Down and Dirty

As anyone who  has ever attempted even the simplest of remodeling tasks knows, a single task is an impossibility.  Thinking of repainting a wall?  Sure, but before we do that, we really should take out that old socket, and we really need new baseboard, and if we do that, then the next room will look drab, so... and the list goes on.

When we got up this morning, we considered buying some river rock to put around the front and the north sides of the house.  With the painting done, we are now left with either ditches next to the foundation where we painted below the ground level, or dirt put back which splatters up each time we have rain.  With the rainy season just starting, we know that our house will look terrible if we do not put some rock or sod next to the foundation.  Sod won't grow; we are too far into the hot season for any sod to take root unless we plan to water it each day for the next two months.  That, of course, will be impossible since we are leaving for Wisconsin in a couple of weeks. We really don't want sod anyway.  We have long planned on a row of edge stones to hold in the smaller river rock which we want to encircle the house.  That will provide a base for water to fall without splattering up any mud.

Once we got outside, however, the Evil Demon of Never-Ending Remodeling (EDNER) reared his ugly head.  EDNER reasoned: If we have the trench dug for the edge stones and river rock, shouldn't we go a few inches deeper and just bury the underground drainage system we want on the south side of the house?  And since there is a natural, always-flooding gully between our neighbor's house and ours, shouldn't we be responsible neighbors and take it out far enough so that when the water comes up, it will drain to the street rather than back into the gully?  And as long as we are bringing the water from the back of the house to the front, shouldn't we tie in the little front bedroom section downspout also, thus taking care of two downspouts and water problems at one time?  Damn!  I hate it when EDNER makes sense.

The result is that we now have a 50-foot trench dug.  We have gone to Lowe's twice since one Lowe's did not have enough 4" pipe, and we have at least one more trip to make since a couple of pieces put themselves together incorrectly.  (Oops!)

The trench from the back of the house.

The trench as viewed from the front yard.

The clock reads almost 2:30 p.m., and we are well beyond quitting time on such a hot day.  No rain is predicted all week, so the rest of this task will have to wait until tomorrow.  Will it get done?  Certainly.  Once we get the pipes glued together and buried, then phase two starts as we level the ground above the pipe, put in a little paver base under the edge stones, add a bit of the fill back over the pipe, lay landscape fabric above the fill,  and then pick up stone to cover the fabric and to give us the look we want around the foundation of the house.

We are just trying to keep Gladys clean while we are gone, but now Rick just came out the the shower and said that he just wants to finish the pipe and then fill it all in with dirt anyway.  I know that he is tired and discouraged.  Sometimes projects are better left thought about and not attempted.  That way EDNER does not have to get involved.