Let your inner needledick shine here folks. Any yard or home projects you're working on can and should be discussed here.
On Saturday we removed the crappy 1980s flagstone patio which resulted in another acute gout attack but a happy MDS since said patio was not being used and was an eyesore. Here are some of the flagstones we removed waiting out by our neighbor's garage for someone to come by and take them away:
Here's what the old patio area looked like once we removed all of the remaining flagstone detritus, river pebbles, and weeds and after we tamped everything down and smoothed out the sand for the topsoil and sod:
And here it is now after putting down topsoil, new Home Cheapo sod, and a ton of Scotts lawn feed:
I'm not convinced this Home Cheapo sod is going to take root (it looks to be some form of Kentucky bluegrass, which doesn't fare well in harsh climates) but it's only 250 square feet so replacing it next spring if it doesn't is no big deal. "This Old House" used a really sweet sod product on their Lexington house that roots well beyond the 6-9" most sod does that we might do some of the yard in next year if this sod and the grass seed-fertilizer-watering process doesn't work on the rest of our lawn. We're having to correct five plus years of lawn neglect the previous owners subjected this yard to so we're probably looking at having to, at a minimum, resod a lot of this yard next year and regrade parts to correct drainage issues.
The sod "This Old House" used on the Lexington lawn is not cheap ($25/10 sq feet vs. $6/10 sq feet of Home Cheapo quality sod) but if it will take root and survive harsh weather that's money well spent. If there's one thing I've learned from owning a really old house in harsh climate it's this - do it right the first time. You end up having to do it right regardless so save yourself a lot of time, money, and frustration and just buy and do it right from the jump. Also, do it with permits.
