Remember our original space plan? Well, as these months have been a-draggin’, we’ve been a-thinkin’. We initially wanted to build this:
photo: Western Interiors
Now we’ve fallen in love with this:

Yeah. I know. Our yard. We love the straw bales. We love the warmth and the smell. We love that we can circle ‘um up for a [...]

Sweet relief. Cue the victory music. Walk with me, will you?
After closing on TheLOH at the end of April 2009, demolition on the Upper Yard began in June.
From the concrete sea…

…to the first ceremonial swing of the sledgehammer…

…to the smashing…

…and smashing (and smashing and smashing and smashing)…

…and the hauling (and hauling and hauling and hauling).

Remember [...]

Remember this stem wall that we found? It predates the homes on the block (pre-1925) and extends about 9 feet, across property lines, to – oh – infinity and beyond? Don’t know or care.

Well, it was too thick and well made (reinforced with rebar throughout) for the 8 pound sledgehammer. Enter Jack.

A quick trip to [...]

The trees must come down. “Tree of Heaven” they are called, but they stink like hell. The leaves smell like a garbage can. Before you jump on this green gal for chopping down trees, let me remind you that we call this lil’ casa The Little Orchard House. At this point, the plan is to [...]

We’ve been rained out here at TheLOH for the past week, so now that sun has returned to us, I can resume bushwhackin’. What buried treasure will I find today?
Witness the monotony of these last days:

While we continue bushwhackin’ in the Lower Garden & Orchard, these are the things that we have to get done before we start building our lounge/fire pit area:
- bring 1 more load of scrap metal
- cut back bougainvillea
- till & tamp the land
- design and install drainage
- finalize lounge/fire pit area design
- measure & spray [...]

So you may remember that underneath the concrete yard we found a 2nd layer. No biggie, as concrete layer #2 was about 40 square feet of patio stones. Then the plot thickened. We found layers #3 and #4 of thick poured concrete. At the end of The Concrete Saga we were left with this:

A stem [...]

… that shall remain a mystery no longer. Do any of these look familiar to you? What are they? And – bonus question – will African Pygmy goats or Nigerian Dwarf goats eat them?
Mystery plant #1 – a vine:

Mystery plant #2 – another vine:

Mystery plant #3 – a grass:

Mystery plant #4 – another grass (or [...]

I hadn’t yet posted a full set of before pics, so here goes. Ready yourself for thoughts/emotions somewhere within the underwhelmed-to-horrified spectrum. Nighttime viewing is not recommended. If it gets too intense, please, just look away and think of puppies. I want you to have a happy New Year.
Let’s start with the heart of the [...]

Sweet relief! Bear of a task, we have taken you down!
Check out the first seven posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.
See where this whole project is heading here.
My back healed up and we were able to take the last of the rubble out to the dump today. Turned out to be only [...]