As you know from an earlier post my house used to be surrounded by tons of overgrown bushes. Whilst trimming said bushes a week into owning the house I discovered a snake right where I was going to grab a handful of branches. Out went the bushes. I. Hate. Snakes. I did keep two large burning bushes on either side of my house as well as two bushes yet to be identified in front of my screened in porch. They were hacked to the ground and I've started over and am going to keep them small and manageable.
At any rate I had a ton of stumps, holes, and nothing but dirt around my house where these bushes were all winter, spring, and summer long so I set off to make things more presentable in anticipation for grass planting this fall. Here is a before picture of one of the areas I've been working on.
Surely you can make out a big ole blank nothing here. Even the snakes think it's so ugly they stay away which I suppose is the only perk. So I wanted to jazz up this area and thought to myself, what is the cheapest way I can fill in this ugly space? I thought about planting a flower garden but this area sticks out into the driveway so it's possible if I ever snugged my car up along the house I would run over my beautiful flowers. Then I thought about just filling it in with concrete since it's not a very big area anyway but eventually I'd like to have a blacktop driveway installed so my driveway is no longer half cracked concrete and half rock....plus I'd like to widen the driveway as well.
Then I came up with a genius idea. Next to the existing driveway is a brick walkway that's so old, sunken, and overgrown with weeds and grass you can't even see it. So I set off by digging up the bricks in order to relocate them into the ugly spot as a brick patio of sorts.
Peeling up the bricks wasn't too awfully difficult. Only occasionally did I need to grab the spade and pry one or two up. No, the hard part was lugging the dug up bricks over to the area to be revamped. After all, you see, I don't own a wheel barrow. So here's what I did. 1. I walked over to the old walkway. 2. I squatted down. 3. I dug up two bricks. 4. I stood up. 5. I walked over to the ugly spot. 6. I squatted down. 7. I put two bricks in place. 8. I stood back up. 9. I walked back over to the walkway. 10. I repeated said process for a little over ten hours. Did I mention the high for the day was 96? But here's what I was left with the following morning after it got dark on me the previous night and I had to stop for the day....
In the creek that runs behind my house is a stash of old bricks owners past have thrown back there so I'm going to snag two brick halves in order to fill in the two spaces in the bottom left hand corner of the photo. I've also purchased paving sand to sweep in between the bricks to fill the gaps and "lock" them into place as well as some concrete patch that I'm going to use for the bigger outside gaps and the middle sandy portion.
I had no layout plan in mind before I got started, I just started laying down bricks and just went along with it. Once I got to the middle I couldn't figure out a way to get the bricks in there and make it look balanced without having large gaps so I decided to fill it with concrete patch and add some detailing to the concrete. I have a specific plan in mind for this middle space but I'm going to keep it a secret until I finish the project so I will keep you updated on it once I do.
Here's a couple of pics of the bricks all washed off with a hose. I love how they are a mix of red and blue and of course they are old so the edges are "tumbled" and look very rustic. I just love them for being free and I'm glad to give them a new life in a starring place right as you walk up to my front door.
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