The one true eye sore of the place was, notice I say WAS, the backyard. I was honest to God afraid of it. I spent 5 minutes down there once clearing out weeds in preparation for the St. Paddy's Day party that never even made it outside due to the fact that it was hurricaning all day, and I was sure I was going to come across a dead body. It's South Boston and lots of shady stuff has happened here in the past, so it's not THAT far fetched. It had tall, tall, creepy tall stalks of some sort of weed that were getting to be taller than me, lots of scary roots that were scrapping at my ankles, a legit stump and brave squirrels who would come right up to me and most likely try and attack me. It was a pathetic excuse for a yard and frankly, looking out my window and all my neighbors yards, made me embarrassed.
My roommate Char really took charge of the backyard project and wanted to set a stone patio over the dirt so we could actually do things outside and like, not be afraid we were going to die. She asked if anyone we knew would be interested in helping, and my brother Eddie offered. Now, I love Eddie, he is fantastic, but he likes to offer to do things without really thinking them through. He has a wife and two adorable little girls, but sometimes his hypothetical eyes are bigger than his hypothetical stomach. I took Eddie's offer with a grain of salt, and told Char to keep looking. Her brother offered to help us, and was pretty much a rock star through the whole process. Not that Eddie ISN'T a rock star, he's just a different kind of one. Char's brother drove 6 hours from upstate New York, toting chainsaws and other important tools that he probably needed, like a rake or something, and got up at 5:30am on a SATURDAY to work on our patio. I had offered to help out in anyway I could, but when I casually rolled out of bed at 10am, this is what I saw.
By the time I woke up they had been to Home Depot TWICE and had already gotten the patio more than 50% completed. So that's what it's like to be productive. The most I did was get up and shut my window when Char's brother went out at 5:30am to dig up the stump. I may or may not have flashed him a dirty look and contemplated reporting him to the city for working outside before 8am, but thought the better of it. I turned up my sound machine and put a pillow over my face and didn't come out for 5 more hours. I did however mop the house up after the patio was complete, so that was my contribution. Oh and I bought him and his wife beers that night, totally even.
The patio looks FANTASTIC and I spent the better portion of last night hanging out with the roommates and Jamie. I can't wait to have people over for a BBQ and some day drinking - day drinking's my favorite. Note: must learn how to BBQ. Hopefully there will be plenty more photos of the day that take place on our brand spanking new patio, so you can see it all done up. I plan on getting a FIRE PIT because I love love love fire pits, and also planting some flowers around the edges. Look at me, just call me Martha Stewart.
We are no longer the horrible neighbors with the eye sore of the backyard. We probably now hold the title of best yard, maybe coming in a close second to the ones on the left who have a lilac bush. Lilacs win every single time. Yesterday afternoon, the cute old couple to the right of us had their grandson clean up their backyard. I guess what they say on HGTV is true, once one person starts fixing their house up, neighbors naturally join in and do the same. Look at me, I'm practically a landscaping expert, and I didn't even do anything! Yay, everyone wins!
This is unbelievable.. day drinks on the patio soon? :)
ReplyDeleteAmy this is gorg...I want to be invited for some day drinking there for SURE!!
ReplyDeletePS-HGTV is so right, we mowed our lawn (after not having done so for a few weeks into the summer niceness) and our weird neighbors decided to mow their jungle a week later!