They're Work Animals, I Tell Ya! Animals!
Can we talk about the backyard? It's time.
Things have gotten out of hand, and there's no signs of stopping.
Behold my dinky backyard, before.
We actually have a lot of yard. Most of it just happens to be in the front. So what I'm saying is, it's all biznis in the front, and no biznis in the back.
And while I like that my house is set back from the road 'n all,
we have this really long, and not super wide backyard. Said it a million times and I'm about to say it again:
the hubs was ultra disappointed with the size of the backyard. But that's how it is in the suburbs these days, n'est pas?
Anywho.
This is what it started with-- just a simple plan of building a pergola and replacing the deck floor with trex. That was plenty of work and cash expenditures for me.
And then. . . .
things just started rolling.
First off, don't think I'm cool. I'm not. I hired someone to put up my pergola. I had zero desire to do concrete footings and tie it into the joists of the house. ZERO. 'S why it's been a huge to-do for the last 4 years and it never got done.
But I do love my new cedar pergola-- I stained it myself.
So, as I was talking to my worker dude, oh-- let's just call him "The Boy". That's what Mckenna called him the entire time. So,
I was talking to The Boy, and he was all,
"Well, did you want the brick around the bottom of your pergola like you showed me in that picture?"
Well, yeah. Yeah! I do.
And then he was like,
"What if we made the brickwork planters?"
Sure!
"And what if we made brick planters that connected from beam to beam?"
Okay!
And then things got really intense. Kinky, if you will.
"How bout a bench swing? Outdoor lighting? Grape vines to grow around the pergola? Hanging planters? . . .. "
See? Snowballed.
It was a pretty heinous mixture of dangerous/white trash back there for quite some time, I tell you.
And then there was that one Saturday, where Jeffro and I were determined to get the floorboards up and prepared to lay the trex down,
And it was totally pouring rain, and it was butt cold, and water was dripping off my nose, and we both had a scraper in one hand to unhide the screws from the Deck Restore debacle from years ago, and a drill in the other hand,
and we were tearing things up like the workers on "The Money Pit"--
"They're work animals, I tell ya! Animals!"
We really were. Ree-aaawr.
(That's my weird cat meow thing I do. Emphasis on weird.)
You know, it's funny--
Jeffro and I. We're peas and carrots. PB&J. We can rip through a project together like it's nobody's business, and yet,
we are soooo darned opposite of each other. Jeffro's a hardcore perfectionist, and I'm a serious slob. We can butt heads in a serious way. If we could just even each other out somehow. . .?
And look! Here's my planters all filled with manure! ("Manure! I hate manure!" You know I had to quote that.) One more week and it should be safe to plant here. Cannot wait.
So can we reconvene? Do a follow up? 'Cause now most of the hard work is completed, and now I'm getting to the fun stuff. Like the planting, and the new patio furniture, and the porch swing, and the lighting, and and and. . . .
