Another weekend, another set of home renos

My back!

I'm bloody sore from moving a bunch of dirt and paving stones yesterday. See, I have this area of my house where, if it rains, the basement gets wet. When we moved into this house, it had a GOD-AWEFULL deck. It was covered in roll-on roofing, and was functionally useless as a place to entertain, BBQ, do anything. Plus, it frickin' hurt to walk on barefoot. Who doesn't want to be able to walk into their back yard barefoot?

So we tore it down and a new deck was built. By me. Not quite done yet either. I still have to put railings on the stairs, put up lattice around the perimeter to keep the little dog (not the Mastiff) and the cat from out underneath where they like to hang out and get incredibly dirty. That's a summer project. After tearing it down, we found out why the old deck was put where it was. When it rains in that corner, water goes into the basement. Not really cool. Probably related to our brick foundation walls in a 96 year old house.


So yesterday, we hauled in a bunch of dirt and built up the little area that was left in the corner that wasn't occupied by the tiered flower garden and lattice fence that we put in last year and this spring. Had to slope it away from the house. Then I put down heavy duty poly sheeting, construction adhesive'd it to the brick foundation, and covered the lot with six bags of traction sand. You know, the bags that you put in the back of the rear-wheel drive pickup so that you get some purchase in winter? Where was I. Yes, to cover the sand, I placed a whack of paving stones that we had salvaged from under the grass in the back yard. Yes, under. So neglected was our backyard before we got here, that the grass was allowed to completely cover a paved path from the house to the garage.

So, after all of this work on hands and knees, or with a shovel, or simply porting around heavy stones. I am sore. Added to this a cold that I caught from a co-worker with whom I spent 4 days cooped up in my work truck, and Sunday morning isn't alright for fighting. More sitting around and doing nothing. Except, this isn't in the plans. We have plans to roto-till the garden, etc etc etc... because, thanks to the loss of Gabriel, we're boycotting Mother's Day! We're having friends over for a sirloin roast done on the rotisserie. Oye... I need to go to work to get some rest from work!!!