Tuesday, May 18, 2010

House Project- Yard Mulch

It seems like there is always something to work on when you have a house. It could be small like changing smoke detector batteries, mowing grass or changing air filters. Or it's big like getting a new roof, fixing flooring issues and landscape maintenance. It can cost more than you want it to, but I wouldn't trade it. I love our house! I'm just glad I have David who loves to fix anything and everything and is a great team player about it. Remember when he was vac-pack back-pack vacuuming out our dryer vent on the side of the house. Oh, and did I mention we just had to buy some replacement parts for the grill because they crumbled inside the actual grill! But hey- $30 is cheaper than a $300 new grill, right? Anyways, this weekend we decided to put mulch down.
During the past 3 years we have used pine straw. I have never loved the look of it and David for sure hates to throw it down. We always thought mulch was more expensive, but it ended up being about the same. This is a before photo of the yucky old pine straw from last season and a hint of the red mulch we got to put down.
This is an after photo! I really wanted a dark brown mulch, but I'm glad David forgot because I love the way the red brings in some color. My sister, Michelle was right! She told me to go for red in the beginning.
Since David has a truck he was able to fill up by the scoop. It was about $17 per scoop and 3 scoops filled up a truckload. We ended up getting 3 truckloads with 1.5 cubic yards per load for a total of 4.5 cubic yards. David did a price comparison with bagged mulch. We would have spent $289 for same amount bagged, but we only spent $165, for a savings of $125! It did leave a good residue of red and we had to scrub it out pretty good. We did make sure it was treated mulch so we wouldn't have any termite issues. That was a concern for using mulch, but it's all good to go.
One of the reasons we got mulch by the truckload was so he could drive the truck around the yard and stop at all the beds.
Here is another photo of the front garden area.
We were done with the front and now it was time to go to the backyard. A project that I forgot to photograph was the fence project. David widened the fence opening so my garden and his truck could fit through the gate and into the backyard. I'll have to take pictures and post about it later. I was assigned the job of driving the truck around the yard! I have fun in the air conditioning listening to my music.
I  brought Molly along for the ride, mostly so I didn't run her over. It's hard to see in that truck. She was facebooking on my phone when I went inside to get some water.
Here I am driving around. I look like a little kid in that big truck. I'm so glad we decided to get mulch and next year we probably won't need as much so it might be cheaper!
Molly was taking a little nap in the backseat as we were riding around the yard. I realized I was taking more pics of Molly than the actual yard and mulch. Sorry, I didn't get one of the back yard. You can get the idea from the front yard photo. Thanks David for all the sweat labor, the yard looks great! What do you guys use in your yard? Pin It

6 comments:

Jen S said...

Haha Molly was facebooking. Too cute! Yard looks great!

david said...

 Thanks for being such a big help this weekend babe. And you should tell molly that if she is just going to be napping and face booking all day then shes going to need to start paying rent.

leah said...

Man it looks so good you two! Great idea about putting it in his truck and driving around to all the beds.

The picture of Molly facebooking is hilarious haha

Chris said...

haha...great pic of Molly Facebooking! I always love the look of the red mulch, adds so much color. But we noticed that after it gets wet we had a lot of termites eating the mulch, so we got rid of it all last year. There was already red lava rocks underneath it in the front, so added more of those and on the sides and back yard we use the pine straw.

Ginny said...

You guys make work look like so much like fun. It looks so good, I'm going to copy everything. I have been planning on taking out our old shrubs and when you and come to visit you can build my deck out front.

Ginny said...

I also wanted to ask if David at least got a beer at every stop?

 
Blogging tips