Backyards Are The Absolute Worst, Part II

To recap: Amanda and I are trying to fix our backyard, and I dug up some dirt and it was horrible and I whined a lot.

Since then we poured concrete, painted concrete, built a couple benches, and uh...that's...that's it.

I swear, it felt like a lot more got done.

I'm watching Horrible Bosses and I'm ah...distracted? Yeah, by a half naked Jennifer Aniston being really hot.

Aaaaand there she is telling me to get the hell back to work.

OK, we're gonna DO SOME THINGS!!!!

After clearing and leveling 12,000 sq ft of land (ugh fine, "12 ft of yard"), we moved on to the part where we mix and pour concrete. That involved mixing and...pouring. It should also have involved leveling and compacting gravel, maybe some measuring and marking, something involving string and short stakes, I think I've seen wood involved in some way...

We got a mold. That's about as far as we got.

The one in the top right... But only because we think it'll hide the inherent inconsistency of me trying to do something involving manual labor. (Photo courtesy of Quickrete.com)

Mix badly and with excessive amounts of water, carefully figure out where the mold should go in order to ensure alignment and maximize coverage/aesthetic appeal, then put it somewhere else, and shovel sloppy concrete into it.

I feel like Jennifer Aniston approves.

Fast forward, and we ended up with something that looks like a bunch of random stones strewn in a somewhat circular pattern. 

Heh, cool.

Concrete is ugly. Needs color.

Worked out OK. Grey and uneven, but OK. We could have added color while pouring, which would have made life really easy. Instead, we poured, then waited 30 days for the concrete to cure (whatever THAT means), and picked a color that we thought we could live with.

We bought 900lbs of concrete to do this. Amanda liked it so much she ordered 2 pallets more to do this:

Walkway. 

Painting. 

Done. Ish.

THAT...felt like a lot of work. OK, next up: Benches.

We set up old cabinets with some cushions to make benches in the backyard. It sounds ghetto and lame. It is. After a few months they were falling apart, and they became home to a colony of...something. Amanda had to kill them with a hammer. No, I am not making that up. I think they were aliens.

Probably the only time Donald Trump and I agree on something...

So, we need to tear that crap down and build actual benches. And in 1,378 convoluted steps, I can show you how we built...

A basic bench. Without a back or armrests, because those are hard.

Step 1: Check the fridge for beer. This will be important later, as it will be the only way you'll be able to emotionally cope with the trauma of stripped screws, warped boards, and sanding.

FUCK sanding.

Step 2: Measure things. Do a lot of math. Go to Home Depot. Redo a lot of math. Twice. Buy wood. If you're female and hot (looking at you, Amanda), have 17 dudes hit on you and offer to haul your wood home. If you're none of those things (hi, name's Brian) have absolutely no one offer to do anything. Instead, spend 45 minutes waiting for someone to cut wood for you at Home Depot. Do more math. Bring wood home.

Number of times hit on: 0

Step 3: Make a frame. Attach legs wrong. Ignore it. Benches are level enough.

Step 4: Beer. This will probably be step 5, too.

Steps 6-8. I'm KIDDING maybe.

I don't know why there's a kettlebell on the bench, but check out my sweet new hammer drill. I don't know what it does. I can only assume it transforms from a drill into a powered hammer which is then used to destroy home improvement project morale.

After what took "way longer" than initial estimates of "real quick," we finally have some benches. And I have upper respiratory problems.

Seriously. Fuck sanding.

Attach some hooks, tie the cushions on, and we have some actual, alien-free benches that are probably much safer to sit on.

Hammer and Hammer Drill showdown. Things were tense.

Pick heavy-ass benches up, sidestep dogpoop landmines, and replace crappy cabinet-benches with less crappy bench-benches.

I've been told replacing the table is next. I live in Oceanside. Please come save me.

Backyard fire pit sore back extravaganza part I

OK, so Amanda asked me to write the blog on our backyard project. This will probably be a mistake, and the last time she allows me to talk to you. Because I’m a terrible writer, and I’m drinking Maker’s 46 from a flask. Yes, a flask. I can’t decide if that makes me a 13 year old desperately trying to be cool, or an old, weathered cowboy who probably smells like horses and loneliness. Hemmingway did say “write drunk, edit sober.” Maybe it was Hemmingway. Twain? De Vries? Someone. Anyway…

We decided to install (is that the right word? Apply? Lay down? Drop?) some concrete pavers in our backyard because we have a lot of grass and we live in the desert. And California is in the middle of a drought. This is like, 3 levels of stupid already. We’re gonna add concrete, beer, and 80’s rock and see how many horrible mistakes we can make along the way.

So, to recap, this is the state we live in:

This is what we are desperately trying to keep alive:

And this is how successful we’ve been:

So, pretty good, if you asked me. No one asked me. Amanda insists it's terrible. Something about not liking our backyard looking like the surface of Mars. She also takes issue with our puppy eating dirt and digging holes. Maybe if she raised a dog and not a groundhog we wouldn't be having this problem. The part of me that likes to live dangerously told her that.  

She wasn't amused.

Fun fact: If you *think* astroturf will be an affordable alternative, you can go get an estimate done, and the number they give you will be so laughably enormous you will actually, seriously consider installing an irrigation system to pump water from the ocean directly into your yard. True story, maybe.

Solution: Tear up half of the yard, pour a bunch of concrete pavers, and then get the estimate redone and *hopefully* the number drops somewhere below NASA's annual budget. 

This is a really long-winded way of saying we decided to put in a walkway and set up a fire pit area. As it turns out, it's actually pretty easy...unless you want to do a good job. We were willing to settle for "OK." 

Based on my half-hearted research, which I squeezed in between reading articles on ISIS's inexorable advance across the Middle East, and looking at endearing pictures of cats falling off of things and being cute, laying concrete involves tearing up the sod, leveling the surface, laying an even layer of gravel, and...and...

Sorry. Got distracted.

Anyway, here's Amanda tearing up some sod:

Leila is there for moral support.

Here's the arsenal of things I don't know how to use:

900 lbs of concrete.

Stacks nicely. Are we done?

I guess not.

So, Amanda's friends - wonderful human beings that they are - decided to take her out for her birthday, leaving me to finish tearing up grass. How hard could it be? It's just grass. And I'm only taking out like, a couple inches of it. 

Oh my god, this is the most horrible thing I've ever done. 

Why is grass so heavy!?

Hank! Helping or hurting? We've talked about this. GO AWAY!

There is not enough beer in the world to soothe this kind of torture.

Once again, Hank, NOT helping.

Yes. I've decided I'm done.

Definitely done.

Ah....damn.

After 800 years of hard labor, I present to you: The saddest fire pit in the world. I guess I'm not done. Bummer. 

But I'm done for tonight, because this blogger site is starting to crap out on me and I'm the only one awake in the house. Even Leila, the perpetually amped up psychopuppy has decided it's time to call it a night. 

And she is much, much smarter than I am.