09-27-15 Phase 2 of our driveway "redo"

Phase 2 of our driveway "redo", (you can find the info and photos of phase 1 here) picked up a few days after we had some rain that caused us to not be able to get anything done.

This is where we left off, after placing the rocks everywhere they needed to go to create the shape of the new driveway.

My main focus on that day was to clean up this "visitor parking area" which sits right in front of the house against that line of bamboo. The bamboo will eventually be removed to expose a chain link fence that lies inside all that mess. I will have to hire out help to remove the bamboo as I've done extensive research on it and it needs to be pulled out by the root which will require a tractor, at the very least. This bamboo was chopped down and burnt out about 18 mths ago and it returned like nothing ever happened. So once that is all gone and I get to repairing that fence I'm going to put a front gate there right in front of the front porch so that there is an obvious entrance for visitors which is THE reason I'm calling this area the "visitor's parking area"! =) So it had all these wild little desert weeds everywhere and I still had that tree to contend with that I had cut down a good 2 months ago.

First, I knocked down all the weeds with the weed eater and then got to work on chopping up the tree for firewood, kindling and excess to burn and dispose of what was left.

After the firewood and kindly was hauled off to the shop for storage and the fire was going, I got to raking this area to remove all the loose weeds and just clean up the area.

Riley helped man the fire...his way (playing in the water hose, haha!) while I was working on another project so we could have a set of eyes on the fire.

Me happy and sweaty after a half days work on the driveway project again!

That was all we had time for that day as dark approached. I got a lot more done the very next day to wrap up that phase 3 of the project and now you can see that here!

XoXo,

Elizabeth

09-20-15 Phase 1 of our driveway "redo"

My last blog post Creating a new parking area we left off where I had just been given free river rock from a friend and I used those to create pathways and walk ways in the parking area of our driveway up by the house. This one picks up where I began the driveway process. Ever since I was a child I've had a thing for long, tree lined driveways...maybe it's a southern thing, I'm not sure. But from the first time I came to this property I thought it was odd that the gate was almost centered on the front of the house yet the driveway curves to the left to the parking area. So since I had these river rock I knew I wanted to begin the very early stages of "moving" my driveway to where I wanted it. The end goal is to have a driveway that goes straight from the gate up to the house then you can go left to the shop and where I park or go right to go to the gate to the open field. And then on top of that visitors can pull straight up and have plenty of room to park right in the front, in front of the front porch. Makes sense, right? Ha! So in addition to that I want the driveway to eventually  have 2-3 trees on each side with flowers along the bottom and for the driveway itself to be graveled to cut down on all the dust around the property. So phase 1 of that huge project (that will likely take me a year) is to "move" the driveway to where I want it. So the goal for this smaller project is to use the river rock to create new lines, then eliminate all the weeds and bushes in the way of that, clean up the pathway and just begin using it. Next I will add gravel to the entire driveway. Later on down the road (maybe next Spring) I'll put in the trees which will have to have irrigation lines ran to them as well as critter-proof "cages" around the trunk of the tree to prevent gophers from digging up the roots so that they can plant properly. After all that is successful I'll add some flowers!

So on to phase one!!!

Here is a "before" picture of most of the driveway and the front of the house just a couple of weeks after we moved in. I can't find a better picture taken back from the gate so you can see the whole thing but in this photo I'm standing about half way between the gate and the house and you can see the driveway (where there are no weeds) wandering off to the left and my car off in the distance on the left. In this photo there was still a dead tree just to the left of my flag, on THIS side of the fence line.

 I began by placing the rocks on each side of the driveway where I wanted it to go, straight south towards the house. The rocks on the left you can barely even see because they're amidst weeds and wild flowers.

Here is a shot of where I'm using the rocks to CREATE a whole new road that goes to the right side of the house to that double gate, which opens up into our side field. This field is now 4 acres of natural desert nothingness and in the future the plan is for it to be cow and horse pasture! So it only makes sense to create a road TO the gate even though it won't be used frequently for awhile. Planning ahead!!!

Here the rocks are on the left and this is where the driveway will go left and lead to our main parking area at the side of the house.

This is a final shot standing up by the fence line of bamboo by the house. You can see the remnants of that dead tree I cut down that still needs to be dealt with.

I got this done in a few hours in the afternoon by myself while Riley was at school. The following 3 days we had rain and I wasn't able to work on it at all. But as soon as the rain cleared up I moved on the phase 2! Which you can now find here!

XoXo,

Elizabeth