A Work in Progress

Our Back Yard

The Early Years

Our back yard is a work in progress, ever changing to meet our needs at the time. When our youngest son was born, we had a chain link fence put in around the immediate part of the backyard. That was 22 years ago. We wanted a safe place for him to play. The sidewalk from what was then the back door, to the shed at the back of the yard, divided the yard in half. We divided each side in half and eventually had crumb rubber put in two areas. The first area was a section at the back by the shed. We had bought a large swing set for his first birthday and set it up there. Knowing boys, we knew he would need to have a soft landing. The other was just off what was soon to be the porch so if he fell running out the door, he would have a soft landing there too. The crumb rubber was made from old tires that were put through a giant shredder. We got the crumb rubber from a company in town where my husband worked for a year or two.

Our next change was to put patio doors in where the windows facing the back yard were. Once the doors were put in, we had to build a porch. Since we were doing a lot of remodeling, we built it smaller that we would have liked to and intended to add to it someday after we were done with the rest of the house. By that time, we had our second boy and foster children off and on for a few years. The back doors made it so much easier to take the kids outside to play. We ended up changing what had been the door on the side of the house, to a window. For a long time, we used the old steps where the door had been, as a catchall for supplies we were using for whatever project we were working on at the time. Now I am slowly but surely turning them into a rock garden. That will be a future story.

Resent Years

Patio Begins 2019

We had found some used pavers the previous year to use on the area just off our back porch. In searching for more pavers to cover a little more of that area, we found a large quantity of a different type of paver and decided to purchase them for creating a patio in another area. So, we delayed finishing the porch area and, as you will see, it is a good thing we did, since we had to tear out the porch and build a little bit larger one, leaving some extra pavers for that area.

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My husband enlisted the help of one of my older son’s friends. It was a lot of hard work, but they got the pavers laid by the end of summer. Several bricks from a former project had to be removed in order to  get this patio done and with the back porch rotting out we had to delay the clean up and getting the yard in order so we could get some usable up in place of the rotted porch before winter. Late this summer we finally got the clean-up done. My neighbors new how hard we were working on this area, but they had not seen it yet. They were also making some changes in their back yard to make it more friendly for their young grandchildren. They donated their adult size swing so they could replace it with one for the kids.

Finishing the Back Porch

Last year our back porch started rotting through and we had to tear it out. We got it started and put down something temporary so our dogs could get in and out without problems during the winter months. My youngest son helped his dad get the frame finished and put it in place. It was too heavy for me to help.

This spring we were able to get it almost finished with the help of our friend Robert Alford. I was amazed at how fast the two of them got it finished. We bought the railings used, from someone on an online sales group, to use on our front porch. Since there was enough left, we decided to add it to the back so the match. We try to use recycled materials as much as possible. We are planning on wrapping the railings around the front, just up to the step this fall. We weren’t sure if wanted to do that at first. After using as is all summer, we both think it would be helpful for those days we overdo it, to have the railing to pull our tired bodies up the stairs.