landscaping season
We've started landscaping. We originally were going to hire someone to do it, as we figured we both work too many hours to want to do it ourselves. Then we got a couple estimates. And my eye started twitching. The lowest was $24000, the highest around $30000. And that was with the cheapest material options. So yeah, we're doing it ourselves. So far we estimate it should be at most a third what they estimated.
The plan is to be low maintenance, mostly sod with some shrub/tree beds covered with landscaping rock and outlined with edger bricks, with a retaining wall holding the hill up out of the fire pit area. We're required by the home owner's association to have 4 trees, 12 shrubs, and a sprinkler system. We're also supposed to have it done by the end of July, but there are houses along the street that have been there a couple years and haven't even started, so we're not too worried.
A guy we used to work with is designing our sprinkler system, once he gets the parts in we should be able to install it ourselves and give him a hand with his. It's a pretty good deal for us, as we had no idea how to go about it, and in return I can teach him (and Jay) how to install sod.
So far it's just a few trenches where the edgers will go around the shrub beds. We were supposed to get dirt delivered yesterday to smooth out the hill, but it rained and we didn't want the neighbours to hate us for the massive ruts it would make in the green space behind our yard.
We were also supposed to get some sand on Friday, but there turned out to be a community garage sale so Jay spent the afternoon giving away our massive pile of giveaway stuff. We had put a bunch of stuff in the garage as we unpacked with the idea being to give it to one of the used stores in town, but I used my amazing powers of procrastination to leave it sitting there for a few months. Ahem. Happily, Jay was able to get rid of all but a small tub of the leftovers, and we even cleaned out some more stuff as people were coming by, so it was all good.
I think we did a lot better business than any of the other houses on the street because everything was free. Jay would have been in the garage puttering around anyways, and it's not worth the few cents or a dollar to haggle if you're going to get rid of it anyways, at least in our opinions. Plus people are more likely to take it if you don't want money for it. Win win.
The plan is to be low maintenance, mostly sod with some shrub/tree beds covered with landscaping rock and outlined with edger bricks, with a retaining wall holding the hill up out of the fire pit area. We're required by the home owner's association to have 4 trees, 12 shrubs, and a sprinkler system. We're also supposed to have it done by the end of July, but there are houses along the street that have been there a couple years and haven't even started, so we're not too worried.
A guy we used to work with is designing our sprinkler system, once he gets the parts in we should be able to install it ourselves and give him a hand with his. It's a pretty good deal for us, as we had no idea how to go about it, and in return I can teach him (and Jay) how to install sod.
So far it's just a few trenches where the edgers will go around the shrub beds. We were supposed to get dirt delivered yesterday to smooth out the hill, but it rained and we didn't want the neighbours to hate us for the massive ruts it would make in the green space behind our yard.
We were also supposed to get some sand on Friday, but there turned out to be a community garage sale so Jay spent the afternoon giving away our massive pile of giveaway stuff. We had put a bunch of stuff in the garage as we unpacked with the idea being to give it to one of the used stores in town, but I used my amazing powers of procrastination to leave it sitting there for a few months. Ahem. Happily, Jay was able to get rid of all but a small tub of the leftovers, and we even cleaned out some more stuff as people were coming by, so it was all good.
I think we did a lot better business than any of the other houses on the street because everything was free. Jay would have been in the garage puttering around anyways, and it's not worth the few cents or a dollar to haggle if you're going to get rid of it anyways, at least in our opinions. Plus people are more likely to take it if you don't want money for it. Win win.
