Backyard Landscaping - Grass Almost There

Looking pretty good, eh?  Looking at the last photo from about six weeks ago, its starting to look like a real lawn; I even mowed for the first time this morning. Even without zooming in, you can see some bare spots and I re-seeded two weeks ago to try to fill those in. When I look closely, I can seem some of those seeds have sprouted but not near as many as I had hoped. I'll probably have to seed and fertilize again in the spring. At least we won't have a mud pit for the summer.

And there's more to my life than this lawn, I promise. Hopefully some of that will show up here soon.

Backyard Landscaping - Growing Grass Still

I don't know what to say other than this blog, as of late, is literally as exciting as watching grass grow.

And it will continue to be that way as it is clear from the photo above that I will need to add some seed in the coming weeks. The grass I planted doesn't grow super well in the heat and its just now cooling off from the summer. I'm hoping the second seeding will fill things in well enough that we can avoid mud for the winter.

Backyard Landscaping - Growing Grass

I know, I know. So many of you have been asking, "Whatever happened to that grass you planted?"
Here's a not-very-good picture taken after the sun had gone down this evening of this little guys getting going. I have no idea why they are popping up in such a patchy manner; I might have to re-seed in the fall before the water is turned off.

Backyard Landscaping - Dirt In and Grass Planted

While I was out of town this past week, my sister and her husband came to help visit and assist my wife with all the running of the house and caring for our son. And while they were at it, they moved the rest of the dirt in. Last night I planted the grass and tonight, when our irrigation water returned, I started watering. Let's hope our recently spotty irrigation water holds up for a week or two so the seed can germinate.

The lighter spot in the lower left is not covered by the sprinkler head very well. Though they claim to spread the water uniformly, that is clearly not the case.  I'll be able to cover it decently with water from another zone.

Backyard Landscaping - Smoothing the Fill Dirt

The dirt is definitely smoother but this photo is deceiving. There's still much more to move in and a lot of smoothing still to go.

Backyard Landscaping - Moving the Fill Dirt

Starting to move the pile of dirt in the drive to hole in the backyard.  Here's how the pile looked as left by the dump trucks. The dirt on the right is fill dirt and the that on the left is nutrient-rich topsoil.

I did a little work on Thursday but the majority of the action was yesterday with the help of my wonderful friend SamHam.

Here's how those piles looked after few hours of labor:

And the backyard:

I count roughly fifty wheelbarrow trips to get to this point but its a little tricky to tell because, as I was using the wheelbarrow, SamHam was carrying five gallon buckets of dirt and filling in some of the gaps I was leaving.  You know, just carrying big buckets of dirt like he did this everyday.

We made a good dent in the pile and I'm sure we'll have more to move. The next step will be smoothing out those piles and compacting them so I can get a good idea how much more of the lighter-colored fill dirt needs to be moved before we start moving in the darker-colored topsoil and plant the grass.

Backyard Landscaping - Bermuda Grass Barrier Installed

Finished last night:

Bermuda grass, the type of grass that pretty much covers our back yard because it does so well in the hot and dry climate we have here, had begun to chip away at the edges of our basketball court before this renovation. The asphalt was thin enough and the gras strong enough that it was actually growing underneath and then breaking through and apart the asphalt.

To help prevent that, I've installed a five-inch plastic barrier around the edge of what we retained of the court. I don't know how effective it will be but it was inexpensive and didn't take much labor to put into place. What you see above is my use of bricks to hold it flush to the asphalt; I'm hoping the sun will help relax the plastic from its rolled-up state into something straighter and I'll be using some tar-ish roofing adhesive/sealant along the top edge to help to stick to the asphalt.

At the two corners I've installed two notched PVC pipes to protect both the asphalt and help provide a stronger connection point for the barrier. Again, the roofing adhesive will be applied liberally to help secure the entire thing.

Again, I don't have high expectations but I wanted to try something to keep the Bermuda at bay.

Backyard Landscaping - Temporary Sprinkler System Install Complete-ish

Two trips to the home improvement store later, the temporary sprinkler system is in place.

Four heads at the corner of the court. The front edge of the asphalt has a plastic barrier I'm going to try using to keep the grass from being able to grow under the court and break it up, as it was doing at the edges of the original court. I'm skeptical of how effective it will be but I figure its worth a little extra cost and effort.

Backyard Landscaping - Beginning Sprinkler System Install

Completed last night and photographed this morning:

The trench on the left side is to support two new sprinkler heads placed at the corners of the court. There will be a parallel trench and sprinklers on the other side as well. The water for both of these will come from an existing line with three heads running along the back fence. Eventually there won't be any grass back there thus my choice to repurpose the line.

Backyard Landscaping - Gravel Removal Complete

I finished this up a few days ago after the sun had gone down and thus had to wait to get the picture.

Next up, hack in a few extra sprinkler heads to kind of get some water in the now removed court. This is going to be temporary as I'm planning to redo the sprinkler system as a whole but that won't be for a while.

Backyard Landscaping - Gravel Removal

Progress from last nights efforts. You can take pictures like this at 9pm in the evening when you live up north. Also, you can stay up later to work as well. I guess that's a bit of a two-edged sword.

Maybe another hour or two and I'll have it all out.

Backyard Landscaping - Basketball Court Asphalt Removal

When we purchased this house, the backyard was mostly a basketball court. Wanting to have more than asphalt to enjoy in the summer, we have been planning on how to improve things. A few weeks ago, that process began.

First, here's a very mediocre picture of what we were starting with.

I was getting some help with the asphalt (and gravel) removal and wanted to estimate how long I thought the job would take so I marked off a small fraction of the court and timed how long it took me to get it done. Verdict, 24 man-hours of labor to removal the full 30' x 40' court.

The help came and over the course of two evenings we got all the asphalt up; they weren't interested in sticking around for the gravel so that's what I've been working on infrequently over the past week or two.

We decided to keep a key-sized piece of the asphalt along with the fancy, very sturdy, and expensive basketball hoop. As I've been removing the several inches gravel that was laid beneath the asphalt I've been piling it in the key for use later in the project. The area on the left that is mostly brown has had the gravel removed (more or less); the area on the right that is gray has yet to be addressed.  I'm guessing is will be another two hours to get it done.

Stay tuned for further pictures of the yard as the project slowly evolves.

Front Yard Landscaping - Mostly Complete

The curbing is installed, the rock is in, and the plants have been planted.  Comparing to what we had last time, here's what things look like now:

We're still working on the lawn, trying to adjust the sprinkler system to water properly.  Its more or less done, though.

Front Yard Landscaping - First weekend

Spring has arrived and we've begun redoing the landscaping in our front yard.  We actually started late last fall with the purchase of a maple tree and now the work continues with the rest of the yard. 

Our first step was to have some custom curbing put in place.  Not only does it look nicer than pavers, but it didn't cost that much more and it took a lot less time.

Before...

... and after:

After removing the layers of barkdust and rock the previous owners had piled on over the years, we started laying down the landscaping fabric.  Consulting the internet reveal WIDELY varying opinions on how to lay it out (some even recommending it shouldn't be used at all).  Given our inexperience, I've decided we'll call this an experiment and see what we think in five or ten years.

More rock will need to be cleared on the right side of the house and the fabric will go down after that. Lots of work still to do.

Chore Board

In an attempt to stay on-top of our regular house-hold duties and the growing pile of house-hold projects, Katie and I recently purchased a corkboard from Office Max. After a week of use, it became apparent it had two problems:

1. It was too small (at 3' x 2')
2. It had hardly any cork.

The second item was the quite upsetting.  The "coarkboard" was mostly cardboard with a thin veneer of cork; hardly a corkboard at all. Looking around for quality alternatives revealed that thick, beefy corkboards were triple-digit expensive and beyond what we were willing to pay. So I began looking for alternatives.

My pre-corkboard plan was to use small tiles of dry-erase board with magnetic backs that we could attach to a metal sheet mounted to the wall.  In looking at the hardware store, I found that steel sheet metal was much more expensive than I anticipated: $30 for a 4' x 2' piece; I would need two to make a board the size I needed.

While hunting at the hardware store, though, I did find an interesting alternative: magnetic paint. Rather than screwing sheet metal onto the wall, I could paint the area; one $20 can gets you a 4' x 4' area. It was a bit of a gamble but I was willing to give it a chance.

Before painting, though, I needed to engage in some surface preparation.  I knew even under best of conditions this was not going to provide as effective a magnetic surface as sheet metal or a refrigerator.  To help any magnet stick, a smooth surface was needed which meant I would be sanding off the texture and smoothing over the rest with drywall compound. So that's what I did.

Once the compound was dry, it was time to paint.  Well, once the paint was mixed, that is.  "Magnetic" is a bit of a misnomer; "metallic" might be better if it wasn't already taken.  The paint is actually a suspension of iron dust in some kind of solvent-y liquid.  The iron dust in my can had thoroughly settled into a coagulated lump.  It was very reminiscent of peanut butter or tahini that had separated, only denser. It took the better part of an hour to mix the iron into the liquid and even then there were still a few lumps.

So, yes, I then painted. The first layer soaked into the drywall compound but the subsequent layers spread more evenly.  I used the entire can, almost a whole quart and put on four or so layers, letting it dry about half an hour between each layer. Not being latex based, all the clean-up was with paint thinner which was messier and smellier.

Since the paint is technically a primer, we decided to cover it with some leftover from the garage. I spread it as thin as possible to avoid further weakening the magnetic effect of the paint, probably using not much more than a cup over the entire section.

The test:

As you can see, it works. Just barely. The adhesion is nothing like sheet metal.  It works fine in our case because the only thing the magnetic tiles have to hold up is itself (more or less).  I doubt this project would have turned out as well if we had been trying to hold papers to the wall but for our purposes, its perfect.  The magnets can be moved and removed easily but stay put when placed.

I don't know if I could recommend the magnetic paint.  The can advertised "3x Stonger!"; the original formulation would not have worked at all for us.  I could have done a better job of mixing which would have helped but at the end of the day, it lives up to advertising in name only. In our case there was no problem but I don't think it would work well in all the situations you might imagine. 

I can say, though, that I'm loving the whiteboard tiles. Much quicker and easier to use than notecards and the corkboard. Write on the tile while its on the wall and move it where it needs to go. My organizational heart has found its rest.

Door Anatomy

You know those cheap doors that you get at Lowe's and Home Depot, the ones that cost around $60?  We replaced two of those in our house and, after letting them sit beside the house all winter, I finally cut them up and put them in the trash. The dissection was revealing, though.

First, the outer frame of the door, shown here on the far left.  It is made of actual wood.  In fact, the only thing that we would recognize as wood is used around the entire frame of the door.  As you can see, its not a very big piece of wood but it is wood.

The photo also highlights the material of the door proper: high-density fiberboard. This is the kind of stuff they use to make board games and books for infants.  As a point of reference, this is wood in the same way that Velveta is cheese.

To keep this wood-product from collapsing on itself another wood product of even lower quality is used as a spacer: corrugated cardboard. Every panel of the door a nice block of cardboard has been glued into place.

The obvious reason this door is so cheap is that there is hardly anything to it. Its an interior hollow-core door of quality commensurate with its price.  A true, solid wood door is easily an order of magnitude more expensive, possibly even two. Its great that we can easily buy good-enough doors for about a McDonald's daily wage. This is a good thing.  But let's not kid ourselves; these are not quality items that will last for decades.  This is a product that marginally accomplishes its goal at the lowest possible price.

And these doors are popular because they are so cheap; we replaced these doors with two more just like them. We only had so much money to use on getting the house in working order and we decided the money was better used on other things.  I hope we don't regret that choice.

New Skylight

For the past few weeks I've been "in-progess" on installing a tubular skylight for the stairwell leading to our basement. There was been no overhead light from the day we bought it which means the stairs were always dark. No longer the case: I give you before and after pictures taken at the same exposure for an apples-to-apples comparison.

Both of these above photos are deceptive; it wasn't that dark before and isn't that heavenly bright now. Such are the limitations of the dynamic range of today's digital cameras. Below is something that is more akin to how my eyes perceive it now.

The installation spanned multiple weeks due an unconventional installation that lead to needing extra parts only available online. These tubular skylights use a dome on the roof to collect sunlight and then channel that light through highly polished and reflective tubes to an opening in the interior ceiling. Due to the stairwell's location, to get the dome on the west side of the roof (where it would get the most sunlight) meant making a very non-direct route for the light to follow from the dome to the ceiling opening.

The hardest part in all of this was determining which extra parts I would need and if the installation would work at all. You couldn't do a test fitting with all the pieces until they arrived and that didn't happen until I knew which parts needed to be ordered. Very chicken and egg. I think if I had all the parts in hand, it wouldn't have taken me more than five hours to complete the project.

This is the second such skylight in our house and we are very happy with them both. When we bought the house there was one in the dining room and we were so happy with it we decided to try this one. I don't know why it took us this long to get around to it but now its done.

I think there's a good chance the hallway will get one as well.

Attic Fan

This past spring, in an attempt to save ourselves some money, hassle, and discomfort, we decided to purchase and install an attic fan. Katie had experience with one growing up and insisted that if we were going to do this it had to be quiet so we ended up on one provided by Airscape. As with my home projects, the install took longer than I thought but once it was in and running we were loving it. Instead of messing with multiple box fans that didn't seem to work very well we open a few windows and flip a switch. The fan pulls in the cool air from outside and shoves the hot air in the house and attic outside.

The fan ceases to be useful, though, when things don't really cool down at night very much. We knew that the fan wouldn't be able to be used all summer but based on historical data on the temperatures here in town, it seemed it would still be worth it the rest of the year. The summer heat has seemed to hit a bit early this year and already the night-time lows are 78'F at our house; there's no sense in exchanging one set of hot air with another so the fan is staying off.

Other than this not so small complication, we have been big fans of the fan. For people who live in places where the night-time lows are more reasonable, I can whole-heartedly endorse the product. Where I grew up, we didn't have air-conditioning and this worked out fine most of the year but a fan like this would have made all the difference and saved my father from same box-fan routine we used to do here.

New bathroom floor

The last home improvement project for the season (if you consider October part of the spring/summer season) was replacing the floor in the front bathroom with, you guessed it, tile. In the process, I managed to break the old toilet and thus turn a $200 project into a $450 project. As you might guess, breaking the toilet was not a high point of the project for me.

Just like tiling the kitchen and dining room, under the carpet I found vinyl on particle-board subfloor. All of it had to come out....

and be replaced with plywood.

Once the new plywood was in, the Ditra was laid on top (shown here prior to mortaring onto the subfloor).

I spent several hours cutting all the tile first which is a bit risky as it is hard to keep the tiles from shifting and the cuts consistent. Once all the tiles were cut, they got mortared in and let set for a day or two.

Grouted.

The new toilet gets installed and everything gets caulked and prettied up.

New Backsplash

Fulfilling a promise to my wife when we redid our kitchen floor, we finally got around to doing the kitchen backsplash. Mainly due to size, the backsplash went a lot faster than the floor. We tore the old tiles out in a few hours (a few weeks before), set the new tiles in four or five hours one day, and grouted in a few hours a week later. Though she had trepidation about her choice of tiles, Katie is very happy with them now that they are installed.

Original, boring small white square tiles:

Fancy new brick tiles, prior to putting in the grout:

Backsplash after grouting:

Completely cleaned up and finished.