Improvements to my side yard

Inspiration was from Japan (actually a book on Japanese gardens).  We out the pavers in several months ago, and because of all the water I this part of the yard, the grass grows uncontrollably.  I planted some ferns to compete with the grass, but the grass was still winning.

Inspiration

Early stages.  

I didn't want to spend much money on the supplies, so when i found free cinder on craigslist, I knew it was go-time.  By the way, this was the same weekend as the bedroom floor and the counters.  I just wrote it off as Stewart OCD-gotta get it done-gotta get the good deal.

Part way there. The turquoise tiles were free roofing tiles from Re-use Hawaii.

All the way done- view 1.

All the way done- view 2.

The cinders turn dark when they are wet.  That is why it's darker in some places.  I still have to finish the last 3 feet that lead to the stairs, but right now that area is filled with the cinder blocks and concrete chunks that I excavated.

So if you just read this post, please read the next 2 posts to learn about the other 2 fun projects from the past 2 weekends.

Kitchen counters are done!

And we have 1 million grounded outlets on the counters (as opposed to the 2 possible grounded outlets we had in the cupboard, under the counter.)

The counters are poured concrete.  We made the molds and poured the concrete ourselves.

Finally!

Lots of work space

Bonus still life for your viewing pleasure

New bedroom floor

The room we made into our master bedroom came with moldy blue carpet.  Needless to say, we removed that immediately.  The remaining floor was grimey plywood subfloor.  We tolerated the subfloor since October by hiding it under a piece of carpet remnant.  Back in March, I bought bamboo flooring on clearance, with the hope of installing the new floor over spring break.  That didn't happen, so the bedroom floor went on the "finish before fall or bust list."

The floor installation took 3 days, plus 2 mornings later in the week to install the last board.

Saturday: demolition and prep
One of the highlights of the floor install was ripping out the base boards, that apparently were soaked in cat pee.  We had never noticed the smell.  Once I pried one corner off, the smell was liberated, and man was that gross.  I patched all of the seams in the plywood so we could level the floor.

With cat pee baseboards

Without cat pee baseboards

Sunday: floor leveling
The sub floor sagged in the middle so we applied Henry 555 self-leveling floor product.  It worked just like the Internet said it would.  It was critical to have 3 people.  I was pouring, and Matt and a friend were measuring, mixing and washing.

Monday: floor installation
This ended up taking all day. The Roberts adhesive I bought was like alien goo.  This was the first sign that we were in for something special.  We glued the first row down with ease. When we went to "click" the second row into the first row, the boards wouldn't go together completely.  Matt called the manufacturer to see what the problem was.  In the mean time, the 4 gallon bucket of alien glue was drying a nice film on the top and the first row of boards were rapidly, permanently becoming adhered to the floor.  Turns out the problem was that the flooring was last manufactured in 2002 and slightly warped.  Since we had no warranty to void, we decided the best option was to remove one of the tabs on clicking tongue and groove, so it would just be tongue and groove (no more click).  That meant chiseling every single floor board.

We did it with great success.  You can't tell that we had to modify all of the boards to make them fit.
Here is the final product.

We will install the baseboards after we rewire the outlets.