The (not yet) great outdoors

There are only two things about my house that annoy me: The inside and the outside. I’m kidding, yes, but maybe only a bit? There are plenty of things I’ve changed about the place, and there are more changes to come, not all of them soon. It’s a process.

I’ve been having a lot of things done to the inside of the house, and will soon begin some decorating, all of which is part of my “Operation Re-invent My House”. Now that the work done by others is almost over, I’m giving the outside some attention.

The outside of my house has long been an ongoing source of annoyance, embarrassment, and frustration, three things in particular: The Damn Raingarden™, the lawns, and, especially, the bank along the side of the rear part of the property. I hate the Damn Raingarden™ mainly because it’s so damn difficult to maintain, but also because it’s so damn ugly. I hate the lawns because they were never done properly in the first place. I hate the bank because it, too, is damn hard to maintain. All of these are things would be expensive to change into better and more appropriate solutions, but the larger problem is that I’ve had no vision for what I wanted it all to look like—but now I at least have concepts of a plan.

I realised the other day that once the patio cover is installed, it’ll change the look of the entire back part of the property, so I think it may give me a better idea of what I want it to look like, and that’s when I’ll bring in contractors to do the work. However, there are things that need to be done more immediately, and those are things I’ll (probably?) take on myself.

First, I need to weed the bank (yet again, again…), especially around the patio which I haven’t given any attention to in a couple years. Since I never used the patio space, it felt pointless to spend my time and limited energy keeping the patio area tidy. Now that I’ll soon be using that space, I want it tidy—and yes, I’m well aware that this is a big job precisely because I didn’t keep up with the weeding. Moving on…

Related to that, I need to clear out all the weeds on the bank, a big project I first worked on back in 2022, though I never mentioned it here at the time (partial before and after photos form 2022 are up top). Since then, my “maintenance” has mainly been whacking the weeds back down with the line trimmer, and in between, I tried to figure out better solutions for the entire bank. I still don’t have a plan for that, but in the meantime I’m going to clear out the weeds, then remove the old bark and weed mat (which has deteriorated). I’ll lay new weed mat and spread bark over that—essentially restoring it to what it was like when I moved in, and for the first year or two afterward. The bark started sliding down the bank not long after I moved in, especially after heavy rain, and that kept exposing the weed mat, and then the sun sped up its deterioration—over and over.

Back in 2022, the weeding was entirely manual work because the weed mat wasn’t yet totally perished, but now that it’s finished its run, I can use more tools na dbe a bit more aggressive using them. This should mean it’ll be much easier than it was three years ago—I hope, perhaps foolishly

I also need to move the Vegepod to its new/old position, something I’m pretty sure I’m going to do myself simply because I want to: I’ve never laid any pavers, and this is my chance—quite possibly my last chance—to give it a go. Those are the things on my plan right now.

Longer term, I may have the lawns removed and re-seeded with actual topsoil underneath. I may also have some sort of terracing done along the bank, mostly to stop that sliding action. I’ll also seek advice on what to do out front—especially the best way make the Damn Raingarden™ look not so damn ugly.

Finally, I have a much bigger issue to deal with: I need to explore solutions for the exterior of the house itself. When the house was painted, the workers didn’t seal or prime the bricks, they just painted them (which suggests to me that the painting was done by labourers, not painting contractors). The colour of the bricks started staining the white paint with blotches sometime in the second year after I moved in, slowly at first, but now it’s pretty much all over the house (the builder’s warranty was one year).

To fix that, I could have the house re-painted, or I could explore plastering over the brick. However, either option would be before any work on the lawns or gardens, and that means that all of that is unlikely to be done for at least a year. This underscores why I’m going to restore the bank to what it was at the beginning: I want it to look nice until I have a permanent and cohesive solution.

The stuff I’m going to do myself will be a lot of work, absolutely, but it’s work I’ve done before (except for the pavers under the Vegepod, of course). The weather will probably interfere with all these plans, but there will be lots of inside work for me to do on the rainy days.

And, maybe I’ll finally get the house and gardens closer to being what I’ve wanted all along. Yep, it’s definitely a process.