Parts One and Two of Three of the Rain Barrel Project

While waiting for the roofers to repair my plumbing flanges, which will spawn my bathroom ceiling and wall repair, I got antsy and started my drainage fix. I call it the rain barrel project. Ultimately, I’ll have a Kentucky whiskey barrel turned rain barrel, but for now it’s part concrete, part flower bed.

The Problem
The problem was a pesky down spout. It empties at the front corner of my garage. More accurately, after fifteen years of rain, it drilled a hole clear to the base of the foundation. I needed to fill the hole and keep the water out. My solution is a little concrete, some flowers, and eventually the rain barrel. Not only do I solve the foundation problem, I get free water for the new flowers.

The problem patch. Note the down spout on the left.

Part One: Concrete
The area in question is a 4′ x 2.5′ patch of earth encased by the garage brick, driveway, and L-shaped front walk. Not much to work with and just enough to allow the water to cause a problem. I dug up the half closest to the house and repacked the dirt with an 8″ x 8″ tamper. The solid Alabama red clay is a very tough water barrier. Once firmly packed up to the bottom of the four-inch-thick walk, I poured in 160 pounds of Quikrete. Here are the results (Those aren’t worms, by the way. They’re immature pine cones):

After pouring concrete.

Part Two: The Flower Bed
I dug the remaining dirt down to fifteen inches being careful to leave that good solid clay on all sides. Then it was off to Lowe’s for some top soil, potting soil and a little color. Here’s a little tip. Holes are always bigger than they look, but math doesn’t lie. Measure the hole and calculate the volume so you don’t come home with too little soil. At 2.5 ft.², my hole needed just over 5 cubic feet of soil. Always buy a little extra to fill in as it settles.

I used a 3:2 ratio of top soil to potting soil. Since both are sold in 1 cubic foot bags, it was easy to decide how many bags to buy because I did the math before going to the store. I only wish I had remembered to take my wallet with me. I had to park the carts and zip home. For some reason, they won’t let you take it all home on a promise to return with the money.

With a few terracotta pots as place holders for the rain barrel, I’m 2/3 of the way to completion. I poked in some verbena, dahlia, columbine (red and purple), marigolds, petunias, and a few surprises for later. Here are the results so far. I didn’t get done in time to catch the sun for these pictures. Pardon my flash.

A long shot.

My place holder pots

Oh, pretty colors

I moved a couple of solar lights into the mix. They were previously in a spot that didn’t really get enough sun to power them. Next month, I’ll order the rain barrel and get some bed-edging to keep the soil from washing away. Yep, should have thought of that when I went back to get my wallet.

Before and After: The Addiciton Continues

The Lowe’s addiction is growing. I ruined a perfectly good massage with fix-it projects yesterday.

It started when my wife wanted a facial and hair cut. I knew I’d have time to kill so I scheduled a massage at the same time. I was done long before they even started talking about hair. I needed a hair cut too, but they couldn’t work me in. While she was getting the works, I had time to go down the road, get a cut, and pickup a few things a Lowe’s. Drain grate and elbow, check. One-hundred and sixty pounds of concrete mix, check. Soil tamper, check New light fixture for the dining room, check. New chair for the deck set, check.

After I pick up my gorgeously new bride, we still went for lunch at Terra Nova’s — great Italian food, by the way — and stopped at the grocery store for a prescription and a few items. By the time we returned home, the light was faded too much to tackle the light fixture replacement. The circuit it was on took out all the surrounding lights so I had to wait for a sunny day.

I figured there was just enough day left to do the drain replacement. I gathered the necessary tools and opened the garage. A roller fell off. I lost ten minutes of light fixing the door roller, but was undeterred. After just a little digging, the new grate was in place and tamped down solidly. Since I had all the digging tools at hand, I figured I could at least prepare the spot I wanted to concrete.

The digging went much more quickly than I planned and the next thing I knew I was mixing and pouring concrete. In case you’re wondering, two eighty-pound bags of concrete undo a $45 massage in about 10 minutes.

So it’s Easter and I barely rose from the bed. It took another trip to Lowe’s to get longer screws for the light fixture. The ones included were a 1/4″ too short. Here’s the before and after. Gone is the ugly, low hanging chandler. Now we have an out-of-the-way faux-Tiffany complete with CFL for power saving.

Before: the ugly chandelier

After: Cute Tiffany with CFL

Some one stop me, but not before I finish the project the concrete started. I’ll be putting in a rain-barrel and planting some flowers in the un-concreted area. Yeah, yeah, I’ll take pictures.

Before Spring Takes a Break

I wanted to grab some pictures showing what I’ve been up to lately before Spring takes a break. The forecast is for a low of 32°F Monday night. It may burn all my flowers. I wanted to capture them before the freeze.

The dogwood just bloomed a couple of days ago. The beautiful, striking white blossoms are one of the things that sold this house. We happened to be shopping for houses in April and this is what we saw. I’ve added everything but the azalea bushes to the base planting . I don’t think the tulips stand a chance tomorrow.

The azaleas in the back yard a bigger as you can see. The window boxes on the deck railing are new this year. I made two of each. Luckily, they’re easy to bring in. Making window boxes is incredible easy. You just have to be careful to get the root ball covered. These have really taken off.

I took an old bench that the kids used to arrange their stuffed animals on when they were little and coated it in poly-urethane to give all the pots a base. The pots are a mix of perennials and begonias

Looking back, I’ve spent a lot of time sprucing up my deck. I replaced to light fixture. The new light immediately attracted my new best moth friend. I wish I had a better camera that took decent close ups, but this is the best I could do. This moth is about 8″ long, brilliant green and has periwinkle and magenta outlines along its wings.

Hopefully, the cold snap won’t be bad enough to undo all my work, but if it is, I can do it all over again and still enjoy it. Happy almost Spring.