Like all of our projects, they seem to take on a life of their own, and grow exponentially.
We needed to adjust the grade of the driveway and put in some drainage. That simple project led to landscaping in front of the house and a whole new look to the driveway-side yard.
Before
I can’t decide if it was the driveway that wasn’t wide enough or we were all bad drivers. As you can see from the picture on the left we were cutting the corner when entering the driveway on one side, and when entering from the other we were driving on the lawn. Our yard sits on an angle to the road and the road slopes so it creates an optical illusion that causes drivers to have trouble backing straight out of the driveway.
We had been getting a lot of water in the basement and it seemed like it was coming from run off. So he borrowed some surveying equipment and checked things out. As it turns out, the road is also higher than our driveway which could be why the end of the driveway is always so wet.
During
Tim Creswell, a friend of John’s, is a mason and has excavating equipment. He brought up his bobcat and did the major grading of the driveway for us. He left it with us for a while so we could finish the detail work ourselves. John was much better at operating the machine than I was, obviously.
As they removed the top layer of soil I asked them to pile it in front next to the house for a flower bed, and along the side for another bed. Since we were widening the driveway, I decided I did not want any grass along the driveway side of the house. It was a pain to mow as it was and having a small patch of grass along the side would be even worse.
We also were redoing all of the sidewalks and the wall of the lean two, as well. Paul came up to help John shovel stone into the sidewalk areas and form up the sidewalks.
There were lots of old tree stumps in the back yard and the ground was very uneven. We dug up the stumps, and regraded the ground. John showed me how to run the bobcat so I could help with the driveway and stone.
I parked the bobcat and John and I surveyed our work. Cooper was checking out the bobcat (gotta know what mom was doing) and hopped up in the seat and sat there looking around. Cooper likes to “do work”, even if it is you who is working. It was so cute. We then wanted to get a picture of Sophie but couldn’t get her to jump in the seat so we put her in the bucket for the picture.
After
Once the driveway was graded we took 4×4’s and made a border for the flower bed by the driveway. We used the slate slabs we removed from an area where we poured new sidewalks to create a stone walking path. Finally a nice straight driveway.
Before / After
Before \ After
Well since we had the driveway all torn up we decided to move right into the landscaping, sidewalks and the walls of the lean two attached to the house. See what I mean by life of its own?
