Backyard: Before and After

After several weeks of work, a few blistered hands, and quite a few very stiff and sore mornings, Bryan and I are proud to introduce our new stone patio! Yay!!

Although we would love to take all the credit, our neighbor Todd did the design and all of the carpentry, including the awesome built-in bench. Bryan and I participated in the non-creative yet physically demanding jobs: digging trenches to put in the timbers, more digging to level out the ground, and moving 3 truckloads of gravel and all the flagstone into place. The flagstone part was highly satisfying for my puzzler inclination, but highly unsatisfying to the 2 pairs of work gloves I went through, not to mention my poor, poor back. Also, I should acknowledge the fair amount of help we had from our neighbors, and Carson of course, with the truckloads of gravel. (Thank you!!)

Casualties from the project include said work gloves, an elderly wheelbarrow, and four bees that wanted to live in our mulch pile. RIP.

Oh, the mulch! Did I mention the 20 cubic yards of mulch that we laid out? This was actually the worst part of the whole thing. We didn't have the mulch delivered until after the patio, with all its steps and levels, was laid out. This meant a lot of difficulty getting the wheelbarrows of mulch into the backyard beyond the patio. We eventually created a two-wheelbarrow system, which required that we dump the contents of the first wheelbarrow off the patio into the 2nd wheelbarrow... you can see why this took us so long! (If there was an easier way, please don't tell me.)

Here are a few pictures. You may notice that the "after" pictures are a little greener and livelier... this is due almost completely to our work and hardly at all due to the transition into spring. Nature, stop trying to take credit for our work.

BEFORE

AFTER

Here it is!!

steps down into the yard

Path down to the back gate.
You may not notice the sweat and tears mixed in with the mulch, but they're there.


Now for the parties!