Nesting Already?

Okay maybe more just like we are finally crossing some major projects off our home and yard improvement list. We're also adding to list though so we'll see how this goes . . .

First up, the driveway!!  So we've been wanting to replace the driveway ever since we had this landscape architect look at our house and make a design to die for.  I mean like our house should be featured in Better Homes and Gardens if it ever actually looks like his plan.  Which might be in 30 years when we are both retired and all we do is plant hydrangeas and weed flower beds all day long.  Okay actually we've wanted a new driveway since we moved into the house, but the master - my house will look like the ancient gardens of Babylon - plan reminded us just how much we wanted it.  So, Spencer in his handyman ways decided he wanted to do it himself.

I was a little suspicious.  

But I decided, hey so far everything he's done on his own has turned out good, so we'll see how it goes.  If he passed on the driveway I was going to let him pour the patio.  That was our deal :).

First was the prep work.  Okay first was paying a guy with a bobcat to destroy our backyard.  And dig up an ancient cistern under our sidewalk.  And kill all the grass that was still left from Blitzy.  Which, granted was very minimal.  So back to the prep work.  I'm going to pretend like I know what he did.  First he framed out the first third of driveway (it's so long and large he's doing it in three pieces).  Then he put down sand and rented a compacter to tamp the sand (see I did learn some of the lingo haha).  Then he laid down re bar to help keep the concrete from pulling apart.  This part I did actually help with.  The night before the concrete was coming I help tie together a bunch of pieces of re bar in the dark after yoga.  Note to self.  Squatting and tying together for re bar for an hour after a power yoga class is not generally a good idea if you want to walk the next day.  But enough about me and my one hour of helping ;).

 

 So the next day the concrete came bright and early  . . .

 And while I did laundry and cleaned the house and shopped for groceries, the boys were hard at work spreading and leveling and cutting the edges and floating . . . and that's the extent of my knowledge on concrete.  Oh and getting blisters from dragging a long board across the concrete to get it smooth.  Oh and I almost forgot!  The leaves.  It was beautiful weather for pouring concrete but no one had taken into consider Oklahoma wind.  And our forty foot oak tree dropping leaves by the bucket onto the wet concrete!  So a lot of the time was spent rigging up a contraption to go across the concrete pad so that they could individually pick each leaf that had fallen out of the wet concrete.  I told them I didn't mind leaf prints but apparently that is not good concrete etiquette ;).

 But check it out!! Not too shabby right?

And even more impressive after it dried!

 

So he passed with flying colors and it was on to the patio!  The plan was originally to do the whole driveway first, but then we realized letting a concrete truck on our new driveway was not really a good idea.  Only problem was the patio required a little more ground work.  Like raking up a million leaves.  And pulling up the bricks from the old patio that we found under a layer of dirt and leaves when we moved into the house.  So I went on ground work duty while Spencer went to work framing out the design our friendly landscape guy had given us.  Oh and Blitz whined like a little baby the whole time because she couldn't be right next to us (this step required pulling out the fence too) and because she hates power tools make that any tools.  Rakes are not her friend haha.

  

Okay this is getting long so I'll just skip to the good part.  Ta Da!  Our new patio. Love, love, love it. Okay I'll love it more once we've added some greenery and installed the new fence we've been dreaming about.  Oh and put in french doors off the back room, but honestly sitting out on the patio with the chimenea has been pretty awesome even if the view is a bit lacking :).

 

So next on the list: finish the driveway.  And then added closets to our spare bedroom, which will be our new bedroom when hell baby makes an appearance.  Oh and we also just finally hung up a bunch of sweet prints in our living room from my dad's machine shop.  Pictures to come when it is not dark outside.  Iphones still hate room with no natural light . . .

And yes we had a very nice thanksgiving.  More on that later . . .