Outside | Hicks House

After moving all the original grass seed that was planted by the builder was washed away and/or burnt to a crisp before we moved in, we decided to concentrate on moving in without worrying about the lawn for the first year. This year however, Ken has put a lot of time and effort into trying to whip the lawn into shape. However it seems like time and Mother Nature have not been on our side.

Back in April/May he spent just about every (non-rainy) night after work and all weekend digging up rocks and tilling the lawn to get it ready to be re-seeded. Everything looked like it was going good – the lawn looked like a big dust-bowl with no vegetation anywhere. Then we ran out of time and went on vacation for our one year anniversary and returned to crab grass/weed central. No lie, in that one week everything had taken root and grown like a foot high. “Sigh”

And if that wasn’t bad enough all the rain that came down while we gone (adding fuel to the weeds) also unearthed even MORE rocks. So Ken had to start all over de-rocking the lawn.

We also got a giant pile of top soil delivered to help even out some spots of the lawn that were less than flat – as well as fill in all the giant holes left behind from removing the rocks.

The topsoil itself was also riddled with rocks (are you noticing a never ending theme here?) so it didn’t make sense to fill in the holes with rock filled dirt. We’d just be trading big rocks for smaller rocks. So Ken built this handy screen to help sift through the topsoil.

It fit perfectly on top of his cart so he could pile dirt on top of the screen then shake it back and forth letting the dirt through the holes and catching all the rocks.

That’s a lot of rock! The result was what Ken called “the best topsoil EVER”

Chloe kept a watchful eye on the entire process – you know just to make sure he wasn’t slacking off out there. She’s a real control freak that one.

After the holes and low spots were all filled in we seeded the bare areas hoping to get at least some patches of “real” grass among the weeds.

After watering everyday for about a week (the neighbors must think we’re crazy – watering our weeds) we finally saw some GRASS!

One step closer to a real lawn. Ken has a plan of attack to get ahead of next spring so that the remaining weeds which still encompass about 80% of our property are gone and some grass comes back next spring.

All in all, this is taking WAY more work than either of us anticipated. We’ll be so excited when we finally have decent grass we may be out there laying in the lawn with Chloe

Easter weekend was a busy weekend around the house. While most people were enjoying eating candy and spending time with family we were de-rocking the lawn and staining the deck (well Ken was anyway. I did housework inside.)

I know, I know your SUPER jealous. All of the advice we had heard and read online suggested letting the wood “season” for a year before treating it. Since we bought our house last June and the deck was already there we figured it had been about a year, and if it was going to get done this year it needed to happen before we put patio furniture on it.

Here is our deck last summer, all we did was move in and buy a nice 6-person table. And here is how it looked before we started the staining process/

We decided to go with this stain. Ken did LOTS of research and the reviews were heads above any other brands. The only catch? They didn’t sell it in any stores anywhere near us so we had to buy it online. Which meant we also had to just choose a color without seeing any in person samples at the store. What we really wanted was gray and white Trex decking… but this is real life where money doesn’t grow on trees and we are not rebuilding a perfectly good one year old deck. So we went with the light walnut color. We wanted it to be darker than the super light natural wood but not red or super dark.

So the three day process began with Ken cleaning the deck then brightening the wood. After that we let it dry for two days. Easter was the actual staining day. He went out to get started at 10 am and didn’t finish until 7pm. Needless to say it took WAY longer than either of us anticipated. We both thought it would maybe take 4-5 hours. Way, way wrong.

It also ended up coming out much darker than we envisioned.

Although slightly darker than intended I think it looks good. With all the rain we’ve been having the last few weeks we’ve been able to see the stain in action as the water just beads up on the surface rather than sinking into the wood.