: Somehow my date today went from a movie and a dinner to coffee at a gas station. I don't care though because I haven't talked to this girl since High School and this was her idea anyways. What really makes me sad is that the movie we would have been seeing was the Dark Knight Rises.
First day w/the kids gone - got lots planned and day 1 got lots done.
Our local hardware store has not been able to keep cedar wood chips in stock. In hindsight, I would've ordered a 10yd truck, but didn't think i'd need that much...I did. Bought 30 bags originally, and that covered just over half of the area I had marked off and covered.
Long story short, our yard has had a black fabric spot for 5 weeks...local store finally got more in stock...apparently I wasn't the only one looking, by the time I got there, they only had 14 bags left. I grabbed 'em all and now i'm 90% covered and it looks much better in our yard now.
Now, the only bad spot in the yard is the mound - when the guys re-seeded my yard after installing the mound, they must have used a seed that does well in direct sunlight, as most of our yard is green and lush, however the mound is covered by shade more than half the day. As such, the grass growth is very sporadic and lots of brown areas. Going to have to buy a heavy shade seed and start fresh up there.
Anyways, went to the garage to get to work on my projects for the week.
First was a display shelf for over our living room windows, and then a storage / display shelf for DVD style vid games (wii / ps2 / gcn):
Vid Gm Shelf:
Display Shelf for upstairs (it's on its side, the knobs are for hanging lights or other decorations)
Next was on to the bunk beds - a pretty straight-forward build - no fancy joints or fragile woods, good old construction lumber - if you weed through the boards, you can always find some nice color and grain and I used construction grade lumber for furniture all the time - once stained and poly-ed, it can look very nice.
The (4) posts (frame supports at 14" and 56"):
And (2) bed frames:
I'll build a ladder and some decorative rails tomorrow - i'm beat for today.
Hoping to fill screw holes, sand, stain, and poly before the kids get home on Saturday. It'll be a tight go, but I had a good start.
I spent most of my weekend on top of the roof of the family room replacing a lot of the cedar clapboards next to the roof because many of them were rotted. Took longer than usual because I had to make an angled cut to match the roof slope. Looks good. Next step is to prime and paint the new clapboards.
In a week or two, I'll start spraying RoundUp on some areas of my lawn that has crappy grass to prep those areas for new, better grass seed. Late August is a good time to reseed a lawn in NE.
mjmjr25 wrote:First day w/the kids gone - got lots planned and day 1 got lots done.
Take some time off to do some yard work there guy ?
I've built two of those jungle gyms, and they take so much more time to complete than I thought. You're a lot craftier than I am, but I do hope the pieces in the jungle gym kit you completed came labeled.
I think I spent more time measuring and labeling pieces than the actual assembly.
Smile: A goof friend (that's a typo for "good friend", but I like the typo so it stays) of mine is celebrating a birthday today.
Frown: She and her husabnd have invited us to have dinner with them tonight. Doesn't sound too bad right?
Well, the restaurant entree's average at about $30 a plate, and I'm not a fan of their food. So with my wife and I, with dinner plus drink and tip, we're looking at $80 just for dinner.
Already bought her an Ann Taylor gift card ($50), and we're preparing her Birthday cake from scratch. $150 for a Monday Birthday party with very little party? Nu-uh.
I called to say we can't make it for dinner, but no one answered.
It's very much like that episode of Friends (yes I watched and liked it) where Phoebe, Joey, and Rachael tell Monica, Ross and Chandler "We just can't afford this right now".
Feel a little bit selfish for not going to dinner, but it's not like our entire friend circle would be there anyway, just the four of us.
In a week or two, I'll start spraying RoundUp on some areas of my lawn that has crappy grass to prep those areas for new, better grass seed. Late August is a good time to reseed a lawn in NE.
Do you need to cover it with hay?
Our guys covered the seed with hay to keep the birds / deer / rabbits, etc from eating all the seeds before they could root. I think that was part of problem - some spots had so much damn hay - there is no way what little sunlight we have there...ever got through.
In a week or two, I'll start spraying RoundUp on some areas of my lawn that has crappy grass to prep those areas for new, better grass seed. Late August is a good time to reseed a lawn in NE.
Do you need to cover it with hay?
Our guys covered the seed with hay to keep the birds / deer / rabbits, etc from eating all the seeds before they could root. I think that was part of problem - some spots had so much damn hay - there is no way what little sunlight we have there...ever got through.
Yes, I cover it with salt-marsh hay. I don't put a ton of it down but the idea is to help shade the soil so it doesn't dry out. I also water it twice a day.
So what I do is:
1. kill the existing grass
2. spread a thin layer of loam/compost on top of the area
3. sprinkle grass seed heavily
4. Use back of leaf rake to blend soil & grass together
5. apply starter fertilizer
6. spread salt-marsh hay
7. water twice a day (morning & evening for 2-3 weeks) and then back off to 2-3 times per week. I water it just enough to dampen the first 1/4" of soil.
if you have a heavy shade area where grass isnt growing well, aslong as the kids/pets arent playing on it, you can get a blend of moss that grows the same color as your normal grass. Itll grow in full shade, never needs to be mowed, and can live through a drought. If we get the house we are looking at, we are thinking an all moss front yard - since it is heavy shade.
Somehow my date today went from a movie and a dinner to coffee at a gas station. I don't care though because I haven't talked to this girl since High School and this was her idea anyways. What really makes me sad is that the movie we would have been seeing was the Dark Knight Rises. 
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