Taking it outside
I know some of you must be wondering what it is that Chris does all the time while I am busy painting, garage sailing, and power washing.
Some of you have even wondered if he sits twirling his thumbs, eating bon bons while watching me work like crazy.
In some alternate universe that may be true, but in this one, he is actually the one who makes me look lazy. I know, imagine that! He is one of those people who is always working. He's either working on work, on the phone doing work, out in the yard, researching something etc. Seriously, I can't keep up with him.
Basically what he does all day is man stuff.
Man stuff correlates to pretty much anything outside, anything that involves cement, grass, hedges, yard planning, remodeling, dealing with contractors, getting bids, BBQ tank filling, etc.
I only like to do easy jobs and things that look pretty. He, on the other hand, enjoys taking on long term projects.
He has taken on the backyard.
Remember when I told you about black beauty? Our lovely black chain link fence in the back yard the separates our super classy carport from our lawn... remember it now?
OK well, Chris has been spending all of his free time dismantling the carport so we can eventually elongate the lawn and build a new fence.
Just so we all remember. This is what we started with:
The white tarp is the top of the carport which was built out of PVC pipe attached to a wood frame.
This was the next thing to come down (after the diseased tree). Was all the piping, the tarp and the wood cross beams. Believe it or not, this was a 2 weekend process.
He got tarp down, the PVC pipe cut off, then sawed the beams down. We not are looking at this:
Once that was done, he started to dismantle the cement. We needed to break it up so that we could put lawn on top of it. If there is no drainage we could have serious problems later, so we decided to break up all the cement, and avoid problems.
Well, I use "we" in the proverbial sense. So really, it was Chris trying to break up the cement, I was doing pretty much anything else I could find to do. I did manage to do one thing productive:
He found out that the cement slab was much thicker than we had anticipated. He tried to drill holes through it to cause it to crack, but we found out very quickly that was not going to work.
So we are now in the "back to square one" stage.
We thought we would be able to quickly break up the cement, but apparently its not going to be easy at all.
He now has a whole design that includes more holes, drainage pipes, a constructed wall with drainage, gravel and sand.
This weekend is going to be when black beauty and the back fence meet their demise, hopefully we get the drainage and gravel done and start our retaining wall.
Again, that is the proverbial we.
Did I mention that we are going to have to knock down the rolling carport wall as well? Yeah, it is the worst designed thing ever. It is a large and heavy fence on wheels, that tends to tilt when pushed....essentially, a very poorly designed retractable fence.
On top of everything it has a weird small door that is used to get out to the alley without having to open the whole fence. Apparently, this was designed for very small people.
We are also going to knock down the horribly small and dangerous sudo stairs that were built to get up and down from the carport. I will not be sad to see these bad boys gone.
Good luck to Chris. I will be staining the deck and garage sale-ing. Duh.
Some of you have even wondered if he sits twirling his thumbs, eating bon bons while watching me work like crazy.
In some alternate universe that may be true, but in this one, he is actually the one who makes me look lazy. I know, imagine that! He is one of those people who is always working. He's either working on work, on the phone doing work, out in the yard, researching something etc. Seriously, I can't keep up with him.
Basically what he does all day is man stuff.
Man stuff correlates to pretty much anything outside, anything that involves cement, grass, hedges, yard planning, remodeling, dealing with contractors, getting bids, BBQ tank filling, etc.
I only like to do easy jobs and things that look pretty. He, on the other hand, enjoys taking on long term projects.
He has taken on the backyard.
Remember when I told you about black beauty? Our lovely black chain link fence in the back yard the separates our super classy carport from our lawn... remember it now?
OK well, Chris has been spending all of his free time dismantling the carport so we can eventually elongate the lawn and build a new fence.
Just so we all remember. This is what we started with:
 |
| Sad tree in the middle of the yard |
 |
| The tree came down first |
 |
| View from inside....fancy huh? |
He got tarp down, the PVC pipe cut off, then sawed the beams down. We not are looking at this:
 |
| Please ignore the rug hang drying in the sun. The chain link is at least good for hang drying.... |
 |
| Up close on the new open top of the carport |
Once that was done, he started to dismantle the cement. We needed to break it up so that we could put lawn on top of it. If there is no drainage we could have serious problems later, so we decided to break up all the cement, and avoid problems.
Well, I use "we" in the proverbial sense. So really, it was Chris trying to break up the cement, I was doing pretty much anything else I could find to do. I did manage to do one thing productive:
 |
| I installed these light balls that I got at my swap party- score! |
He found out that the cement slab was much thicker than we had anticipated. He tried to drill holes through it to cause it to crack, but we found out very quickly that was not going to work.
 |
| Small holes, large slab. Seems like a problem. |
So we are now in the "back to square one" stage.
We thought we would be able to quickly break up the cement, but apparently its not going to be easy at all.
He now has a whole design that includes more holes, drainage pipes, a constructed wall with drainage, gravel and sand.
This weekend is going to be when black beauty and the back fence meet their demise, hopefully we get the drainage and gravel done and start our retaining wall.
 |
| Buh Bye |
Did I mention that we are going to have to knock down the rolling carport wall as well? Yeah, it is the worst designed thing ever. It is a large and heavy fence on wheels, that tends to tilt when pushed....essentially, a very poorly designed retractable fence.
 |
| The far left part is on wheels and slides behind the right side when pushed |
We are also going to knock down the horribly small and dangerous sudo stairs that were built to get up and down from the carport. I will not be sad to see these bad boys gone.
Good luck to Chris. I will be staining the deck and garage sale-ing. Duh.
Comments
Post a Comment