Clang, clang, bang, bang...

There's lots of noise happening outside our house today. We made the decision last week to replace the pine straw outside our house with rock, and to have a small concrete patio poured in the back yard next to the house. Woohoo!!!!

First of all, if you live in the south, you're probably familiar with pine straw. I had never seen it, nor had I seen it used as landscape material before moving here. I have seen rock and mulch, but not pinestraw. I REALLY dislike pinestraw. It's gross. It's dried pine needles from all the trees down here, they use it all around your house to fill in the areas between bushes and greenery outside your house. When they first apply it, it even has some height! It looks like a gigantic nest around your house. I can't stand it. Then, it will "wilt" and get old after a few months and you have to keep replacing it. Little critters like spiders and mice especially like pine straw. WHY on earth would you keep a "nest" along the outside of your house for these lovelies to make a home? Gross.

Well, Koby, our dog, was also creating issues with the pinestraw because there was a corner in back of the house near the foundation where he dug out all of the pinestraw so he could sit his big, hot, furry butt on the cool (but dirty) red clay. When coming through the house, he would have clay, pinestraw and whatever else on him. Probably some little buggy friends that used to live in the pinestraw, too. We decided that to stop the madness we would need to either replace that corner near the foundation with cool rock or concrete for him to lay on. (or get rid of Koby- ha ha.) I mean...it does get hot here and he is big and furry.

So...we decided to go with a 12x16 concrete patio to extend the deck stairs to the basement entry. This will also give us more "sitting room" because the deck on our home is pretty small. After we had a few bids, we got a pinestraw replacement bid from one of the landscapers...just for future reference. After much discussion...we decided to do it all at the same time. They started yesterday and will be finished tomorrow. Completely replacing the pinestraw around the house with river rock and pouring and finishing a small concrete patio in the back. I think the noise is coming from where they are trying to chip away some of the concrete foundation that "oozed" out unevenly for some reason along the house. Not sure.



Anyway...nothing like deciding on and completing a major home project a week before having a baby! It's something we had definitely wanted to get done and will make a BIG difference! Very exciting!


Pine straw above...



New rock in the front...



New rock...



Concrete patio in the back...all ready to be poured tomorrow!