Concrete Jungle

What is up? Its been a long time since my last post. After we finished the kitchen we took a break from projects. I wanted to enjoy our house and what we had done to it, without picking it apart or planning the next project. The truth is, it will always need SOMETHING, so I'm not stressing about it. Its funny how buying a house causes you to go temporarily insane. Can you believe that I never aloud my family to throw us a housewarming party because I wanted the house to be "finished" before people came over.

This November we will have been living here six years. In those six years I have learned to slow down and get out of that crazy mind set of "everything has to be done asap" or "I cant let anyone see it until the house projects are done". It was exhausting to think like that and it killed my productivity.

We have been working on some projects that we wanted to have done for summer. Mostly outside projects, like having the house painted, concrete laid, rain gutters installed, a new patio cover, a/c and heater. Today I am sharing the concrete we had laid. 

The left side of our driveway was dirt when we moved in. There is a giant Edison manhole and an ancient, green tv box sticking two feet out of the ground. It was really a useless area. Its a small area and the tv box makes parking there impossible unless you drive in at an angle. (excuse the bad google earth image)

This is the side of the house where we keep our trash cans. It was always a pain to drag them through the dirt especially on rainy days when the dirt would become mud and flow out all over our drive way. We considered planting fruit trees here and that idea lasted as long as the avocado tree I planted. (I have a black thumb) So concrete it was.

We built a new side gate to replace the old rotten one that wouldn't open. We also connected the new front slab to the existing side walkway that went to the back yard. 

There was a planter area in our backyard that we cleaned up. We added plants, mulch and paver stones. It was wonderful until our dogs started digging it up. The more we tried to repair it, the more they destroyed it. So that received some concrete as well. 

After our hard work

After concrete

It connects the side walk way and the patio. I miss having plants there but it is nice not to have the mess. I want to add some big potted plants, a bench and find a way to cover that A/C unit. 

We have another planter on the opposite side of the patio. It sits next to the rock area that surrounds our Jacuzzi. We had some wooden boarders retaining the rocks and mulch but we decided to have the wood removed and curbs laid in their place. 

So that's one of the improvements we have been working on. Ill try to post a few more in the next following weeks. Have a wonderful day!

Amber