Pics from the April 2007 BBQ

Well I got a little gift in the mail over the weekend. Dan Semar took these pics when he came over for the innagural BBQ, that wide angle lens makes all the difference in the world for our small little house. Here's a pic of the entry, I had to go back and see but its been three months since he took these photos. I didn't realize so much had happened. The garage is painted, the front yard has grass and some landscaping, the back yard has crabgrass and alot of landscaping. I took some current pics over the weekend just to show the difference.

A shot of me in the kitchen preparing the feast.

A close up of the Walnut cabinets and the vinyl collection. Notice the countertop reveal on the left, I'm pretty sure the cabinet maker and my dad thought I was nuts on that one but I think it turned out cool.

A shot of the living room showing our mismash of furniture. The white couch I actually got from my boss, I have no idea who made it but its in great shape for being as old as it is. The two red chairs are Jens Risom for Knoll, a craigslist find locally that turned out to be a pretty good deal, at least as good of a deal as designer furniture can be. Of course you can see the George Nelson Bubble Lamps, I really like them I'm glad we went with them over the Le Klint.

My Yardworking Pal

Well last night I was working on filling some of the holes in the yard and attempting to get something other than crabgrass to grow in the back. After working for an hour in one area and moving a bunch of clods of grass. I stepped back to admire my work, its then that I noticed my little pal who had been helping me. I believe I was standing on him for a while, I don't know how I missed him.....aparently his camoflage is better than my eyesite. Needless to say he didn't fair to well after my fat butt used him as a stepstool, but I think he's going to be able to pull through. So I picked him up and moved him to a safer part of the yard. Jessica was horrified so I had to explain all the good things he was doing for our backyard. Hopefully he learned his lesson and while stay out of harms way from now on.

Planter Update!

Well last weekend Jessica and I started early and picked up the plants for the planters I made. We got them all planted up just in time for some good rain on Sunday. They look a lot nicer with some foliage in them. I ended up going with a pretty simple solution of lining the planters with 3mil trash bags that I stapled to the planter and poked a few drain holes.

We ended up going with a mix of Canna Lily's, Coleus, and Sweet potato vine in the planters.

One of the Canna's has already bloomed, and the others aren't far behind.

This is how the large planters turned out to screen the pool equipment and a.c. condenser. That's Purple Fountain Grass, and a little bit of sweet potato vine. The grass should get a couple of feet taller and a lot more dense so it should completely screen this stuff out.

Planters

Well a quick update. Last weekend we got some more planting done, and the rest of the mulch spread. Jessica mowed the front yard, it was our first mow of the year. I worked on finishing the planters we needed, you may remember prototype #1 from a couple of weeks ago. We now have 3 - Large square planters, 2 - small square planters, and two large planters to screen the pool equipment. If the weather is nice hopefully we can get them planted this weekend. On another note, we only need one vote to tie and two votes to take the lead on the Remodel Blog and Win contest. So if any of you haven't made it over to vote the link is on the right.

Last of the Trees

Well over the holiday weekend I got a lot accomplished. I met up with several friends who came in town, many of whom came by to check out the place. If you notice the garage has been painted, thats just the primer. Doug and the guys finished up on tuesday, so now the garage matches the house and it really looks a lot better. So if any of you need a good painter let me know.

I planted the last of the trees on monday. Its a whitebud (a Red Bud w/ white flowers) and it is 2" caliper. It was a pain in the *** to get it into place. I would guess that it weighed 300-500 pounds, I knew I was in for a workout when I couldn't even budge it in the back of the truck. So I positioned the wheel barrow at the back of the truck and rolled it out. It was heavy enough to bend the side of the heavy duty wheel barrow.

I made it across all of the steps and around the pool, then I lost it. I paused to take a picture so you all could see how close I came to depositing the tree into the pool.

This is the final picture of it in place, you can notice that the fence has been stained with sikkens. The landscaping is slowly coming together. I also put in 6.5 yards of mulch over the weekend, it made a big difference with the way things look. I'll try and post some more pictures later in the week.

It's Alive!

Well I got the bamboo barrier installed this weekend. It took a lot of digging, I think I dug for about 8hrs to make the trench. We went with 24" deep 60mil plastic. Jessica and my brother helped me get the liner cut and in place. Then I spend another couple of hours shoveling all of the dirt I just dug up back into the hole.

I don't see anyway the bamboo can go through this stuff. I think it could only go over or under it. Next weekend my brother is bringing me another load of mulch and we are going to mulch the bamboo. Hope this makes the neighbors happy because it was a royal pain to dig this in.

If you look really closely you can see the bamboo sprouts. Its growing super fast the tallest stalk grew about 5 inches over the weekend.

Grass is slowly filling in.

As you can see the grass is slowly filling in. These pictures are from last weekend and its filled in quite a bit sense then. I may have to mow this weekend, don't worry I didn't miss mowing at all. Some of you may notice that the coral bark maple I planted in front didn't make it through the frost we had in March. So during my bi-weekly trip to the HD I noticed they had some really nice jap. maples on sale. So I made the purchase and after having my brother drive down to help me pick it up and get it planted it appears to be doing really well. Its a "Fireglow" Japanese Maple for those of you want to know.

The japanese maple around back survived the frost, and has come in nicely. I'll try to get some picks of the bamboo this weekend. The first sprouts I transplanted all died which I found out is normal. I found a really helpful forum if any of you have bamboo questions http://www.bamboocraft.net/forums/index.php Just like they told me this week I have noticed several new smaller sprouts of bamboo, they are roughly the diameter of a pen. One of them has grown over a foot in the past four days. The fence and garage are going to be stained/painted starting this weekend. Since not to many of you commented on your recomendation I guess you will have to just wait and see what I do.

First BBQ

This past friday, I invited a small group of friends over for the inagural bbq. We had a pretty good crowd show up, and I think everyone had a good time. I got a nice bottle of vino as a house warming gift which is always a good thing. I had a visitor come all the way from St. Louis, he's getting ready to close on his house you can check it out here http://www.lottaliving.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=9243 . He took some nice pictures of the our house so if I get them, I'll post them for your viewing pleasure.

We are getting ready to start staining the fence this week. I have another poll for you guys. Should I stain the garage, to match the fence or paint the garage to match the house. Let me know asap because it will probably happen withing the next few days.

Weather in Kansas

We had some interesting weather last week. We got about 3 inches of rain. Along with about an inch of hail one day, two days later its sunny and raining. (notice the rainbow, and no I didn't find the pot of gold)

Moving Dirt

These pictures are from a two weeks ago. We got a load of dirt so that we could bring up the level of the dirt around the patio in back. I luckily had some help from Jessica, Steve, and Chris, or hauling all of that back there would have been even more of a chore.

I got the bamboo planted, and it has already started to grow. I've ordered a 60mil rhizome barrier over the Internet and it should be here any day now. So then I will have to dig a 24" deep trench around the bamboo, to try and contain it. The bamboo I ended up with is "Yellow Groove Bamboo" and it should reach a height of anywhere from 15' - 25' in height, I'm hoping it will stay around 15' and that the rhizome barrier will work. I took the new growths from a friends house so I'm not quite sure how it will look this year but everything I've read says in three years this thing will be at full size and really thick.

One of the culms starting to grow. This one grew about 6inches in the first week I had it planted. We actually got another type of bamboo for the other side of the yard. I'll post some pics of it once we get it planted.

50 Tons of Gravel, 28 Yards of Concrete

A shot of the new front walk after the river rock . A picture of the patio after we got it powewashed off, the grid may be hard to pick up but its there.

My Dad, Brother, Chris and I puttin in the front landscape edging and riverrock, we got the front and side done, it only took 8tons of MO river rock. And you can see that the house is no longer that ugly yellow.
Painters got going on day 4, thats the primer but its close to the paint color.
Dad cutting the grid into the slabs, this is day 4, then on day 5 I used a blade that cut a v notch in the slab.
After Day 3 no more concrete!

After Day 2, it went much easier than Day 1


The morning of Day 2Rick Roos, also came by and rebuilt my chimney from the roof up. Hopefully it helps my fireplace draft a little bit.
Day One, it wasn't easy, it wasn't pretty, but we made it through.