We threw seed down around April 18 or so and have been patiently waiting for it to take root. It has grown quite nicely so far! Every so often we throw more seed out to help fill in the sparse areas. Can’t wait for it to be lush and beautiful 🙂
That tree from my previous post a few weeks back is finally gone! It only took them a few hours to chop it down and remove it, but, boy did it make a huge difference in our yard! The change is miraculous; almost like we have a whole new backyard! Now, we just have to finish getting the grass to grow and it will be amazing back there. A whole new yard that is usable where Diesel can run and play. 🙂 It is so much more open and just lighter. You don’t get a sense of impending doom from the tree randomly falling and can actually see the sun. Pretty much the best thing yet! Plus look at all our gorgeous trees in our backyard – we have at least 4 Dogwood trees (state tree of MO) and several others PLUS the massive Oak tree. Nearly everyone in the neighborhood has a massive tree in their backyard and front yard. It’s what makes this neighborhood feel so awesome.
-EP
There was a very sketchy tree in our neighbor’s backyard that hung dangerously over our yard. One branch in particular was quite large and was parallel to the ground!! The tree makes me nervous, especially with high wind or heavy rain, for fear it might fall. If it fell it would take up our whole yard! Heaven forbid if Diesel was out there…
Long story short our neighbor has to remove the tree. I’ve been waiting for this day for about 2 months! They started bright and early at about 730 am this morning to try to beat the rain. Apparently U City has a noise ordinance until 9 am. Our wonderful neighbor on the other side came out in her nightgown and gave the workers a good talkin to. They apologized profously and took a break til 9.
The tree is quickly coming down and I can’t wait til it’s GONE. So stoked.
We have probably 10 trees or so in our back yard. The weather is warming up and the flowers are blooming. Our backyard is coming alive and looking beautiful!
After we had all the rain in January that was of epic proportions we decided to work on regrading the back yard to make it slope away from the house. We wanted to put in a better drainage system as well so that water didn’t just pool around the house anymore. So far it has worked as we have had a solid amount of rain the last day or so and no standing water! Initially we borrowed the tiller from my uncle to help break up the dirt and grass. Then around St. Patrick’s Day we rented a little Dingo that helps push the dirt around faster. Before we could really move the dirt around Kevin had to break up the concrete walkway/old patio that was outside the deck. It looks like originally they had one patio that sunk. So their great idea was just to put another patio on top. Then they chose to put a flagstone patio on top of that! We had to get all of that out so water had somewhere to go. You can see in a few pictures just how thick that concrete was. He worked so hard to get that out; very proud of him! I helped dig up the old crumbly falling apart tubes that were supposed to drain water from the downspouts out to the back of the yard. They were so old and not properly done that several of them had holes in them and had warped over time so they didn’t even lay flat. This meant there was nasty old rainwater left in them. GROSS! I also helped dig up some of the ivy roots, random bulbs, and get rid of some of the extra greenery that clogs up the tiller since the concrete work is a little over my muscle load 😉 I have to pitch in somehow though! It’s my yard too…can’t let him do everything!
Currently we have a huge mud pit back yard that we are (and by we I mean Kevin mostly!) moving dirt around to help grade it more evenly away from the house. This will take a while and we can only do little by little, but, we will get there! Progress is progress! Can’t wait to have a real nice yard again with pretty grass so Diesel can run and play. Maybe one day we can get him a sibling to tumble with out there too!
I realize that today is March 30 and my update is already outdated, but, so be it! It’s so close to being done on the first side I figure I’ll update with the current pictures I have and then update it when side 1 is completed fully (just painting the hallway from the first floor). We finished sealing the floors with the 1-coat epoxy (we did several layers; you can do as many layers as you want). Like the reviews have said it can scuff somewhat easily, but, so far we haven’t had any issues. Some people said they went over the top with an epoxy sealer coat, though we did not. We haven’t had any issues. It has stormed heavily today and there is no water damage in the basement. This paint is probably better used in low traffic areas (like our basement since it is primarily storage). I digress. Moving on, we also put Drylok on the bare spots on the wall and then painted it with regular latex paint to make it nice and pretty. Everything looks so fresh! It is looking like a basement again with everything put back in it’s place. So nice to have laundry again since we didn’t have any for 2 weeks while we were coating the floor and painting the walls. 😦 We got the stairs put back together finally; so no more 2 foot drop when you go downstairs and the wall put back up!
Before and Afters: (as of 3/20)
Progress pictures: (as of 3/20)
Oh the basement. You seemed so large and nice at first. And you were, you really were. We had a decent laundry area and a nice storage area on one half with a big workshop area on the other half. When all those rains came it leaked a little into the basement and we realized just how blah the basement was. We have done a lot of concrete work since to repair cracks and areas that needed reinforcement. This helped slope the concrete to the center drain. Initially we are doing 2/3 while we store things on the other 1/3 (where the workshop is and cold rooms are) and then we will finish it out. We are currently in the process of sealing the floor and then are about to start painting the walls. Kevin just has to finish putting some Drylok on the walls to seal in some areas that need it and then we are going to freshen everything up and put a new coat of paint down there. The paint is a light blue gray that will tie nicely to the slate floor and upstairs paint color scheme. The concrete took 30 days at a minimum to cure before we could start the sealer paint. So far we have done 3 coats over the whole basement of the colored paint and touched up in a few areas. It looks so much better and I can’t wait to paint!
We started this project in late January with the concrete work and by the end of February/early March were able to do the sealer. This project is no joke!
The backyard of this house is quite deep and backs up to about 6 feet of no man’s land and then has an auto-body shop of some sort behind that. However, the sides aren’t quite as spacious and the yard is quite narrow. There is a privacy fence that badly needs replaced as it is in pretty awful shape. Our neighbors are relatively quiet and keep to themselves so we haven’t had any issues being too close to them. The backyard needs quite a bit of work. Late December/January when we got all that crazy rain and it flooded the highways of 44/141 area we had some water seepage into the basement from underneath. One reason was because the foundation needed to repaired in some spots and sealed. The other reason is because the backyard needs to be regraded and water sloped away from the house. A lot of water pooled around the house; slowly seeping into the ground with no where to go except our basement. There is also a lot of vegetation that needs to be trimmed back/removed as well as a very old flagstone patio that needs to be replaced. So we are working on the basement (have been since late January when we started the initial concrete work on 2/3 the basement; currently sealing the floor on that 2/3) and now that the weather is starting to cooperate we are turning our attention outside as well. Initially we will just regrade the yard and address the vegetation overgrowth. Eventually we will replace the fence and hopefully make a new patio.
The other bedroom we have turned into the Nest aka media room. Like the rest of the house it was a nasty yellow color. There is a pretty cool set of French doors leading outside, but, there isn’t a deck really …. yet….. It just leads out to a metal roof over the breakfast room that you are able to stand on to help get furniture up and down from the second floor. Maybe one day we can build a cool deck! I really don’t have many “before” pictures because the lighting was awful the day I was taking pictures and the room was just a nasty yellow color so bear with me!
BEFORE:
This room is where we have our computer and another tv. We searched high and low for a couch with a pull out bed to keep in here to also make it a multi-purpose room and make it a “guest” room. The problem is with our stairwell getting a couch up here is nearly if not totally impossible. We would have had to hoist it up onto the roof of the breakfast room and thru the French doors. Problem is the majority of the couches are VERY heavy and VERY bulky – so just not happening! We ended up finding a couch that fit the bill at IKEA. It might not be the most comfy couch on Earth but it does the job well. For Christmas Kevin found a really cute sign at one of the craft stores that says Our Nest. We put that on the door! Since we do like to watch quite a bit of tv up here we got some of the ambience lights at Target and strung them on the wall so it’s not pitch black at night. This is actually I think the only room we have not changed out the fan. Yet.
AFTER:
thePytlinski's 