Lose a Trampoline, Gain a Shed!

Mark bought himself a new car, a Mazda 6. The one you see pictured here looks exactly like the one he bought. He's pretty proud of it. He loves to research buys, so I think he ended up getting just the car he wants. The main criteria for the new car was sporty looks (yes, this is true), good gas mileage, and room for three to sit comfortably in the back. Everyone in the family gave this the thumbs up. We've already all driven in it as a family, and there was a lot less fighting with the extra three inches between each person. It's a modern miracle!
Of course, in order to park the car in our garage, we had to get a shed. So, I've spent a while (with help from everyone) preparing the site of our old trampoline for a new shed. This did involve laying pavers as well--but I'm an old pro after last year's mammoth paver laying project. Here is the new shed below. These are not the right doors (they are only 5' 10" tall!), but they will be bringing out the correct doors on Tuesday.

As you can see, there was just enough room to squeeze it in the spot--there is only 6 inches between the southwest corner and the back of the fence (Oh, the joys of an odd-shaped lot)! We choose this funky saltbox style so Mark would have a lot of headroom--the other choices either don't have as high a roof or are too tall. We also picked a very light color to keep the heat down--we didn't even try to match our house except for the gray colors.

Some of the new paving I (and Mike) have put it. This part is all finished except for putting gravel in the sprinkler area that I couldn't cover over.

This is along the side -- still a little work to do here. And the whole thing needs sand swept in. I put this fifty inch walkway here so that the shed wouldn't shade my garden too much (the shed is on the South side).

Update on the Paving Project

Well, I'm very close to being done with this little project. It is looking pretty good, if you ask me. I get up every morning at about 6:30 and work on it after I run until it gets too hot.

Getting closer to the finish line!

All of these corners make for some tricky paver laying

The old stepping stones moved down by the trampoline

Part of this project involves moving three large compost bins

The last part to go

Sand, sand, and more sand

Projects

Well, the big project this year is paving the garden paths:

Yes, it really has looked like this for a year.

As you can see, this is a pretty messy and ugly project while it is going on. We actually dug up all of this last year to lay in the sprinkler lines, and it was a muddy, weedy mess all summer.