Hard Workin' Man - Gratitude Saturday

As I've mentioned, we (okay, mostly Trevor) have been working hard - when we can - on our yard. It's been a slow process but there's finally visible results.

Our deck now has a railing and I don't have a heart attack every time Sierra ventures onto the deck.

This particular railing was priced at $25/foot at the store. The store sells it completely prepped so putting it together and up would have been a breeze. Well, as you saw in the above picture we have quite a large deck. So Trevor and my dad put their heads together and came up with a way to bring the cost dramatically down. The main cost reducer is the way they did the spindles. They are made of painted electrical conduit (pipe) bought in 12 foot lengths, cut down, sanded and painted. A lot more work, yes, but we saved over half the original store cost and the look is basically the same.

Our enormous back yard - one corner! Last weekend Trevor and my dad worked on trenching the sprinkler lines in. Trevor's been working on running the hoses all week and is now assembling the heads and such. Once again saving cost by doing it ourselves.

I've grateful for a husband with a great work ethic and motivation so we can have some extras like underground sprinklers. Grass in two weeks???