Elements Of Style

Elements of Style by Erin Gates was a fun, lightly informative read.  I chose this book hoping to learn lots of tips for interior decorating that I could use in our new house.  I did learn a few tips (like a "rule" for how many patterns you should have in one room- which I've already forgotten.. one floral, one geometric..?, and that at least two legs of each piece of furniture should be on the rug in an area).  Her writing style was humorous and entertaining though, so I probably read the book a lot faster than if it really had been all about interior decorating tips.

2016 Book Count: 17

Front Yard Mulch Bed

This weekend was the first sunny, warm weekend we've had in quite a while.  Today Steven and I decided to take advantage of the great weather to spruce up a bed in the front yard.

BEFORE:  Overgrown, messy, weed-infested bed.  This was even after Steven started to rake out some of the weeds.

First we used a metal rake and a shovel to pull out as much grass and as many weeds as we could.  We used an empty recycling bin to cart the debris to a corner of the backyard.

Once most of the weeds were out, we rolled out landscaping fabric to cover the dirt.

We used metal landscape fabric pins to hold down the edges.

It took a lot more fabric than we expected...

Then we spread black mulch over the fabric.  This little area took 7 bags of mulch.  There were some stones left over from our walkway project that we used to outline part of the mulch bed.  We'll have to pick up some more to go all the way around, but it looks so much better than it used to!

AFTER: "Lush, black, smell-good mulch now covers the bed." (Steven)