French Drain

I know I know...its not a whitty title or anything but cut me some slack I dont feel good and my creative juices never flow when my head is compromised!  Did anyone watch Fashion Star last night?  I love Orly she has the best ideas but I have to say Im very disappointed this week for what Saks did to her dress...what I loved was the pockets with the color pop and the dress slit with the color pop...both of those elements are missing from the production version!  What the heck!  And you can only buy the ugly orange!  Come on Saks...even the buyer said the color pops were awesome, get it together!

Ok rant over...until next week when they botch another design in production.  On to today's project which you can tell from the title is a French drain.  My husband finally made me a list of the materials he used so I can finally share that with you.  First, a back story.  You remember last year we made a beautiful backyard, and then the ugly summer came and went and we had no idea we had a bad drainage problem, you know lack of water can make you miss a few things.  Even when the rains of February came we didnt realize it at first because the ground was so dry it soaked up all the water as fast as it came down.  We were lucky enough though to get about a month of rain straight and we finally realized we had a pretty substantial drainage problem.  I didnt think to snap any pics but the whole side by the fence had pretty much constant standing water...even when the rest of the lawn seemed dry there was so much water there my dog could drink from it.  In the grand scheme of things we really dont have an earth shattering problem, it only becomes a problem if we dont want the plants to drown and since I dont, Joe came up with a solution.

 The above is pretty much what it looks like now, sans the green pipe, that went back to Ferguson.  Below is what we started with.  Oh and the gray stuff, thats concrete Joe put down for the lawn mower.  We dont have a huge garage so we are going to make a little len-to for the lawn mower to stay in the back yard and not get rusty.  More to come on that another day...like when we actually finish it :)

 So first things first was to lay out the pipe to get an idea of how much we actually needed and where to start digging.  Once we had that all mapped out, move the pipe back out of the way and start digging the trench.

 I tried to get a good shot of the trench but it seemed impossible but this is the best I have.  The trench was about 1 foot deep, which was just deep enough to get the pipe down there without it come out past the soil.

 Of course Oreo the constant helper...or napper...whichever way you look at it...dont know why dogs always have to sit in the dirty and get all nasty but whatever as long as he's happy.

 Ok the trench is dug and now we are fitting the drains.  You can see that here, and thats the green pipe, black drain and drain cover.  We put the pipe in place and figured out where we wanted the drains so make sure they were evenly spaced throughout the sidewalk.

 We took the pipe back out and laid down a weed blocker material so that all the dirt/mud wouldnt block the pipes.  You can see in some of the pictures that the pipes have holes in them.  We didnt do that to the pipe it came that way, thats how Joe was able to get such a good deal on them since it was a customer return.  Not everyone wants holes in their pipe so its hard to sell, but easy for us to get a discount.  The holes are really a bad thing either since we have a drainage problem this will just help soak up more water.  However, thats why we had to lay the weed blocker so that the mud wouldnt get in the holes and clog up the pipes...kinda defeats the purpose of the pipes are clogged :)

 Next piecing all the pipes together and then paying them in the ground.  When piecing the pipes together make sure you get them all the way in.  We had to use a hammer to make sure the pipes were all the way in, its about 4 inches they have before they cant go any further, thats how far you need to go to make sure you have a secure connection.

Below is after all the rocks were down and covered the pipe.  Joe still needs to spread them out to be a little more uniform, but thats simply cosmetic, all the hard labor is now complete yay!  You can see one of the drains in this picture too.

 But just incase here is a close up of the drain that is next to the herb garden.  It was dark outside so sorry for the blown out pictures.

Now for the nitty gritty...the materials we used:

• 60’ perforated 4” sdr35 pipe
• 1 – single inlet catch basin
• 2 – double inlet catch basin
• 3 – tops for catch basin
• 1 – Grid end-cap for 4” SDR35 pipe.
• 1 yard bull rock
• 1 roll weed blocker
• shovel, pipe cutter, Off (mosquitoes were off the chain crazy)

Total cost for everything was $200 so this wasnt a super cheap project but it needed to be done, and Joe did get too much material so he is taking that back today.  I have to say the most time consuming part of this project was just digging the trench.  Thankfully the ground is still soft from all the ran so it wasnt super hard to dig into.  Oh and in case you were wondering, the drain goes out to the edge of our property, out the back of the fence and spills out over the edge of the hill we are on top of.  Behind our backyard there is about a 4 foot drop just 1 foot away from our fence so that was the perfect spot to have the water spill out.

So there you have it...how to install a french drain.  Not as hard as you thought right!

Project Housewife Out!

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Fun in the Sun

I think I may be getting sick...but can you get sick from too much sun and mosquito bites?  I think I have about 20 mosquito bites yuck!  I love the weather right now but hate hate hate mosquitoes.  When I lived in Las Vegas that was the BEST thing about being there, hardly any bugs and especially no mosquitoes.  Those bugs were totally designed by satan himself, evil little creatures.  

In between swatting at mosquitoes and basking in the sun we (and I mean my husband) were able to get our yard looking like spring has sprung!  We planted an Orange tree that smells heavenly.  Did you know Orange trees have flowers, and those flowers smell an awful lot like jasmine?  I was so happy I had to get one, and BONUS...it will bear fruit one of these days!  So you cant really see it but the picture below is the Orange tree, its pretty small but dont worry it will get bigger!

 The best thing about spring is it tells you if a plant has lived through the drought and the winter.  My pecan tree was my biggest worry through the whole mess last year, and see above there is a green bud!  I have been watering it like crazy (see the water gator below, its a 10 gallon sack you fill with water and it drips out to water the tree), gave it miracle grow citrus tree food stakes and talk nice to it (totally works) and look its coming back!  I knew it loved me and wanted me to be happy :)

 Even the herbs are sprouting up, and we planted 2 tomato plants because they smell good too and you can always use some tomatoes around the house!  We also make salsa and home made pasta sauce so it will come in handy fo' sho'!

 See the basil!  It was the fastest to come up and there is a lot of it there...I cant wait for it to get more mature.

 Another big YAY from last year is my strawberry patch.  Its a little overgrown because Joe thought these were weeds, thank goodness i stopped him before he started yanking because I have strawberries growing!!  We planted these from little seedlings we got from walmart and I really only expected like 1/2 to survive, but all of them are flowering and have fruit growing.  Really surprised and happy about that!

 See this strawberry plant has some baby strawberries and the pretty flowers growing, so happy to have my own strawberries, they are so tasty.

 And who could forget the front of the house!  We planted 2 yellow rose bushes (yellow rose of Texas anyone?!) and white plant that I dont know what it is but hey it was pretty and a smller multi colored flower thing.  Yes thats the technical name, you can google it! (please dont its not really real I was just kidding!).

All in all I only had 5 plants die from the drought, 3 of which were $5 berry plants from walmart that I kinda thought would die anyway.  The other 2 were a tragedy because they were pretty and purple but I cant find them this spring so we replaced them with a bottle brush plant which I will share pictures of tomorrow.

Im so happy spring is here and even more happy that I can now sit under this beautiful umbrella more now that its a little warmer.  It was dusk and hard to get a great picture but the shape of this umbrella caught my eye and cherry on top the pattern is amazing.  It makes me do a happy dance whenever I see it open :)

Project Housewife Out!

Herb Garden Finale

This morning is not a good morning.  You know those morning when you wake up confused because you thought it was Saturday  but your alarm is going off so you should probably get up only to realize its really Monday and booo the weekend is over and you do have to go to work.  Ugh that was this morning.  Nothing is worse than thinking its Saturday when its really Monday.

Other than having a SERIOUS case of the Mondays...I get to share the epic conclusion of the Herb Garden saga with you.  Ok so its not really epic and it wasnt a saga but it just sounds better that way!  To see how to build the garden check out part 1 here.  To see how we waterproofed the garden check out part 2 here.  All the hard work is done now its time to have a little fun!

At Home Depot they had a pretty good selection of potted herbs and herb seed packets.  Ultimately we choose to do the seeds because the seed packets were only $1 whereas the potted herbs were $4.  What we decided would be best is using a pot to contain each herb but cut the bottom out of the pot so they roots can grow with no problems. Each pot cost $1 each and we bought 8 total, so for all the seeds and the pots we spent $16

To cut the bottoms out just get a knife and start slicing...it takes about 2 seconds.

Pots are prepped now we need to prep the box.  First we drilled holes in the box so any water can drain out the bottom and not just sit and fester and become a gross breeding ground for mosquitoes.  We live in Texas so thats a real concern, those bugs are straight from Satan...if you have never been bitten consider yourself the luckiest person in the world.  Here is what the drilled holes looks like.

My hubs works at a plumbing supplier so he brought home some heavy duty shower curtain material to keep the box from excess water damage.  We did waterproof the bottom of the box but since this is the area that will have the most water contact much more frequently than the rest he thought it would be a good idea to take an extra precaution as well.  This material cost $15











We used a staple gun to attach it to the box.  It doesnt look pretty but it will get the job done!

Now we can add the mulch!  We bought compost, garden soil and potting soil so the plants could have a good mix of nutrients.  We actually lucked out and were able to get 3 bags of garden soil at 50% off because we bought bags that had been ripped yay!  For all the bags you see below the cost was $35

After we moved all the mulch and the box to the backyard and the box was in place, we dumped all the bags into the box and mixed it all up.  With gloves of course compost is nasty.

After the soil was added we put the pots in also and put some more soil in the pots.

Save the best for last and thats adding the seeds.  Read the back of the packet to make sure you are planting them at the right depth, each seed is different.  Also as a side note, I have seen many people posting that you need to start them inside.  I didnt see those until after I planted my seeds, but I have to tell you Im not sure it makes a difference.  I already see the Basil and Dill sprouting and its only been 1 week.  So you can start these inside if you want but I didnt and its turing out ok for me.

And there you have it, easy peasy!  I will post again once you can see the herb sprouting, it should be pretty cool to see what happens with this!  Oh and total cost for this project was:

Herbs $8

Pots $8

Soil $35

Plastic Shower Cutrain $15

Waterproofing Paint $25

Total $91

Not bad all in all...if your building a smaller container than Im sure your soil wont be as expensive as ours, we had to put 5 bags.

I hope you enjoyed making an herb garden...I pesonally cant wait until Im using fresh herbs in my food rather than all the dried stuff I use now!

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Have you Herb?

I have been wanting to plant a herb garden for a while.  #1 fresh herbs get expensive, #2 if you dont use them they go bad and you wasted the money #3 they look and smell nice in the backyard.  When I was growing up we used to have a vegetable garden and I really liked having it there.  Of course my mom did most of the work but I liked going in there seeing everything growing and smelling all the fresh veggies.  My backyard now isnt big enough for all that but I would love to do a herb garden of sorts.  Enter Pinterest.  If you arent hooked on pinterest already WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!  Im just kidding, but seriously I do find some great inspiration there...and a lot of recipes...mostly recipes to be honest but I have found some great crafts and home improvement ideas from there.  Today Im going to show you some of the pinterest herb garden ideas I have pinned because Im trying to figure out what I for sure want to do back there...suggestions are totally appreciated!

This first one I thought was an easy project, you can see the site here

I thought the use of pots here was really cute and seperated the herbs well.  See the site here

I liked this one because it was in the ground, but the pots keeps them from spreading out.  No source here.

This one I loved because of the wine barrel, a really unique look that you dont see everywhere...now if only I could find a wine barrel.  You can see the site here.

So what do you think?  Which one would you do?  They are all such great ideas I am having a hard time making up mind!

Project Housewife Out!