Greg's Veggie Garden

Yeesh, it’s really hard to settle into a completely new schedule!  I think about blogging all of the time and just can’t seem to find the time to sit down and write!

Our home office progress is moving along slowly but surely.  We got all of the bookshelf units up and I got all of the adjustable shelves cut and painted, but then found out that the middle ones are too short for the opening L.  Note to self: measure shelf width AFTER installing the base units.  So now I’ll just have to cut/paint new shelves.  I also have all of the crown molding painted and ready to go!  Hopefully we can get that up this weekend.

Greg has been busy in the veggie garden lately!  I am so glad he is consistent with taking care of it because everything would be dead in a week if it were left up to me.  Greg must have gotten his mother’s green thumb because he is a growing machine!  Some of our squash are coming in already, as well as the spinach and lettuce!  We had grilled chicken lettuce wraps the other night and they were delicious!  We are trying a couple of new things from last year… here’s everything we are growing this year and some pictures of the garden so far:

• Cherry tomatoes
• Roma tomatoes
• Pink tomatoes (so fun!)
• Potatoes
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers (new)
• Yellow squash
• Spaghetti squash
• Peas (new)
• Carrots
• Eggplant (new)
• Bell peppers
• Strawberries (new)
• Blueberries (new)
• Corn (new)
• Spinach (new)
• Romaine lettuce (new)
• Basil
• Oregano
• Mint
• Cilantro
• Dill

Fall Landscaping Spruce-up

We had a change of plans for the weekend.  I was supposed to finish my curtains for the family room, but the weather was just so gorgeous that I needed to be outside.  So we decided to make some updates to our landscaping.

My friend from work is a hard-core gardener and she recently gave me a bunch of iris plants so we decided to make use of them in a new bed on the side of our house.  We also added two rose bushes to this bed.  It looks pretty empty now, but I want to wait until the irises bloom in the spring to see what, if anything, we need to add to it.

The bed is a bit of a mess... we still have some cleaning up to do, but we were both too tired.

With all of the digging we did, we found a lot of rocks, which we are using to keep our mulch in place along the bed at the front of our house.  We got the idea from Our Home From Scratch.  I know a lot of us new home owners have a ton of rocks in the yard, so if you have the ambition to go around and pick them up, this is a functional and pretty way to put them to use.

We also got some mums and pumpkins for the front stoop and moved our planters to either side of the garage.  Our potato vine in those planters went crazy this summer.

And last but not least, we planted our first tree!  (It's actually our second tree, but we're not going to mention what happened to the first one.  Let's just say we hope this one has a better fate than that one did!).

It's a cherry tree, and the spot we chose is a bit sentimental to me.  My parents' house growing up had a cherry tree next to the driveway and it always made me so happy pulling up to the house when the flowers were blooming in the spring. 

I'm hoping we can plant one or two more trees this fall.  It's so bare around here!

Oh, one more thing... if you don't have a burning bush, you should get one.  The nursery dude wasn't kidding when he said it turns bright red in the fall.  It looks so cool!  It's my favorite plant we have so far.

Anyone else doing any landscaping updates?  I need ideas so I'd love to see what other people are doing.

Deck Price Breakdown

Okie dokie, it's time for the numbers!!!  Many people are curious as to how much we spent to build our deck (see the complete deck story here).  I was actually very curious myself because when I did research beforehand, there is very little information out there on the prices of decks.  Many of the construction forums I read say that this is because there are so many variables... i.e. two decks of the same size could be vastly different in price depending on shape, products, height, etc. 

Well I went ahead and calculated the price of all of our materials.  I also happen to have the prices from our supplier for some of the other types of composite material as well as your standard pressure treated wood, so I'll give you some info on that too.

First, a comparison of the type of decking we used (Timbertech XML), with one of the cheapest composites you can get (Trex Select), with regular old pressure treated wood.  I did not include the price for the drainage system supplies since I imagine most people will not need that.  I'll provide some info on that below. 

Here's a little summary of what you see in the breakdown below:  If you were to build our exact 480+ square foot, 6' high deck with the exact products we used, it would cost you about $11,750 in materials, which comes out to about $24 per square foot.  If you were to build our exact size/shape/height deck using the cheapest composite decking available, it would cost you about $9,500 in materials, which comes out to about $20 per sf.  If you were to build our exact size/shape/height deck using pressure treated wood, it would cost you about $6,300 in materials, which comes out to about $13 per sf.

Almost $12K for this beauty!

I have heard that one of the standard deck sizes that Ryan Homes offers is 10'x12'.  The materials for that size deck would be less than $2,400 for standard composite and less than $1,600 for wood.  It would probably be even lower since their decks have standard steps, if any.

All right, here is the math (this girl loves a good spreadsheet!):

		Deck Price Comparisons (480 sf deck)
		12" OC	12" OC	16" OC
		XML (Solid PVC)	Basic Composite	Pressure Treated Wood
1.	Footings	$1,750.00	$1,750.00	$1,750.00
2.	Framing Lumber	$1,050.00	$1,050.00	$787.50
3.	Screws, straps, etc	$100.00	$100.00	$100.00
4.	Deck Boards	$5,468.50	$3,252.00	$1,785.00
5.	Railings	$2,090.20	$2,090.20	$1,045.00
6.	Hidden fasteners	$497.50	$497.50	$0.00
7.	Deck screws	$80.00	$80.00	$120.00
8.	Lattice	$120.00	$120.00	$120.00
9.	Fascia	$100.00	$100.00	$100.00
10.	Concrete pad for steps	$500.00	$500.00	$500.00
	Price for our 480 sf Deck:	$11,756.20	$9,539.70	$6,307.50
	Price per Square Foot	$24.49	$19.87	$13.14
	Price for 10'x12' Deck	$2,939.05	$2,384.93	$1,576.88

Let me explain the breakdown...

1. The footings (we needed 15) and 18'x5' concrete pad at the bottom of our steps were done by a contractor (my cousin to be exact). 
2. We purchased the pressure treated framing lumber from Home Depot and this included everything we needed for the posts, beams, joists, stringers, ledger board as well as delivery.  You'll notice that the price for the wood deck is less.  The composite decking manufacturers suggest that you space your joists 12" on center with their products.  With wood, you can get away with 16" O.C., so I just multiplied the composite number by 0.75 (12/16).
3. Screws, straps, etc: I forgot to keep the receipts for all of the hardware we used for the framing, so I just threw a number in there... it wasn't significant.
4. The deck boards were obviously the most expensive aspect and this is also where you have the most options, so you can really keep your cost down by choosing a less expensive product. 
5. We used RDI Original vinyl railing systems.  In my estimate I assumed that if you were doing a wood deck, you would also use the wood railings.  The price for those is based on the quote we were given from our supplier as well.
6. The hidden fasteners are special screw systems which you use with "grooved" composite boards so that you don't see the screws in your deck.  It really does look awesome.  I did not include this in the wood deck option since this system is not available for regular pressure treated boards.
7. Deck screws: We still needed a bunch of regular deck screws for the steps, fascia and the edges where you couldn't use the hidden fasteners.
8. We used PVC lattice.  You can actually get the pattern in two different sizes and we opted for the smaller size so that you can't see under our deck as much.  Again, this was the more expensive option and regular wood lattice is significantly cheaper.
9. We also used PVC fascia (are you getting the idea that we don't plan on a lot of future maintenance??), but again going with the regular wood fascia will save you some money.

The drainage system for our deck cost just over $1,000, including the heavy duty plastic and 3" thick gravel that we laid on the ground under the deck. 

The one thing I did not include was the price of tools.  There are some pricey tools that are definitely required.   We were lucky that we either owned or were able to borrow everything we needed.

I hope this helped some people who are considering building a deck.  If you have any questions, leave a comment or shoot me an email and I'll try to answer as best I can!

Deck is Complete!!

Our bi-level, TimberTech XML, waterproof deck with "wedding cake steps" and storage underneath is finally completely finished!  I could not be happier with how the whole thing (especially the fancy steps) turned out. 

If you missed the journey of the deck, you can read all about the building process here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Sorry in advance for the barrage of photos... I'm a bit obsessed...

Tell me those steps aren't sexy!

Side view of the steps!

Now you see it...

Now you don't.

These next photos are not deck related, but this is the first time in my life that I have successfully grown something, so I have to share how great our flowers and veggie garden are doing...

The things in the middle are daisies and they are soooooo close to blooming!  That bright green stuff is potato vine and it's my new favorite plant.  The color just makes you smile :).

So pretty... I love bright colors!

Look how close the daisies are to blooming!!

Gregory watering the veggies!

We picked our first heads of broccoli yesterday and it was so good!

Potatoes!  Who knew potato stalks grew so big!

This has absolutely nothing to do with the deck, but I just thought it was cool that there's a beer named after me (which I am drinking as we speak :)).  And there's a tiny bit more of a peek at the family room progress.

I wish you could all come over to hang out on our deck and drink Colette beer!!

Update: A complete price breakdown of our deck can be found here.

Landscaping Upgrades

Greg and I took off from work last Friday (Greg's birthday!!) to do some landscaping.  Greg's mom came over and helped us too.  We went to a local nursery and picked up 3 leyland cypresses, one burning bush, one "fluffy evergreen" (that's a technical term), four bushes for the side of the house and an oak tree for the back yard.  We still have a long way to go, but even just these small upgrades made a big difference.

Before:


Before

 After:


After

We still need to plant some flowers and lay some fresh mulch, but I think we made good progress!  Just filling out some of the empty spaces and adding some different height bushes makes it look more interesting.  Next we want to do a big landscaped peninsula with a paver retaining wall on the right side of the house and an island with some more landscaping next to the driveway.  We are holding off on doing anything near the street until we find out what the deal is with the 10+ street trees we are supposed to be getting (long story :/).

Big thanks to my MIL for all of her help... we really put her to work!

 

Greg and Mom on his Birthday!

Happy Birthday Gregory!!!

Deck Update #6 - The Homestretch (plus sneak peek of the garden)

The deck is sooooo close to being finished!  We got the remainder of the railings up this past weekend and my "fancy steps" are about 3/4 of the way done.  I am lucky my dad loves a challenge because the wraparound/cascading steps are proving to be quite the design challenge.  There are a lot of geometry calculations and 3-dimensional thinking involved.  They are coming along great though!

Fancy steps being laid out for concrete landing pad.

Some custom stringers and Dad admiring his handy work.

First step is complete!

All of the railings are done!

Some temporary furniture.

Back view.

We also scored this sweet outdoor dining set from craigslist for half the price that it's going for at Target!  I'm so happy with it!  Now I just need to find a reasonable "conversation set" for the lower level.  We might just want until the end of the season to get something on clearance if I don't see anything on craigslist that I really like.

 

And finally some pictures of the veggie garden!  Greg assembled the boxes and built the fence about a month ago and we just planted our first crops: broccoli, potatoes and carrots (for Peter, of course).  This weekend we are going to plant peppers, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, eggplant, basil and citronella.  Greg is the champion of our garden... I can't even keep our houseplant alive.  I'm very excited to reap the benefits of his hard work though... There's nothing better than a fresh Jersey tomato straight off the vine!

Just need to finish painting and put the fancy tops of the last few posts.

French door gate!

Lots of room for veggies!

My lone contribution to the garden... painted rock identifiers.  :)

And... Greg and Dad finally got the riding mower working.  No more push mowing for Greg!!

 

Deck Update #5

We made a lot of progress last weekend!  We got all of the deck boards down on both levels, finished the steps between levels and started on the railings.  We're taking this weekend off, but I'm hoping we can get the rest of the railings done next weekend then the fascia the weekend after that.  Then all we will have left is the bottom steps, which are going to be the trickiest part of the deck.  We plan to add a patio in the next year or two, so we have to make sure we coordinate the bottom of our steps with our future patio as best we can. 

First railing up!

Beginning of the steps

We made the boards long and just cut off the excess after they were all down.

 

Dad trimming the boards.

My lovely husband!

Only one casualty so far... Greg hit his finger with a sledgehammer :(

Dad cutting some notches for around the posts.

Close up of the Timbertech concealed fasteners.

Greg would wack the boards into place....

...then I'd follow up and fasten them.

Close up of one of the post installations.

 

We are on the homestretch!!!