August 6th, 2008
As you may have heard by now, we were one of the lucky winners in the Houseblogs.net “Look What I Did” sweepstakes sponsored by True Value. Before you look at our entry and think, “What?! They won for THAT??“, this was not a contest based on aesthetics or project difficulty or anything else, other than [...]
July 21st, 2008
As part of the Houseblogs.net “Look What I Did” Sweepstakes, it’s a perfect time to show the Before-and-After of our flagstone patio and the progress we’ve made on our yard to date. (I’m also happy for the chance to win some cold hard cash/plastic from our sponsor, True Value!)
When we moved into our bungalow, our [...]
May 28th, 2008
As you’ve probably read or heard, when planning outdoor spaces it’s nice to incorporate different “rooms” depending on how you want to use them. While the bulk of our outdoor entertaining will be centered around the patio, it’s also out in the open for everyone to see (until our shrubs grow big enough) and it [...]
May 27th, 2008
While we still spent a good portion of the weekend working in the yard, we also spent a lot of time relaxing on our patio. The finishing touches are complete — check it out!
Here’s the view walking from the front of the house along the sidewalk to our side yard (the house is directly on [...]
May 20th, 2008
I can hardly believe it, but for all intents and purposes, we are finished with our patio with plenty of time to spare before our Memorial Day deadline!
Over the weekend we still had plenty left to do. The first day was spent leveling every single stone. First we tried to mark the pitch with string [...]
May 16th, 2008
We have all of the major pieces of flagstone in place, and we just barely had enough stone.
We still have a number of smaller pieces (shown strewn about on top of the big pieces) which we’ll have to chisel down to fit into the smaller holes, but for the most part I think we did [...]
May 14th, 2008
As our patio project progresses, we’ve reached the part where we’re exercising both our bodies and our minds. Not only are these flagstones heavy as sin, we also have to spend considerable time figuring out how they will best fit together. Sometimes that means moving a piece in to find that it just won’t work, [...]
May 6th, 2008
It was an action-packed weekend here at Bungalow Chronicles. After a family obligation Sunday afternoon, Pete and I drove out to The Natural Garden in St. Charles. It’s not the most convenient nursery to go to, and it took a solid hour’s drive, but they are one of the few nurseries in the area who [...]
April 28th, 2008
While I toiled away inside (yes, I really had work to do), here’s what my wonderful husband was doing:
In the rain. And the cold. Then it started sleeting and snowing. He kept at it. What a trooper. I’m making him a big batch of soup.
We bought landscape edging for the garden paths and the patio. [...]
April 25th, 2008
Yesterday we ordered 5 cubic yards of Grade 8 Limestone for the paths and patio foundation. According to calculations it will fill the patio and about half of the paths. The delivery truck can only handle 5 yards at a time because of the weight of the stone, but we planned to order a portion [...]
April 23rd, 2008
We spent the day Monday preparing the yard for our future patio and garden. We’re beat.
We rented a sod cutter from Home Depot, which was invaluable for this project. We also enlisted help from my stepbrother, who had used one of these before. It was easy to figure out and use anyway, but the manpower [...]