Back Patio Furniture

I gave up waiting for the outdoor dust cover and we went ahead and installed the seats on the patio furniture. I am really looking forward to eating many of our meals outside now.

I definitely need to make matching placemats. :)

Nursery Adventure

Today started out with snow, but it didn't stick. And, surprisingly, by the afternoon the day had turned sunny.  So, we finally made a long anticipated visit to One Green World in Portland. Primarily, we wanted to purchase kiwi vines to plant on our pergola.

We also picked up six different blueberry plants and one asparagus.

We got a variety. I'm going to list them here, mostly so we retain a list. LOL

Anna Female Hardy Kiwi
Ken's Red Hardy Kiwi
Male Hardy Kiwi

Purple Passion Asparagus

Aurora Blueberry Bush (late ripener)
Bluecrop Blueberry (mid-season ripener)
Chandler Blueberry (mid-season ripener)
Duke Blueberry (early ripener)
Earliblue Blueberry (early ripener)
Spartan Blueberry (early ripener)

After these plants start producing, we'll try and report back on how they do.

Removed Another Tree

Aaron, with some help from Jeff, removed one of the maple trees that was next to the building at the property line last week. There were two maple trees really close together, and Jeff decided he wanted to take one of them out. He thinks the remaining smaller tree will fill in.

We're going to get some blueberry shrubs. We're trying to decide if we have enough sun for fruit trees. And we're trying to decide what to plant on the pergola. I really wanted to plant grapes, but they're poisonous for dogs, so it's not going to happen. We're also considering kiwis, but I'm not sure if we'll eat them. We might try a thornless blackberry.

Now this looks really fun! We're thinking about trying to build some sort of temporary trellis to lean against the pergola so we could train the squash plant up to the top of the pergola.

Here is a bit of a progression of the yard this year. We have more stuff we plan to do in the backyard, but we're happy with the work we got done this year.

Backyard Hardscape Finished

The backyard is finished, for now. We still plan to put in a chicken coop, but that will wait until fall/winter when our contractor friends have a slow period.

Here is the overhead view (from my sewing room). The mass of plants on the lower right is the rain garden we put in about four years ago. The few plants we originally put in have really thrived (the thimbleberry too much so).

And from the back stairs.

Honestly, had we planned in advance better, the brick path would have extended all the way to the patio and the urbanite path would have come off the side, but we were pretty much winging it for most of this process. Oh well. Maybe next year we'll change it, but Jeff has had enough of this project for now. We'll hang onto the spare bricks.

I spent the day sifting the last of the tile to get it out of the house. I'm trying to guess which pieces are worth selling, and I'll put them up on craigslist for the rest of the summer. The rest, I'm just going to put a free ad up on craigslist. I think whatever is left by this winter, I'll just give that away too.

Pavers Installed!

Jeff and Aaron worked the last two days installing the pavers in our back patio. Yesterday they worked at putting in the rest of the gravel and then spreading the sand. Later in the afternoon, our block had a block party. I didn't think to bring my camera and take pictures, but there was a great turnout. I'm not sure I've seen that many neighbors outside at once. The weather was gorgeous.

Today, they resumed where they left off. They spread out the sand fairly evenly then tamped it.

At the beginning, Jeff carefully laid out each paver and carefully set it.

Then somewhere along the line, they decided to just fill up the whole patio space and then work on spacing, sloping and setting the pavers. There was about a 2" gap along the edge using the pavers as is, so they decided to just add a piece of wood to fill the gap so we wouldn't have to spend a lot of time cutting them.

Jeff sloped the floor down to the edges, so water will hopefully flow off the patio when it rains. About an hour of fussing later, they started filling the gaps with sand to permanently set the pavers.

The bricks look a little grey right now because they're wet. They sprayed it all down to help settle the sand into the gaps between the pavers. They're also still a little dirty. We'll try and clean them more tomorrow.

Clearing Mint

Aaron and Jeff and have been working hard at clearing out the lower portion of our backyard. In the years since we got rid of the chickens the mint had quite taken over.

I hadn't quite realized how much the chickens helped in keeping invasive species like this down. I used to moan about the mud back there in winter, now I can moan about all the out-of-control weeds. LOL

Anyway, a few weeks ago the guys started slowly digging out the mint plants (including the roots). Aaron did most of this work while Jeff and I were sick, but the last couple days Jeff joined the effort. Jeff also trimmed the overgrown bushes along the fence.

Today, the guys started digging out the footings for the chicken coop and clearing the slope to install the steps. Here is how it looks now.

Supervisor Shasta carefully inspected the ditch.

The plan is to go buy the wood tomorrow for the steps and get those in before finishing the patio. Once the pergola floor is finished, we're planning to start work on the chicken coop. I've missed having chickens and I hope we'll be able to get them again next spring.

Backyard Project Plans

We have gotten almost nothing done the last month. Jeff went off to Texas for a long weekend of WW2 reenactment and brought home a cold-from-hell. This stupid cold just won't go away.

We're finally getting better though, so we're hoping to return to productivity. We have two backyard projects we're hoping to finish in the next month, if the weather cooperates. The first is to install safer steps on the back slope; something along these lines. (I'd link the article for the project, but it's no longer there.)

We bought some used pavers off of craigslist for the floor of the back patio. We were originally planning to use salvaged bricks and concrete chunks, but this was just too good a deal to pass up. Since their size is uniform, it will certainly be faster to lay them down. Aaron picked them up in very rainy weather, so they're muddy in this photo.

This is what the bricks looked like in the craigslist ad

I'm juggling so many small projects, I can hardly keep track. I'm hoping to finish lacquering the woodwork in the bathroom this weekend. Barrett (the tile guy) has been flaky as usual this week, but he does seem to be eventually showing up. Late is better than never. I'll post progress photos when he's done for the day tonight.

Backyard Progress

We've really enjoyed this great weather. Jeff and his friend Aaron have continued to work on the yard, cleaning it up. It's been a really long time since we could drive down our driveway all the way to the garage.

Yard Clean Up Progress

Our yard has been an embarrassing mess for years. When we bought this house, the dirt was so full of plants and flowers, we had a hard time figuring out where to plant some irises a friend gave us. But the prolonged house remodeling/re-siding/painting and garage demo and construction, pretty much wiped many of the plants out. And the projects tended to leave behind piles of construction debris. The chickens didn't help either.

Well, this year on sunny days, Jeff, and his friend Aaron, are tackling our yard projects again.

After the guys dug down a few more inches under the pergola, they dumped in a large gravel/dirt pile that our garage rebuild contractor left in our driveway. We still need to purchase good gravel to put over this to finish the underlayment for the floor.

They hauled over all the piles of salvaged brick from the front and side of the house. We're planning to use these in the floor of the pergola.

The chicken tractor is gone and the stacks of wood we had in our driveway have been deposited in the back of the yard. We're hoping to use as much of this wood in the chicken coop construction as we can.

The chicken tractor has been given to Aaron's friend

The rabbit hutch has been pressure washed and listed on craigslist.

The bamboo root balls were too heavy to dispose of in the yard waste bin. Jeff actually had to pressure wash them to get the dirt out. It made a huge mess (including our neighbor's car -- oops). Once we get some thick black plastic, we are going to lay it down in this hole and then refill it with dirt dug out of the pergola floor. Ultimately, Jeff is planning to keep the compost bins in this area, at least for now while we continue to battle bamboo shoots.

Jeff was pretty filthy and exhausted after working in the yard all day yesterday, but I'm grateful he did it. It's starting to look much better back there.

More Projects

Jeff has been working on digging out the floor of the pergola when the weather is cool enough.

I've finished staining the door for the sewing room. Once it finishes drying I'll start putting on the shellac.

I painted the basement bathroom again, but when I removed the masking tape I discovered one of the rolls of blue tape I used was not a good roll; it didn't have good adhesion. There was some bleed through on the woodwork so I'm going to have to do a little bit of paint clean up, which really sucks. It's not my highest priority right now.

I'm hoping now Jeff will hire his friend and they'll install the cabinet and marmoleum flooring. I still need to stain some shoe molding for both the basement and sewing room.

If we want to install the sink and faucet in this bathroom, we will have to cut a temporary plywood top for the sink cabinet because I'm planning to have the soapstone cut for it when we have the soapstone cut for the master bathroom remodel. It won't be pretty, but at least we'll have another operational bathroom during the remodel of the master bathroom.

Fence Staining Started

I applied the first coat of stain on the fence, but I still have a lot of detail work still to do on the diamonds. Wow, this sucks. I can't help repeating in my head how much easier this would have been if I stained the wood BEFORE we built the fence, as originally planned. I let that beautiful new cedar wood and rain distract from the plan. Doh.

Jeff also went over the pergola with the stain again and touched up light spots, so that is basically done now. :) Once we clear away some of the overgrown bushes, we'll take better photos.

Pergola Stained

Jeff got the first coat done today! As a reminder, we are using opaque white stain, not paint.

We should cut back that bush that is blocking the view, but it's covered with tasty berries. Once berry season is over, we'll chop it back severely and take some better photos.

I went out to start staining the fence, but I noticed the top board was still black from being under the black walnut tree, so I ended up scrubbing it down instead. Hopefully it will be dry enough tomorrow to start staining.

Pressure Washing Exterior Woodwork

Now that we've finished the sewing room, our next project is to finish staining the pergola and side fence. I regret not staining the wood for the fence before we built it, but the wood was just so pretty, it was tough to put an opaque white stain on it. Then, when we installed the pergola, it started raining while we were staining and we didn't get everything done — it's finally time.

Today, Jeff is working on pressure washing them so they're nice and clean before we start staining. Thanks Jeff!

Yeah, the yard got a little overgrown once we got rid of the chickens. We really didn't realize how much of the vegetation they prevented. Hopefully we'll get the yard cleaned up too. It's gotten pretty overgrown during the two years of neglect.

Ultimately, we plan to finish the floor of the pergola with a mix of urbanite (concrete chunks) and leftover salvaged bricks. Something like this. Maybe not that fancy. LOL

Pergola Assembled

Jeff paid his friend Eric to come help him finish assembling the pergola last month. Sadly, we did not get it finished this past summer and the wood just sat outside getting dirty. Oh well. Once the weather improves, we'll pressure wash it all down and finish staining it. Hopefully this spring we'll find the motivation to do it.

Jeff and Eric cut out the brackets until they got to the curves and then they needed to find help to get them finished. Jeff hired that last cut out on each bracket. Those were cut to the same specs as the house, which I think is pretty neat.

Pergola Progress

We started off the day scrambling to get the boards for the pergola stained. The weather was clear and we got quite a lot of them done. It did seem a tragedy to stain those beautiful clear cedar boards with opaque white stain, but ultimately I decided the stain would look better in a few years than the natural cedar. I didn't believe grayed-cedar would look good with the rest of the house color palette. And, besides, we had the white stain leftover from our fence project shortly after we moved in.

And, as usual for Oregon, our clear weather forecast delivered some sprinkles so we had quite the scramble to get the boards under cover.

The guys continued to assemble the pergola throughout the day.

We didn't get the big posts stained because of yesterday's rain so we'll have to get them finished on the next warm day. The pergola still needs the wood braces and the top layer of 2x2s. We're actually trying to find someone to make the braces for us as we don't have the proper tools to make them ourselves.

We also plan to paint a second coat of stain on the entire structure once it's finished. It got a fair amount of smudges and scratches in the assembly today. Plus, the coverage with the first coat of stain was not totally consistent throughout.

I'm lovin' the end detail. Thanks Jeff!!

Pergola Started!

At long last, we have finally started the pergola for real. We had hoped to start sooner, but our weather lately has NOT cooperated. Yesterday was the first sunny day in a while.

The guys got the posts set in cement yesterday and installed the edge board on the garage (for stability).

We had planned to stain everything today, but the weather was again not agreeable; I didn't want to risk the wood getting rained on. So, instead Jeff worked on adding the end detail to the boards. The original design was for the notch to be on a straight end, but Jeff thought it would look better with a slight angle because the rafters on the house, where we're copying the design from, are installed at an angle.

We're hoping for better weather tomorrow so we can work on the staining.

As a reminder, this is the goal. Though, our plan calls to eventually finish the "floor" of the pergola with salvaged concrete and bricks.