Good Morning,everyone! Hope y'all survived the New Years celebrations unharmed and ready to take on more DIY projects. I know I'm and with the second job I might be able to kick it up a notch and get this house the way I want it. Spring and tax return money will find me ready and willing.
So if you're ready for a new project and not quite sure how to go about it or any repairs that give you headaches ask your questions here. We have some smart people here who love to help.
Here is what I've been working on. This ugly little corner outside my porch, between the dog yard and the walk way. When I moved in here it had Ginger growing or trying to grow I should say cause they didn't get enough sun. It was a sad sight so I dug them up and replanted them in a proper place. Now I was faced with this dirty spot which flooded every time it rained. So here is what I came up with: Bottles! And lots of them thanks to my BIL and other beer drinkers. G*d bless them!
I gathered my bottles, mallet, gloves and a board which I replaced with a level later. And coffee!
I dug down quite a bit to accommodate the bottle necks. The ground in this area is mostly a clay mix an when dry is hard as rocks. Lucky for me we had a nice down pour the day before I started digging and was nice and soft.
Getting the bottles in the ground wasn't as easy as you might think. After a few tries and two busted bottles I adopted the four-point whack on the thick outer rim of the bottles and it worked like a charm. Great work out really gets the juices flowing. But since I'm getting old and decrepit it took most of the day to finish it. The hardest part was getting the bottle all the same height, that's were I switched to the level instead of using the board to even them.
After all was done I filled in the spaces with dirt and topped it off with river gravel. Then I framed the whole thing with blooming Monkey grass and to make it look nicer I added some dark red vulcanic stones around the rim and the grass. It doesn't look so great right now, but come Spring it will be awesome. The best thing is the drainage problem solved itself - no more flooding!
I think I'll 'plant' bottles all down the front of the house, drainage is a problem there too, and expand the porch this way instead of pouring concrete. This time I give some of the bars around here a call see if they have any empty bottles to spare.
And btw the whole project didn't cost me a dime just a little time and elbow grease cause the bottles, gravel and vulcanic stones I either found on the side of the road or were given to me.
Wouldn't you know when I uploaded the pix I had none showing the end result. I had to run out,sweep the $#@% leaves off and snap a couple as best as I could cause it was getting dark already. Phew!
So what y'all think?