We've never really had a master plan for our landscaping. Last summer we put in a fence to create a back yard from our side yard that sloped to the street and offered no privacy. We removed bushes, built a raised bed for vegetable gardens (that we have yet to plant, mom?), added lots of free plants from Craigs List, jackhammered up part of our driveway and covered our yard with mulch in a huge effort to grow a lawn of grass, not weeds. All our efforts have definitely made a big difference, but the one thing I've wanted that we still don't have is a patio. We don't have a place to put a picnic table, no obvious place for our lounge chairs. It makes the yard more of something we look at, not use.
When we were at S's parents house for Easter they mentioned that their neighbor's house, which sold weeks earlier, was going to be bull-dozed at the end of May. They said that the builder gave them permission to take whatever plants and landscaping materials they'd like and suggested we walk over to see if there were any shrubs we'd be interested in digging up. Dig up a 60 year old shrub? No thanks, but holy cow if there wasn't a 12x20 foot slate patio and two stone walls up for grabs. Yes please!
We haven't brought the patio stones home yet, but last weekend S filled up our Big Rig with an entire stone wall in only two trips.
He set to work edging out the gardens in front of our house with the giant stones, basically covering the black plastic edging we installed last year.
And when I say that this happened on a weekend, it happened on the day S had off, which happened to be a Monday...which means I had the luxury of staying inside and working while he did the heavy lifting.
I did manage to pop outside a few times to deliver bottles of water and popsicles and to take a few photos.
Next week we'll go back for the slate patio, which we plan to transplant to our backyard to the right of our shed. For now we're liking the new chunky edging look and I even caught a neighbor do a double-take, turn, step back and then do a full-on inspection with a head nod. I think he approves.
Labels: landscape, stones, yard
