a Vintage Green

Thursday, July 12, 2018

Short Paver Sidewalk Part 1

July this week, on the B.C West Coast, has included rain, sunshine, cloudy days and rain. We are fortunate.

What am I doing? Well, with the significant help of my friend Val, plants and grass are being removed and the extra plants (with a Free Help Yourself sign by the sidewalk edge) will hopefully find them new homes.

(p.s. Wednesday evening as I was bagging the pile of weeds and grass a couple walked by, wanted to know what the plants were, I told them and together they hauled away about 15 pounds of plants that were in a clump).

Monday Morning

Val is making new path to join the curved sidewalk to the driveway on this short piece of grass, 3 hours of hard work Monday.

24" square cement pavers with rough pebble tops were purchased. Grass and some flowering plants were removed.

On Tuesday the rain was just too 'wet', and after an hour the digging was stopped for the day. I put a rubber mat down on the exposed dirt (which became a bit muddy) in case anyone needed to walk through to the curved sidewalk area.

Wednesday morning - back to work.

Instead of walking across the small amount of lawn to get to the sidewalk from the car the pavers will be the path between the vehicle door and the curved sidewalk.

This is just the beginning of the new walkway work, so many more hours to go before the project is finished.

View from driveway side.

Wednesday evening:

My share of the work? Picking up supplies (ok I had total help with those very heavy pavers). Another job is 'find and bring'.

I do clean up - sitting down on a chair while bagging weeds, grass and clumps of flowering plants while separating soil from grass clods and weeds. I raked over the cleared pile of plant/soil. DGS hauled the filled garden recyclable paper bags out of the way.

Thursday Morning

A view from the driveway toward the newly laid 12x12" pavers and yesterday's 24x24" pavers with sand added.

Here is Friday morning's work on this small area of our small front yard. Every day the area becomes more useful and will also take less future care.

Gravel with gardening cloth barrier underneath was placed to surround the Peony plant - and will also keep the weeds at bay.

Saturday (photo after the sun went down) morning work.Already parking on the newly added pavers beside the driveway - and the new sidewalk that meets the curved sidewalk is flat, even, and very convenient for unloading. The gravel now expands around the orange lilies.

More to come another day.

Hydrangea in all its glory this week.

Changed my plan for posting more about the sidewalk next Thursday as Val finished the wider parking and walking path today (Monday July 16th. Happy dance!!!

Thanks for dropping in and visiting.

Joy

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Thursday, July 5, 2018

Vintage Laundry Decorations

It has been some time since I made a new sign (April).

Really ?

It is now July.

Today my theme is Laundry.

This large paper label was on the underside of a vintage folding ironing board that has been languishing in my shed.

Two vintage wooden LAUNDRY related pieces on the deck today (in the morning sunshine) - vintage folding drying rack and ironing board.

Underside of the wooden ironing board.

The vintage wooden laundry tools are the lead-in to making a stenciled Laundry Sign.

Ordered the Laundry stencil in April from Mudderitaville and hung it up with all the other stencils.

Base painted several boards in April and then tax season and catching up on paperwork for 2018 became BIG and my creative time was usurped.

This week - time !

I started by laying the stencil on painted board, measuring so that it was centered on both sides and top and bottom. Taped the corners and began.

Here is a previous post on 'how to stencil'.

It is a good idea to clean up right after finishing - wash the brushes/dry, put supplies away.

Cleaning stencils after use:

This paragraph is from an earlier post:

Clean the used stencil with warm water, spray cleaner, gentle fingers, soft scrubber if necessary, rinse very well and many times. Gentle is good. Some of the stencil letter joins are very thin and care must be taken not to bend or break these joins. I recommend keeping your eyes on your fingers when cleaning.

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