite done, but it's close. I'm debating whether I want to strip the interior facing side of the door. It's roughly 4 hours worth of labor that I'd rather put towards something else. So I may just sand it to clean up, and repaint. Or I may give in to the guilt and strip the paint anyway.

So far as a day spent stripping paint goes, it was pretty awesome. I had music playing, it was warm and I was well shaded by the giant fig tree.

When I decided to call it day, I still had enough motivation to clean up the front room, which has been a disaster area since starting the office project. Yep, it was a good day.

So, how did you spend your weekend?

Equipment Failure? Change gears!

Being busy with a few other things has kept me away from the blog, but we're still hard at work.

Unfortunately, our sander died. I guess we're just too strong for the awesome plastic parts inside of the sander. Joking aside, I was disappointed to find out that plastic spindles are were holding our sander together.

Of course it broke. Why wouldn't it? It's plastic. I suppose that's probably the case for most sanders, but if you know of a heavy duty, can't-be-stopped sander, I'd love to know who makes it and where I can find it! Suggestions?

Since sanding is the last thing we want to do right now on hold, we're spending this week getting the yard ready for an overhaul. Our friend is coming over Friday to really get into the yard clean up, so today we did some prep-work, dragging the pile of brush to the curb. It was no small feat.

Here's most of it:

A while back (er... two years ago, maybe?) we found some crushed glass and a metal rim just below the grass. This is what we dug out of the ground, in the middle of the yard, barrel and all:

Filled with plenty of this:

Except for the gren t-bar. We added that. But still- wowzers.

"I think I need to get back on the rower."

He went on to say: "Old pants + heavy lifting = blow out."

The partial moon wasn't the only view. There are also these:

3 Years in the Backyard

This summer, we'll be working on the yard, so here is a bit about the backyard.

Spending sometime out there today, it was easy to daydream about how nice it will be when we get the yard cleaned up. Between the day we saw the house and the day we moved in (30 days apart), the yard was allowed to grow, unchecked, and was out of control:

Most of the plants went into compost, but others (like the irises, peonies, mint, onions, etc) were given to friends. I do miss the never ending supply of fresh flowers:

...and the rainbow of potatoes:

When we started digging around the yard, we found lots of weird stuff in the yard, like this barrel. Inside, there was a plastic trash can, filled with (you guessed it) trash. How did burying this barrel with trash make sense to anyone?

To make things manageable, I started tearing out plants. I liked the fresh flowers, but without any beds, or mulch, it was impossible to mow or remove the brambles without removing the flowers. Things have cleaned up quite a bit:

The blackberries haven't quite surrendered. They are making their last stand on this fence:

I'm keeping the lillies- these babies grow to about 7 feet tall. I don't have any good photos of them blooming, but they look good in every stage of growth:

There are a few more plants on the chopping block. Including diseased roses, lillies that don't bloom, a Japanese maple, a butterfly bush, the lilac (which I will sorely miss and may change my mind about) and the plum:

Soon we'll have a blank slate. Looks like we better start getting inspired! Do you have any thoughts about what works great in a yard? Any good lessons learned from your own projects? We'd love to hear about it!

Next Up? Operation Back Yard!

After the dining room wallpaper/paint project, were hoped to move to the yard, building a retaining wall, installing french drains, etc. Unfortunately, the City's sewer plans will interfere with retaining wall construction (that's a long story), so we're going to shift the scope of this phase of the yard project. This phase will include new back patio, concrete removal/repair in driveway & sidewalks. That's still plenty of work!

We're going to remove most of the existing landscaping (including a 3-4 year old lilac, 2 year old ornamental plum, a holly, invasive butterfly bush, diseased but beautiful roses, lillies, tulips, etc, etc. We'll keep the fig, and work towards a clean slate of fescue, with a mulch boarder and two raised beds to garden in. I'm also hoping to add some shrubs in the front with red or purple foliage.

Do you all have any great ideas, or valuable lessons-learned about such projects? Your experience and feedback is invaluable! Please feel free to post a comment or email us NEPdxBungalow (at) gmail.com!

Here's a glimpse at what we've got:

The yard when we moved in, July 2008:

Loved the flowers, but I just couldn't take it anymore:

We prune the fig tree several times a year, but it refuses to be discouraged:

A little work in the yard

Attempted some yard improvement today. The giant lillies have been moved to the small strip of no-man's land, along the side of the house. When these babies reach their 7 foot max height, I'll enjoy seeing and smelling them from the kitchen window. Here's what we had today:

Before:

After:

Didn't even realize that the moss washed away, until I saw these pictures.

Artifacts, left from previous owners:

Why was burying garbage in the yard so popular? Some of this stuff is less than 10 years old.