Yard Improvements: Gravel and Stone

When we last left you, we had just finished laying down the stones and figuring out roughly how the bed would be shaped.

Yesterday when I got home from my last day of work (sob!) I immediately started helping Aaron work in the yard. We had to lay down some weed blocker so that plants don't try growing through the stones (that would look tacky).  Then we had to put paving sand under the stones.  By the time we went to sleep, it looked like this.

This morning we got the rest of the supplies delivered to our house.  Which was kind of awesome.  Lowe's had to shut down a section of 33rd to deliver all this stuff to us.

We couldn't have carried all of this home in our little car.

Especially not these bags of gravel.

We had to get two of these bags of gravel and we thought that laying down the gravel was going to take ALL DAY. Aaron had the guy drop a only one bag near where he would be dumping because he didn't think that we could get both bags in the flower bed in one day.

While I was in the house doing a newborn session (I put up a link to that darling angel soon), Aaron was outside working hard. After an hour he came inside to get a drink and I asked him how it was going. He told me that he had gone through one whole bag and was ready for a break...I would say so!! Man...one bag in an hour. So much for taking all day.

Luckily this newborn shoot took less time than I thought it would (I had a very cooperative baby) and so I was able to start helping Aaron outside.
My first job was to throw some sod scraps into a garbage bag.  When I was finished filling the bag with dirt, dead grass, and sticks, I started to carry it to the wheel barrow.  Aaron told me to leave it and he would help me since it was pretty heavy.  He promptly picked up the bag which ripped and spilled my hard work all over the path leading to our door.

My next job was to drag the gravel away from the weed blocker.  We needed to get the stones all up before  we could smooth out the gravel but we couldn't put the stones up till the gravel was all in the flower bed.  So I had to rake those rocks away from the stone and weed blocker.

That isn't a picture of me doing the job...it is a picture of Aaron explaining to me what I should be doing.

In two hours, we were done with the bags of gravel!  TWO HOURS!  Seriously, we thought that we would be doing this tomorrow too...but no.

When all of the gravel was in, we started laying down stones.
Aaron was taking a much deserved break and so you get a picture of me!!!

This part went by so quickly!  He would pull them out of the wheelbarrow and hand them to me and I would place them and he would run to get more and I would start leveling out the gravel while I waited.  We were an awesome team.

Pretty soon the house looked like this and we were out of stones.  We told them to deliver 18 less than we calculated...I can't remember why.  Aaron had his reasons.  Starting to look symmetrical!!

We headed to the store since it was only 1:30 and we had already done WAY more than we thought we would.  Seriously, we didn't think that we would need to go to the store till Monday to get these rocks.  Oh well.

While at the store we got some stuff for the down spout as well...since that would need some tricky work so that it didn't just dump water into the flower bed.

This is what the down spout looked like yesterday...obviously it couldn't stay this way since it would have  rocks crushing it.

We got some fancy stuff to make it work.  I'm so glad that I married a guy who knows so much about fixing things up nice.  Seriously...I didn't even know that you could get rain gutter stuff that could do this.

And he made it so that you couldn't see where the water comes out from the street!  He is so fancy!  Doesn't that look professional?  I swear...Aaron knows everything.

And most of this will get buried in the flower bed.

With all the stones down and the weed blocker up and in place, I worked hard to level out the gravel.  I don't think that there are an pictures of me working hard though...sad day.

There is however, a picture of me doing this.

Even though it looks a bit funny to have a two stone high wall on one side and a 4 stone wall on the other, I love that I can comfortable sit on this side.

It was 4:15pm and we were pretty tired.  We still couldn't believe that we got so much done in so little time. For fun we decided to see what it would look like with plants.

And I must say that I think I'm going to like it a lot.  Especially next year when everything starts growing in.

I'm so thrilled with this upgrade to the house!  I think that it makes the front of the house look so wonderful!!  I can't wait to show you what it looks like when both flower beds are rearranged and full of flowering perennials and the plants we picked out!  More on that in the next couple days!

For a quick comparison.

The Beginning:

The (Near the) End:

It is such a beautiful upgrade.