{the great landscaping day}

a.k.a. the day that never ended.

On Thursday night {after a quick 3 hour trip to Brooklyn}, my mom, sister & I all headed down to our beach house. We have guests who are using the house next week, so we needed to get it ready for them. But the main reason we went there was to landscape the driveway.

Here are some before pictures:

{view looking towards the beach} 

{wider shot} 

{view towards the main road}

It just looked drabby & unkept. Our neighbors are big gardeners, so we needed to spruce our place up. It looked messy next to their yard.

Last weekend, my mom & stepdad ordered 3 TONS of stone to be delivered Friday morning. The delivery was two hours late, but once the truck arrived, we got right to work.

In the picture above, the pile looks small, but ohmygod is was SO big.

The first thing we did was line the old mulch with a row of the largest rocks.

Even after one row of rocks, the pile looked the exact same size. No joke.

This took about an hour for 2 reasons: trying to dig through the pile to find the biggest ones, & my mom rearranging every rock my sister & I put down ;)  The rocks were also super heavy, so we could only carry one or two at a time.

After this was finished, we headed to Home Depot for a break & to get some mulch. And when I say "some" I mean 40 bags. We filled up both our cars.

{see the other car in the background?}

Once we got home, we laid down the bags on top of the old mulch.

We had an assembly-line of sorts going on. I sliced open the bags, my sister dumped the mulch out, & my mom raked to make it level.

After all the mulch was poured & laid out, we put another row of rocks behind the first. Then we did a third row on top.

Can you see in this picture how--even after three rows of stones--there is still a pile of rocks?? It was seriously NEVER ENDING!!

Since we had so many left over, as well as extra mulch, we decided to do the front part of the driveway & this little area as well:

We loaded the rest of the pile into a wheelbarrow & dumped them behind the house. We'll think of something to do with them later.

Ready to see the finished product?

Here are some before & afters:

Makes SUCH a difference! And if I may say so myself, it looks professional :)

{Someone at Home Depot actually came up to me & asked if I worked there. I took it as a compliment for looking like I knew what I was doing. I didn't.}

Somehow we all made it out without getting any poison ivy, which we found hidden in some plants. We also narrowly avoided a few injuries; laziness & exhaustion set in during hour 4, so we began throwing the heavy stone instead of lifting & placing them gently. Not a great idea ;)

We were literally outside from 9-5 on Friday, & 11-2 on Saturday. It was a lot of work, but it was a great way to spend Mother's Day weekend with our mom! :)