We spent Sunday morning working on the landscaping in the back yard, but before I go into details, lets quickly update work on the house itself.

First, the landscaping company has finished leveling out the south side yard. At the far end, you can no longer see the access pipes for the dry well since those have been cut to ground level. This area is not finished, because we will be adding hair cap moss to the center of the swale, but that has not arrived yet. Next up for the landscaping company is the septic system and front yard.

The driveway has been cleared of asphalt and gravel. Next week the grounding rods will be put in place under the driveway, and if they can get the resistance to ground low enough, they will then go ahead and pave the driveway.

In my last post, I showed a picture of the stairway to the basement, where they had removed the temporary stairs. Well, now the real stairs are in place, although they need to be finished so we are careful not to track dirt onto them.

Work continues on the finishing details in the living room. Here is the area that will have slats. The oak slats have been finished (separately) and will be installed soon. Meanwhile, the black backing fabric is in place as is the cherry edging (which you can see behind the plastic). You can also see the beginnings of the cove lighting where the wall and ceiling meet on the right side.

And in the laundry room, the platform on which the washer and dryer will sit, has been built. There are some pipes that come through the floor under this, but the main advantage of the platform is to raise the level of the washer and dryer doors (both front loading).

Now on to the landscaping and repurposed logs.

The plan for the backyard is to have a network of paths with native plants filling in the area between the paths. We are not allowed to have improved paths in the 50′ no-build zone near the wetlands. This means no paving stones, no gravel, no mulch, etc. That said, we do have permission to repurpose any downed wood on our property, and there is a lot of it. This morning, Daphne and I assembled our collection of logs and branches in paths as you can see in the following two pictures — the first picture looking southeast from the bottom of the stairs to the deck, and second picture looking north from the near the dry well.

Daphne also built a set of stairs using logs (that had been cut sometime in the past by the previous resident and left around). This goes up a particularly steep section of the north side of the backyard. That’s the backup generator you can see on the left side of this picture.

Finally, here is a picture of the waterfront past the silt barrier, with Daphne for scale. These paths go down to the boat launching area when the water is high, pretty much where Daphne is standing.

That’s all for now. Next week the builder gives us the latest completion date estimate. Fingers crossed.

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