Are they closed? Now take a sniff....do you smell honeysuckle? I do.......or I will. I've gotten really involved in my landscaping plan. See I had to hurry up and submit a plan to our HOA since we've already started working on our yard. So excuse my grade school drawing....but it ain't rocket science.
As you can see I have plans for a simple backyard. This is what I want my HOA to think. Especially since the management for the HOA is in another state, I'm really not sweating it. But it's less drama if they know nothing about my actual plans. Arses!Let's start with all the things they DON'T know for my proposed backyard.
1. I'm building a stage in my backyard for this man.......so maybe he'll come serinade me to sleep every night.......
Hey, a girl can dream right? We'll leave it at that, otherwise The Man will take my laptop.Sorry, got off track.......When they built our house, the HOA requires the builder to put grass in the front yard and on any side yards of a corner lot. Which is how we ended up with a tiny patch of unfinished yard in the back. Trouble is, our house sat empty for six months before we bought it. Seems the people who actually designed it, lost their financing, hence it went on the market as a spec.
In that six months, it became hard, weedy nasty dirt. Great. So in our attempt to clean it up, we noticed that they had built burns (little hills people) all around the edge of the dirt pit. This was to keep the neighbor behind us (oh you remember the ghetto white trash right?) from flooding our yard. Since they violate the HOA and city rules and water their yard EVERY day, seven times a day. I counted.
After we pulled the burns down, we realized that our yard was horribly unlevel. Enter topsoil. Now we are at the top of a hill, happens when you build on the side of a mountain sometimes. So all of water drains into the southside neighbors yard. Not my problem. But we didn't want an
uneven ugly backyard. Therefore........
2. Log, see I added the log here but not of the version I sent to the HOA. I purchased a 14 ft log that is 4 ft in diameter. I promise we're not smoking crack over here..... instead of spending close to a $1000 to build a retaining wall in the middle of my yard, we're half burying this log. It will help us to keep 3/4 of the yard level while the other 1/4 will gently slope down towards our fence....water-into-neighbors yard......lol no seriously it'll go towards the street down the fenceline. I hope.
How much do you think I paid for that log? Yes, I paid for it, plus the delivery which will come next week.........
3. The noted 2 ft retaining wall will be made from pavers (thanks Lowes) and I've noted shrubs. Nope that baby will be filled with honeysuckle vines that I'll stake out and let grow up the fence. Hello darling......
4. The deck is another huge project but my goal is a built in natural gas grill with room for a mini-fridge and then planters on the sides. We're also doing beams on all corners to put on a slated tuscan style roof. But I ain't sharing that......they'll want me to pay for a license from the HOA. Greed money hungry idiots.
5. Fencing is a tricky one. They covenants say I have to do a funky line-of-sight thing because there is a stop sign in front of my house. So I have to stagger my fence along the side of my house all the way back to the end of my property line. Except, the house in the exact same position of mine a street over, didn't do it. I can surely use this as an excuse just to fence it normal? Right? Is that cheating?
So this is the beginning plans for our yard. We'll keep you posted as it comes along. I have a feeling this is gonna take us awhile.
