Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Summer Projects: Really Late Edition

So, last summer we thought we were spiffy new home owners who were going to re-side our whole house in one summer. As you know, we were a little over-hopeful and naive. The first step was to do the stoning, which covers the bottom 3.5' of the front of the house.


Then, as we were getting ready to finish the long wall and turn the corner to go to the porch (which was also turning into August/September/October), we realized that now might be an excellent time to put in some drainage pipe before winter, the winter thaw, and the heavy spring rains. So, it was time for me to start digging.

 
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And do some more digging.


The unfortunate part about all this digging, is the further away we got from the house, the more rocky the ground got, and the harder and longer the work was/took.



After two 3-day weekends of digging, it was time to lay the drain pipe (wrapped in landscape fabric), cover with pea gravel, and cover back up with dirt. But before we buried the drain pipe, we did want to test to make sure the water was really flowing (I was not about to dig the whole thing back up).


(It's hard to see, but there is a trickle of water coming through.)

When we were finally finished burying the drain pipe, we had the satisfaction of dumping a gallon of water at the beginning and watching the water come out the end! (Note: we had to run the pipe through part of our retaining wall, which we'll have to finish this summer.)