Archive for the ‘fence’ Category

Trim

Friday, August 13th, 2010

Our neighbors were going to get slapped with a pretty hefty fine from the city if they didn’t trim the two overgrown trees in their front yard. When I say overgrown, I mean 10 or more years of growth totally engulfing their house; just a completely solid mass of tree. I kind of loved it since it functioned like a privacy shrub, totally obscuring their house from view.

Being a nice guy The Boy offered to trim the tree and haul it all away for our older / kooky / hot rodding / cat hoarding neighbor for a $100. It is so much tree. SO MUCH. This makes day three of the big bush trim and The Boy uncovered some lovely graffiti poetry. (BTW, I hear Steven Cruz is dreamy).

I’m psyched that this lovelorn teenage tagger decided to sign her name for all the world to know of her “like”. I would have been dying to know whose feelings these were if she hadn’t, but luckily I know who to fight with for Steve’s affections.

Here is a bit of context. I’m so glad we get to see this from our front yard from now on. Magical.

Maybe we should have just let Mr. Neighbor get slapped with the fine. It’s not like he is volunteering to fix this next hot neglected mess. I know – because we asked. He said he didn’t have the cash, but hey look at my awesome yellow $500 paint job on my hot rod. Grind Grind Grind. Cats Cats Cats.

In the meantime we are preparing the side yard for the pool and landscaping, but first thing first, we need to fix the shared fence. Damn you cat man.

This is how we fix it every few days. A board falls down, we tack it up. Perfect. Well except for the steel pole holding the fence up from collapsing.

Looks like about five of the support posts have rotted out and need replacing. Shouldn’t cost very much and we can salvage most of the wood, but it appears that we have to shoulder the cost and do all the labor.

One day you will be free Iggy, free to enjoy a landscaped side yard. Eventually. Hopefully free of cats.

Did I tell you the story about this neighbors cat that jumped out of our closet in the middle of the night? No? Well that’s about it. Big cat. Middle of the night. TERROR ensues.

FILED UNDER: before, exterior, fence, hemet, landscape

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Fence

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

The boy and our neighbor began to fix the ghetto franken-fence with that cheap and ungodly orange hued wood.

It’s better than this raggedy mess of awfulness, but is still is a hot mess of a salmon colored fence…

Why all of a sudden should we start this you ask? Well…

The city finally sent notice to the neighbor that he was required to get the 15 cars off his front lawn in 24 hours or get fined. The solution? Rip down our properties dividing fence and store some of those broken down cars in their backyard. White trash style!

As a compromise we are splitting the cost of redoing the final ghetto run of fence since it was even more janky after hauling cars through it.

Oh, and look at that poor tree! The city shaved it naked. This is a constant battle against ugliness and we are losing horribly.

The boy rebuilt and cemented in some new posts to finish the final run of fence.

Shazaam! Fence.

Maybe now it’s time to consider landscaping that foot and a half of weed grass. Maybe some sort of tall drought resistant plant that camouflages this new fence…

FILED UNDER: before, DIY, driveway, exterior, fence

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Patio Progress

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Last weekend we finally started working on the cement paver grid that surrounds the fire pit. We ended up going with the cheapo 12 x12″ gray cement pavers from our local building supply. Already 100 pavers down and it looks like we are going to need about 60 more to finish.

Yeah, some rows are still way wonky. We didn’t get as far along as I thought due to a rain delay (I was super hoping to be done this weekend). But you can kind of see how it’s beginning to shape up. Once all the pavers are straight and square and the gravel is filled in and we paint the house and finish the “bar” or “planter” area to the left and fix the fence and fix the fire pit and redo the roof and put in the hot rolled steel edging and make a vertical garden and finish the planter bed and landscape the other half the yard and replace the ugly front fence…then we will be done! Oh and the lights. Gotta figure out some exterior lights.

Totally doable? Right? RIGHT?!

Oh, I just got so depressed.

We did grow an accidental lawn with all the recent rain. Oops. As soon as it gets hot it will all die off, but for now it’s a nice bit of green against the dreary exterior.

Oh yeah, that’s a nice paint job on the chimney…guess who doesn’t have a ladder!

One more thing, that patched together fence? Put it out of your mind homies, it’s on notice. Looking to be replaced with something a little less ghetto, a little more solid and a little more cement based. Eventually.

FILED UNDER: DIY, exterior, fence, landscape, patio

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