Easy Sidewalk Makeover

If it’s a sunny day in Indiana, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll see my husband and I tooling about the yard. Whether we’re starting a big project or simply picking up fallen sticks, we’re sure to be out and about. 

When we bought our home nearly four years ago, the yard was by far the biggest eyesore. Visit the posts on koi pond removal, shed renovation or patio flip to see what I mean. (And please excuse some missing photos. Blogger no longer uses Picasa to host photos and when switching to Google many of the images were lost 😥).

The yard itself was sparse, stringy and uneven but I’ll leave that for another post. The biggest eyesore, at least from the road, was our driveway and sidewalk. 

(Pause… if anyone knows how to request an updated Google street view of a home/street PLEASE MESSAGE ME NOW!)

You can see that update here, but before we were able to pull the trigger on that, we had to do some prep work.

Subject A:

These landscaping rocks were likely nice back in their prime. Years of moisture and shade allowed them to become discolored and drab and power washing wasn’t doing them justice. Since we were replacing our sidewalk anyway, removing them seemed like a good idea.

Now you’re probably wondering why I would waste an entire blog post talking about the removal of landscaping rocks. This again, is a gentle reminder that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. 

I sold these stones to some folks via Facebook garage sale. When they picked them up and told me what they intended to do with them, I felt was delighted to hear that they were going to live another purposeful life and not join the troves of reusable treasures at the landfill. One lady was using them to line the bottom of her fire pit while another was using them to build a fire pit. Awesome.

Oh, and I did make a quick buck (I think something like $20-$30), much to the surprise of my husband who is still dumbfounded at what people buy.

With that, I’ll challenge you… what trash of yours is another man’s treasure?

Thanks for stopping by the Humble Hammock! 

Cara

Upcycled Patio [Pt. 1]

I was apprehensive to showcase our "shabby" patio space, but now that we're on the other side of the renovation and landscaping, I'm more at ease in sharing the before and after. 

Here's what our space looked like on our official day of demolition. A concrete pad had been poured and used as a space for a hot tub. More than 200 landscaping pavers were sloppily laid to extend the pad and then a privacy fence was erected to complete the space. Maybe it worked for the family before us, but it was certain we'd remove it after we endured our first winter in the home.  

First fence panel comes down!

The fence came apart pretty quickly and I snapped images of the salvageable panels before putting them on our local township garage sale site on Facebook. My husband thought I'd lost my marbles. "Who would want a crappy old fence, Cara?" 

He changed his tune when a line quickly developed to claim the fence and we made a whopping $40! One man's trash is another man's treasure...

I mean, it's not like they looked THAT bad. I determined I'd do some sort of crafting with them if they weren't claimed. 

The fence posts weren't as easy to remove. We dug most of them up but did end up leaving the concrete of one in the ground. I also listed these on our local township garage sale site on Facebook and helped a gentleman load them into his truck the following afternoon. We gave them away but we didn't have to pay to haul them to the junk yard.

Then we pulled up all of those fungus covered pavers and stacked them along the side of the house. Although they were dirty, I knew a power washer would bring them back to life. I bet you wouldn't guess that I listed those on the same Facebook page and had them sold in the day too. We made $.50 each and upped the ante to $140 on our backyard recycle project.

Once all of the old fencing and stones were cleared, we were finally provided a clean slate. In the next week I created a drawing with a full landscaping plan and we began mapping how we would make this a usable space for entertaining. 

Thanks for stopping by the Humble Hammock! Check back for the finished project soon!