If you could start over with a completely empty palette...

Badseed,
I just hope if and when you add on the 'master bedroom' is on the ground floor. You say:
"We do intend to add on after we sell the first house. We can add on a large family room and a master bedroom, turn the old living room into a new laundry room and bedroom and have 6 bedrooms."
Just keep your DH's future disabilities in mind NOW. If you can, make the doorways wider than 3' to accomodate a wheelchair. (What if one of those 6 kids breaks a leg? When I was 25 I got MS. God keep you safe from all bad things but you never know when someone's gonna fall off a horse or whatever.) It doesn't take away from anything inside to make it more accessible now, and it is really unbelievably hard to do it later. Speaking as one who has tried!

And did I hear you say that all of your six kids are girls? Aii-yi-yi-yi-yiiiiiii. [use Caribbean accent please.] We have three girls at home just now, one of his and two of mine! Oh boy! Well. good luck with everything!!!!

Carrie

See now I'd tackle plumbing before I'd touch electricity. If you make a mistake with plumbing, you get wet. You make a mistake with electricity, it can be fatal.

You know the old joke? What's black and crispy and hanging from the ceiling? A really bad electrician.

Just my cent and a half.

mg

Carrie, we plan to keep the house one floor living. :) Hubby knees are shot as it is and his back is not great either. As it is, we only have 3-4 steps to get in either the front or the back with no steps inside. It will stay that way. If we end up doing the house as I would like, the master bedroom, kitchen and living room would all be off the front entryway which would make life so much easier. We haven't really made any concrete plans as adding on is a bit outside of the priority plans but will be looking into it once this house sells.

Windy, nice to see you. :) I didn't start up next to the house because we plan to add on. Right now all my focus is on putting in holding beds just to get everything moved. We need to get our other house sold as soon as possible so I am trying to get everything I want off of that property, rearrange what I leave and finish up some improvements. I picked up some small shrub, mums, pansies, etc at Lowe's yesterday to fill in. I was counting on sun coleus and potato vines and other annuals as fillers but it looks like we are getting cold early this year. LOL Ain't that always the way??

I did go out and lay out two beds about 5x100 and have to run back out to have the dirt delivered. I guess I will call first and make sure it is not too wet again. Sigh! The plants that are potted can stay potted but I planned to just throw everything in plastic bags and run back up and plant them right away. It's pretty much the same with the pond. I can run up any time and throw the fish and water plants in it, but um, haven't run electricity to it for the pump yet. Sigh...

Well hello mg! Imagine seeing you here. :) Yeah, I will do minimal stuff on both electrical stuff and plumbing but I don't like to do anything with the potential to damage me or my house. LOL

Okay, if you all want to pray for some peace from stress right now, I'll take it! I am in shock, having just ordered 40 yards of dirt to be delivered tomorrow. Now I can start digging up the front yard.

I got the front rock wall cleared out, replanted and mulched between last night and this morning. Wow! It sure looks weird all nice and orderly. LOL

If the Michele can't go to the mountain, the mountain must come to Michele!

40 yards is a whole lot of dirt! Is it screened? When we had dirt hauled in last spring, we got it from a tree service and it was screened. That was the nicest dirt to play in, lol. Jenna made mud angels, sigh.

mg

It will be a custom mix of compost, manure, sand and topsoil. I found a guy, the only guy in town and he mixes to suit. Woo hoo! Delivery is a bit high, but the dirt costs 1/2 of what it does here. :)

Where do you look for that information about getting soil delivered.
I wanted to get some mulch from the feedmill, but one day I was there and a guy was complaining the stuff had termites in it. Darn! It would have been so neat to have a huge amount to mulch everything.
What does screend dirt mean? Last spring I made some seed balls and sifted my clay soil in an old flour sifter. I still have some left to make more for next year. It was fun making tiny mud pies.

Since I am new to the area, I asked the guy from the tool rental. He gave me the number and name of the dirt guy. :)

I want that dirt guy! LOL

Just catching up...Wow. :)

So the scoop to getting good dirt is word of mouth. LOL How far does he deliver. LOL Just kidding. I think I will rent one of those Lowe's delivery trucks and start emptying a mixture of sacks into it. Now that would get the police called quickly. Or maybe the men in white coats. LOL

LOL @ both of you. Windy, any landscaper should be able to bring you dirt. We have a company here that does that primarily but they also do landscaping and such. They always have all sorts of dirt on hand and will mix what you want. They also carry different types of gravel, rock, landscape timbers, railroad ties, etc. Unfortunately for the distance they would have had to deliver, they would have been about $400 more than the local guy. A lot of landscapers use what they call a triple mix which is a combination of top soil, compost and sand with variations being manure, vermiculite, etc. Since I am building up and not tilling it in, I asked for aged manure, sand, compost and topsoil. If you have a truck, you can get the broken bags cheap at the box stores and mix it yourself. They sell it by the bag or the skid. :)

I'm new here so tell me what eflowergarden is??


Lin

www.eflowergarden.com

Lin, if you go to www.eflowergarden.com, it is a website with really nice bulbs and more!

Well, I am headed to Uhaul for another small trailer, then off to see Henry10 to fill the Uhaul with cardboard. Then I am going to the other house, trunk loaded wth plants to find a loader waiting for me!! I quiver at the thought of big machinery!! LOL I get a day with no kids so hopefully I can make quick work of moving the clay then the good soil and voila, my front beds will be ready to plant!

So, now what I want to know.....who is not busy this weekend and wants to play "How quick can we plant how much?"!!

Hi Lin! Welcome to DG! Boy o boy, BadSeed, you do keep mighty busy!!!!!
xxx Carrie

This message was edited Oct 14, 2005 11:02 AM

Hey - that's Bleek's Company!! Yeah!! He will only send you the BEST!!

Thanks! I did go to the website and bookmarked it. ;)


Lin

I just went there too, but it wouldn't open! Courious.

Hi - just catching up on like, a YEAR of DG posts. I, too, am "just moving in." Litterally 4.7 acres of sage and rabbit brush covered sand - flatter than flat. We're starting with the "bones" of the garden -

The very first thing we put in was an 800 or so sq ft dog pen with dog house for the hundred pound "puppies" of ours - first line of defense against the garden pest known as canine gigantus.

The next thing we put in were trees. As a wind block, as something GREEN, and as something that will way out-live me. And, we happen to move in during the perfect time for fall plantings of austrian black pine, leyland cypress and american sweet gum. Oh, and they were on sale, so that helped. 10 trees - all shorter than me (& I ain't tall), but still, 10 lovely trees!

I meant to actually plant a planned out bed of spring bulbs to pretend I was gardening, but to date, only 50 daffodiles made it into the ground, and those just by the luck and chance that I dug a hole in a reasonable place to plant them while I was learning to drive a tractor. (My left leg is now two inches longer due to having to reach for the clutch!)

Next project on the list was to concrete a DMZ around the house to help foil scorpions and to also help keep sand from entering the house. We may be successful on the first point, but there may be no way to win the second one. (I'm good at lost causes, though, so I shall perservere.)

Next will be the fencing in of a garden area - my first real veggie producing place in 20 years that is bigger than 4 tomatoe plants! Don't know what I will do with the millions of cute little white field mice (kangaroo mice? they are white, have tuffs on their tails and move at 200 mph), but I can at least fence out the jack rabbits. I wanted to over plant the area with winter rye before it started getting too cold, but didn't make it. After reading some other forums, though, I think I'm going with raised beds - I think our sand + caliche will turn any "dug" beds into "bathtubs" as was described there. (We punched through the caliche for the trees - their holes drain wayyyy too well now!)

Plans for putting in an "orchard" in the spring (ok, I would think that an apple and a peach could qualify as an "orchard" if you have a good imagination, and I know you do, Michelle). Maybe some dogwoods - I'm thrilled to discover that there are some that are not phased by the cold. See, two dogwoods, a peach, and an apple, aranged in a square. Sounds like an orchard to me :-)

Trying to get a chicken pen and coop done before spring chickens. Cross fencing. Pond. I think I have enough projects on the Honey Do list to keep DH from going back to Iraq for at least 20 years - that's my plan, anyway! He so enjoyed going to summer camp as a contractor and supporting the troops summer before last that I almost feel guilty for plotting against his return to the Middle East. (He's a former USMarine, so his idea of summer camp and mine are TOTALLY different :-) If anyone else has ideas on what to add to the Honey Do list, I am open to suggestion!

Anyway, maybe these triggered some ideas for you, Michelle. Good luck & many blessings to everyone.

Hi Karla! It is so nice to have you back here at DG!

I have joked many times that the locals here must think I am nuts. :) Before we moved anything here, I rented and escavator and dug my pond. I had a nice sized pond (water garden) at my other house and figured it was a little large and daunting for the new homeowner so decided to relocate it to the new house. Before we moved a single thing into this house, I had a pond 10x15x4. LOL

Then we brought a 26 foot trailer full of stuff from the house. Then we ran back down and reloaded it with 26 feet of plants. Ahem. I have priorities you know! I had 60 yards of soil mixed to my specs and had it hauled in. I laid out two large areas in cardboard and had the dirt man cover them with the soil mix. I dug out mostly clay from the pond and it was used to raise the foundation around the house. I rented a front loader, moved all the clay, then put cardboard down the whole front of the house then around the pond and made gardens there as well.

We had a decent rain last night and I see that I have a nice lake for a side yard. I'm not sure whether I should sit down and cry or get a lawyer. I am thinking it over because once I decide I am good and mad, heads WILL roll. LOL

Shoot! I guess I will have to come back later. Hubby needs me to hold a light up so he can connect it. I do not do electricity. :)

Michelle, sounds like you will need to rent some equipment and install drains in the side yard. Just be glad it isn't in the house.

LOL Darius! I have a small problem in that the land is pretty much completely flat. Obviously there are low spots because that is where the water settles. I considered drain tiles, but nowhere to drain TO.

I have a picture in my head. I am thinking of having two seperate fenced areas for the critters. This would leave a small area for smaller critters and a large area for large critters. We would have to build a big barn for the big animals at the other side of the property. Not a big deal. Just more $$. LOL

If I go with this plan, I can dig a lake type area between the two animal areas, run all the drains to it. I guess it would just be empty part of the year. It WOULD solve my problem though.

The good side you might ask? It is not wet around the house which looks to be built 3+ cinder block high. I also moved all that clay up by the house and sloped it so that helps too.

The field is pretty dry except at the edge where all the ruts are from a tractor I guess. They are deep and annoying when you are on a mower. The spot I have planned for a whopping greenhouse or three (no time soon) looks pretty good. I was told that can be farmed. :)

Sounds like a "plan"!

Too bad you didn't put your pond on the side yard, but then, maybe it wouldn't be big enough for your "lake".

Wait, does the water from the newly dug pond stay in the pond? Because it sounds like this rain is gonna make your beds slide around. Am I wrong???? I hope so. Will the 'lake' have um, er sewage in it? Will that be a problem? It still sounds like an adventure!

xxxx, Carrie

Oddly enough, my original idea was to put my pond on the side. I am glad I did not. I keep fish and plants in it and have no idea what would have run into it or possibly caused the sides to collapse. :(

I had to pat myself on the back this morning when I saw all the water. I first laid out my two long beds longer than they were and noticed a low spot and decided to stop at 100 feet with the first bed and about 20' shorter with the second bed. The water is right at the ends! :)

I put all the railroad ties down today for my greenhouse, with the exception of the ones I need to cut. The last time I tried to use the chainsaw it wouldn't start. I am hoping it works better this time. As soon as I cut 2 of the ties down, I can put my base back together. I am waiting on a few roof pieces then I can complete my greenhouse. Yay!

Carrie, my pond is lined and holds water. :) Sewage in rain run off? We have septics out here, which are behind the house. My flooding is because of the big rain storm we had yesterday and last night and the water is in the front-side yard with some on the other side along the field. There are ditches up by the road but only for handling water from the road and I guess some people's yard. It won't help mine. LOL

Too bad you didn't have 6 boys to help out with all this labor! I used to be strong too but never strong enough to hoist railroad ties - you go girl! Then after I hurt my back trying to be Wonder Woman, I had to wait for someone else to do the heavy stuff - I hate waiting til DH gets in the mood to do something for me that I can't. Please be careful, once you have your back messed up, it will never be the same.

Well, you certainly had the deluge a couple days ago - good thing you saw all this now! It's great your beds are "just" long enough. Yay!

Badseed,
I was referring to this comment:
"I can dig a lake type area between the two animal areas, run all the drains to it." And I was wondering if the drains from the animal areas going to this lake-type area would contain animal waste. But all the better to plant there later, if it's well fertilized by then!

xxxx, Carrie

OH!! LOL

The front of the property would be forced to drain to the back. The animal stuff would not go into that 'lake'. It would just be to get the storm water out of the front yard. That is MY part of the yard. :) I get the front, the kids get the middle and the critters get the rear!

LOL, Chele, and DH goes next door???

Now what do you think the "man house" next to the barn is for??? :P

Is that the 60,000.00 man retreat???

THAT one is for the chickens silly! This one is rusted, busted, insulation coming out the sides, ceiling tiles dropping to the floor....Hubby said he wants it for an office. I cringe. LOL Since it falls between the chicken house and the greenhouse, I dubbed it the man house. ROTF

ROFL, wouldn't want to put the chickens at risk with rust and insulation problems.

I told DH his "office" will be in the garage when its finished and not even a picture of a golf club will be in there until it is completely finished. Ya know I usually feel really bad about tricking him into getting my way, but dang, this one was so easy.... I have this man so convinced I am unhappy about his choice in garages that I may get my greenhouse before the garage construction begins.

Man house.... just cant stop smiling about that one....

Sometimes we women just have to stand our ground, even if we are faking! LOL

"Man House" for the man sounds better than Henhouse!

If there are any real drainage ditches near, the farmers might know where the existing tile [large] is. That's if you have a persistant problem.

And at least your man isn't in the Dog House :-)

He gets his time in there too. :) Yesterday was the first time he did anything at the other house in quite some time! I *may* have mentioned that fact. hehehe

On a good note, his nephew is 1/2 owner of a small company. The do construction type things for homeowners and businesses. I asked him to meet me at the other house and give me an estimate. I am really wearing down. I can do all the work myself but hubby works seven days a week and there are only so many things I can do in a few hours a day before the kids get home or while they are with me on weekends. If the price is fair, he is hired! I have to say I am running down and am frustrated because I want to stop driving back and forth and doing stuff at the other house. I'm ready to start living in my new one. :)

chele, any normal person would be run down by now. I know you exhaust me when reading your posts.

I got to the same point you are when we moved into this house. I had some things still do for the old house to get on the moarket to help get a better price but there were so many thngs I wanted to do for my new home that I was excited about.

Try and breath and I hope DH's nephew comes to the resue and he is hired.