The Lehi House Part 2: The Outside

I'm sure looking at those "before" pictures was kind of depressing.  But not to worry, I got started on things right away.  The first day that I took pictures, I also had lunch with Paul's mom, his aunt, his brother and his cousin--at delicious Cafe Rio.  Then they all came back to the house with me and helped with yard work.  I feel bad that I didn't get any pictures of them helping--but I sure did appreciate their help!!  Thanks again!

Over the course of two months, I spent a lot of time out in the yard, trying to get it to look presentable.  We determined that the front lawn was pretty much dead and just needed to be ripped out.  I made this sound like it was an easy decision, but it took a lot of debating and wondering and figuring.  Paul and I had had trouble with it when we lived there.  We decided to do what we would've done if we had continued to live there--we would rip out the ugly, rotting railroad ties, the stones and the tree stumps.  We then wanted it grated and smoothed out.  It took a lot of phone calls to see who could help us rip it out and do all this work, but eventually I got it worked out.  We actually had one guy say he could do it--charging several hundred--but then at the last minute he backed out.  Ah!  So I scrambled and found another guy who said he could do it--and charged significantly less and did it in less time.  So that sure was a blessing.

I took a few pictures "during construction" so I could show Paul the progress--he felt pretty helpless being in Texas and not able to do any physical work on the house.  And I wanted to remember all that we did.  But of course there is no way to capture all that we did do.  So this will show the pictures that I did take.

We didn't realize how many stones we had until we took them all out.  Whoever put them in did a lot of work.  I felt kind of bad undoing all that they did, but it was no longer working for the yard and truth be told, they needed to be taken out.  We did use them all elsewhere around the yard.  Waste not, want not. 

Our neighbor was so awesome!  He was the one who had helped Paul cut down the aspen trees a couple of years ago.  Now he helped us again by pulling this tree trunk out of the ground.  It was way too close to the house, the fence and the gas line, so it really needed to be taken out.  I was so glad to have his help and the help of his truck!  It was a great feeling having that stump gone!  

Our huge pile of dead grass, railroad ties, and tree stumps.

That same guy who helped rip up the grass came again to load it all into a dump truck.  They took it to the dump and it was finally out of the way.  It looked so good when it was gone!  (And I appreciated the help from my little neighbors who wanted to help with anything!)

Once we got all the dead lawn gone, we got it ready for the new sod.

We put a new stone pad right next to the house where the sprinkler system and the hose connection were.  I don't even want to get started on the sprinklers!  That took a lot of work--and many trips to The Home Depot.  But eventually, with the help of many neighbors and finally a professional, we got them all working and spraying the right way.  With all of this yard work, I feel much more competent in that department.  (Funny side story: On one of my trips to HD, I got hit on by a guy.  He saw all the dirt and sweat and he knew that I was the kind of girl that got the job done.  I was flattered, but had to tell him that I was married.)

 Andrew, our awesome friend and neighbor, was the sod supervisor.  He even took the pictures of us as we put the sod down.  I should've worn long sleeves because my forearms got pretty scraped up.

 We were running out of daylight and my two neighbors came over to help us finish.  It's amazing how much faster work can finish when we have more than one set of hands!

And that was the front yard.  We almost did this to the entire lawn--thinking it was all dead and lost.  We even went so far as to have it sprayed to completely kill it.  But after talking it over more and getting more opinions, we decided to try to revive the side and back yards.  We put down fertilizer and watered it and helped bring it back to life.  Thankfully we were pretty much able to do it.

We had so many places that were overgrown with weeds and all kinds of plants.  We spent hours and hours weeding and digging out rocks and other things.  See those red containers?  I found those buried in a flower bed--and there were 5 of them!

 We tried to reuse as many of these rocks as we could, but we still had so many more.  We let the neighbors take what they wanted and got rid of them all that way.

We cleaned up the patio and garden areas all around the back.  We even bought more cement blocks to cover up what was started by someone before even we moved in.

 We were afraid that we weren't going to be able to fix this post and gate.  But with the help of wood glue, brackets and new nails, we were able to salvage it.

I also braved underneath the deck to clear out all the junk that was there.  I was surprised I did it actually.  I don't like small spaces and I really don't like spiders.  But I did it!

I also put together this new screen!  I'm amazing, I know. : D

 Dad used the rest of the stones to put in a new pad for the gate and the garbage cans.  

He worked so hard on it and it turned out awesome!

And the final thing outside to take care of was the ugly fence.  We had neighbors come over for their Family Home Evening and helped us paint the fence just in the front.

And just a few more pictures that showed how dirty we got.

It's kind of blurry so it may be hard to tell, but that's dirt just caked into my skin.  It sure felt good to shower!