The ground was barren, except for the weeds and whatever trash had blown in that week. The doorbell button had become brittle and cracked into pieces. Even FedEx and UPS had given up ringing it. The Welcome mat was old and curling up. From first impressions, the place looked like an abandoned spook-house.
Today, I took on the 'easy' half, the half that doesn't have bushes and an old hose in the way. I put down weed cloth, red mulch, and simple wooden fencing. I also replaced the doorbell button with a pretty, lighted one. And yes, that's a new doormat. Total cost, two $2 bags of red mulch, $7 of fencing, a $5 doorbell button, a $5 bucket, and a $33 bolt of weed cloth. That's 54 bucks if I can add. The accountant in me begs to point out that this is a home improvement that does not (objectively) raise the value of my home, and is thus at least partly tax deductible.
Perhaps next week I'll do the other side, now that I know what I'm in for. I'll have to cut some bushes back (which I'm sure the neighbors on that side will appreciate) and probably throw away my aging, muddy garden hose and look into a nice hose-wheel to store the new one on.
I should add here, I also cleaned out the patio closet, which was until quite recently, home to a few spiders, American cockroaches, and silverfish. I used a 3000-square-foot bug bomb in a 12-square-foot closet, and laid down a line of blue boric acid dust outside the closet door to catch any refugees from the blast. It worked really really well. I cleaned that closet out and retrieved a desk from it that I had wanted for the Apple project. And what few critters survived, weren't doing well.
I surely could not sell the place until this stuff was done, so how bout a round of applause?
-Chris