Weekend Project

This past weekend, I did something I haven't done in years.
I had a sleepover! 
My bestie (and sister) lives in Concord, 
near Charlotte,
and we had a little project planned.

She's got the cutest lil' townhouse in a big subdivision.

Her backyard is more of a courtyard,

as she does not embrace her inner gardener.

Our job on Saturday was to refresh this walkway

(the grey slate stones are barely visible on the right).

One year, before we lived in NC,

we were up on vacation and staying with sister.

We actually put this pathway in for her during some down time.

Clearly, it needed some 

luv...

The weeds have been taking it over

and making it difficult to see the beautiful slate underneath.

These are but a fraction of the feed sacks I had on hand.

They have been used to make daisy totes,

but I have hung up my sewing needles for now,

so we found a new purpose for some of them.

It's all about usin' whatchya got.

The first task was to remove all of the slate

so that we started with a clear path.

Who needs the gym?

The feed sacks were overlapped to prevent weeds 

from growing back through the path.

These feed sacks are fairly thick and strong,

so we are hoping that weeds will not be able to find their way around them.

(We added weighted items to prevent the wind from disturbing them before the next step.)

A layer of brown paver sand was added on top of the sacks.

This provided a way to level out the walkway,

and acted as a base for the slate to nest into.

Using a rake and our hands,

we spread and smoothed the sand to cover the sacks.

The slate was then added right on top of the sand.

This time around, we left larger gaps between the stones.

The bonus in doing that meant that we have some leftover

for another project down the road.

The center part of this section was bermed with topsoil,

so that water will not collect in this area.

The dark topsoil was not covered in the brown sand.

After placing all of the slate on the pathway,

the grey paver sand was distributed over the stones.

We worked it in as best we could with a broom and a flat shovel.

The best tool for this job was a stiff broom,

which we didn't have on hand.

The grey paver sand also contained a lot of pebbles,

which helped to stabilize the walkway.

We raked the mulch up over the sides to cover any feed sacks that might be showing through.

Overall, it turned out better than we expected,

considering neither of us has much experience at this sort of thing.

The proof will be in the weed control it gives.

I'll be checking back with sister to see how good of a job it does.

If it works as well as I think it will,

we can start planning the next project!

"Real friendship, like real poetry,

is extremely rare-

and precious as a pearl."

~Tahar Ben Jelloun