Surest way to know I’ve hit the lottery: Every piece of yard maintenance equipment I own will be sitting curbside for the taking as I will never touch it again. If you know me in the real world, or even if you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you know how I loathe, hate and despise yard work.
I come by it honestly. When I was a kid, my grandfather (Young Tom) would always say that you should only do one thing with a yard – blacktop it and park on it. Technically, that’s two things but you get the idea. The older I get, the more sense that old man makes.
In one of the towns where I used to work back in my newspaper days, one of the local funeral home directors would spray paint the grass out front green every fall so it would stay that way until spring. This thought occurred to me over the weekend after I’d finished mowing and was thinking how fab it would be to be able to shellac the yard since it’s all cut and trimmed now. What a fantastic product that would be!
I guess that thought wasn’t too far from my mind when I saw this post by our friends over at Charles & Hudson. And what’s funnier still is that the mother had even quipped to me: “There’s always Astroturf,” when I suggested the shellac! And while this isn't that per se, it kind of is -- only on steroids.
I can’t see me shelling out thousands of dollars to replace fake grass that’s only going to last a few years. And especially not stuff that requires three inches of underlayment! No, not more digging after last year, thankuverymuch.
I guess I’ll just keep gritting my teeth and stick with my weekly mowing adventures. Unless I could hit Mega Millions or Powerball. They are both over $100M this week. To steal a line from Judy Tenuta: "It could happen."
A non-professional,faux home improvement blog dedicated to the insane yet diligent do-it-yourselfer,thoroughly peppered with random views and thoughts from me
7 comments:
I could kick myself for forgetting to play yesterday's Super Lotto. My greatest fear is that my numbers will come up without me.
Actually, we put in Synlawn on a small patch of our backyard. You can see a picture in this old post: http://redhillhouse.blogspot.com/2008/06/freds-before-and-after-contest.html
The artificial grass has its critics. I wouldn't use it in the front yard (though I've considered it)or in a big space but in this patch, the ground wouldn't grow anything we tried and it's easy to sweep up the mess left by the die off from the Angel Trumpet tree.
I once worked for a big corporation & one summer all the big wigs were coming fro out east to visit our regional office. We stood at the windows in amazed entertainment one afternoon when huge trucks arrived to paint the grass of the entire "campus." Now that I own a house, I *totally* understand. If Menards sold lawn paint by the spray can, I'd own it.
How about hiring someone to just cut the lawn, would that fit in your budget? Out in CA that used to cost $20 a week, here in RI it's $30. That price includes edging.
I took me awhile here to find someone dependable, but just not having cutting the grass hanging over my head each week is worth it. The rest of the yard stuff I mostly do myself, and that can be delayed since it's the grass that's the big unkemptness item..
I do maybe once or twice a year have someone do stuff like rototill the garden. I excuse it on the basis of my advanced creakiness :-)
Nicole,
I was laughing at this. Believe it or not when the front yard is finished there will not be one blade of grass. The husband never wants to cut the front yard ever again. a tree lawn okay, the front yard nope, never, no more, ever again.
Michele
Why -- That sounds awesome. Of course, if we put that stuff out there, the mother would insist on vacuuming it everyday.
Stucco -- I'm still thinking blacktop would be easier. :-)
KarenAnne -- You'd be lucky of finding a kid around here who would do it for under $50 and they'd still make a mess of it. Nope. Not in the budget this year. Putting too much money into ongoing projects. I keep saying one of these days though.
Michele -- Two thumbs up from me! I'm all about never mowing again. :-)
I think you might just as well install gravel instead of lawn. Santa Monica could try letting Nature's plants grow the way she intended ...
Kay -- Works for me! I had a friend who lived in Arizona for a while and I got the biggest kick out of her saying she had to "rake her rocks" as opposed to mowing a lawn. :-)
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