New Lawn?

Since fall is upon us and the days are getting shorter, we haven’t had much time to do outdoor work when we get home from our real jobs. Fortunately, the weather this weekend was perfect for working outside.

During the week, most of the work was unpacking boxes and getting the heating system up and running (I was freezing and Chris was kind enough to remedy that!).

I wrote last week about our electrical permit issue. I had called several companies to get quotes and one company came out to give us an estimate for the work. We decided to go with the company that came to the house because they have a good reputation and were less expensive. So this coming Wednesday they will fix the electrical mistakes that our contractor made and we’ll have the inspection on Friday.

In order to prepare for this electrical work, we had to open up more of the ceiling in the basement and move some items so that the electrician has access. While Chris was outside fixing his car, I was downstairs with a keyhole saw and hammer. It all started out pretty well – I was removing small (1 sq. ft.) pieces of drywall each time. The last piece I was trying to remove wasn’t fully cut when I tried to pull it down. A full 8 foot sheet of drywall fell right on my head. Thankfully, Chris was just coming into the house and came to my rescue.

When we bought the house, there was a ton of pine trees on the one side of the house. We had over 2 dozen of them cut down back in January. The tree guys had chipped up a lot of it and left it in huge mulch piles. Many, many truckloads of mulch have been moved recently to uncover the ground in this area. With the mulch finally gone, we were able to start preparing the soil for grass seed.

The ground was very uneven and full of roots. The first step was to till the entire area (Chris is a pro with a tiller!). Then I raked the soil so that it was even. We then spread lime and compost and raked these into the soil. The grass seed was spread and raked in. Then, finally, we watered the seed and spread straw over top. The area on the side of the house was about 1600 sq. ft. and there were 3 6 ft. diameter spots in the front yard (where other trees were removed). Hopefully soon we’ll have some nice grass in that area.