Saturday's project

Since the time I posted earlier today I have: unloaded the dishwasher, washed a few dishes that did not fit in the dishwasher, cleaned the rest of the kitchen, cleaned up the dining room and living room, tended to my anniversary roses, helped Kaelyn pick up stuff in her bedroom, finished four loads of laundry so far, changed the sheets on the beds, and straightened up the other rooms. So... I decided I could allow myself to get back on the computer.
Every since we moved into the place we're living now, our "outside area" (can't really call the few square feet a yard) had been unfinished. It has bothered me quite a bit so I was VERY, VERY excited with everything that was accomplished Saturday. We hired a few Spanish guys to help out with it. (They all hang out by one of the local churches on weekends waiting for work. People will hire them for the day to do various work. There didn't use to be a shortage of work during the housing boom but now that the real estate "bubble" has burst the economy has really suffered here. A lot of the guys used to work for roofers, landscapers, contractors, etc. and they have been laid off because there just has not been enough work - almost everyone has stopped building.) We have done this for several projects and the guys have always seemed very grateful for the work. They are hard workers and worth what we pay them. Anyway, as I mentioned before, they started reinforcing and building up the bank behind our house. It is constantly eroding and creeping closer and closer to the house so hopefully this will fix it. Rod wired electricity to our shed so that will be nice. Jeff Teed had already been working throughout the week to get a sprinkler system put into our lawn. We had a couple of loads of dirt delivered to level the area out front and some sand was delivered for the walkway. They got all of the stones and the wood laid for the walkway. There is still more to be done but it already looks so much better and I am SO happy with it. Below are some pics. from Saturday.



These posts were put in the water along with boards to hold
the cement and "filler" stones in place. We are going to
"drape" rope and rope lighting along the posts for looks.


This is the dirt being spread to help level out the front. Now
we just have to lay sod pallets.


The sand was used to level the ground for the walkway.


This was all just grass before. We had a row of lights going
up to the house but that was all. This was after they bolted
the wood down and got the sand spread.


spreading the sand


Rod Brown and Jeff Teed hard at work


These were the four Spanish guys laying
the stones.


Now they just have to drill holes in the wood to
put our solar lights in and we will have a lit
walkway.


We were going to put the stones right against
each other but in order to make the path as wide
as our steps, they had to leave a little bit of space.
I think that it turned out looking great!