A Post about trash

Actually, it's more about trashcans than trash. J and I decided we would focus on our backyard this spring and summer - we want to fix it up and get it to be a little nicer. It's fenced in and pretty big, but lacks any real grass or gardens. It's just kind of blah.

On Saturday, we did a little project that is sort of pointless and unnecessary, but it brings a smile to my face, so I guess that's all that matters. We store our trashcans and recycling bins on the inside of the fence in a little area right by the gate, for easy access to take them out. Well no grass grows in this area, so it's basically a big mud pile for our trashcans to sit in. The lovely before...beautiful huh?

So we decided to make a little bricked in patio area for the trashcans to sit so they stay out of the mud and it just cleans things up a bit.We headed to Home Depot bright and early to get our supplies. Well actually, the first step was that Jake measured everything out and figured thesize of the little patio. Since it's a place for trash to sit, we didn't get the most exciting paver stones or wood...just the basic stuff. Then we got to work!

2 10 foot 4x4 posts, 12x12 grey brick pavers and 6 bags of paver sand. Oh and the 4 large stakes that we used to drive the corners of the posts into the ground.

J measured everything and we decided we wanted to notch the wood so it fit together at the corner, sort of like Lincoln Logs. So he taught me a trick about cutting wood...

He made a bunch of little cuts half way down and then we used a hammer to loosen the wood to make the notch- sort of hard to explain, but it worked really well!

J was in charge of sawing the notches and I was in charge of hammering the pieces out.

The we laid the wood frame out, dug a little trench for it and leveled everything.

J drilled holes and hammered in a large metal stake into each corner to secure it well into the ground. It also makes it look a little bit more finished this way.

We put down some anti-weed paper and then laid out the first layer of paver sand - it was a little bigger and rocky.

Then we did the 2nd layer of paver sand and started laying out the stones.

Almost there - J just testing out the stones to make sure they are level.

Finished! It took about 3.5 hours from start to finish.

And here it is in use with the trashcans! So exciting...ha!

Even though it's a simple project, I'm really happy that we did this. It cost us about $80 in supplies, but we had a $50 HD gift card, so it was really only $30. This project was a lot harder than I expected though and it made me realize I would never be able to make a larger patio - I'm not a fan of all this leveling and measuring, etc.

So not a very exciting weekend project, but something we definitely needed!