As one of my many home improvement projects I wanted to add a planter to my backyard. The main reason is to be able to have a nice looking yard and keep my dogs from digging it up. This was more of a week long project than a weekend but I think it came out really nice.

My Gardener leveled the area for me. He made much quicker work of it than I could have.

Then I had 153 wall bricks delivered. Mind you they are in the front and they need to be in the back.

The first row is started……

and finished.

I should be done but we decided we needed another row so I went to buy 40 more wall bricks.

Now to the building supply place for the soil. I had no idea how many trips I would have to make to get enough.

1000 pounds…….

2000 pounds…..per trip!

Turned out to be 5 trips. On the last day, I rented a U-Haul so I wouldn’t have to rush to get back to the building supply before they closed.

Thanks to the customer at home depot (watching me shake my head at the price of DIRT) I saved about $500 by going to the building supply place. “remember, I have no clue what I am doing when it comes to this stuff”

Now I have to get this…. to the back yard, so here we go.

Shoveling…….

and shoveling…….

and shoveling…….

and hauling…….

and dumping…….

and leveling…….

to get to this

all during the hottest week of the summer of 2010.
So I said to myself,
“Self, if you had some work lights, you could do this after dark……. Lo and behold

The husband came to help…..

The rotweillers came to help…..

The rotweillers wanted to play……

The rotweillers wanted to rest.
All to get to this.

P.S. Just kidding about the husband. I’d still be working on it if it hadn’t been for his help.

I decided I wanted a new desk with built in storage made from wood and glass.
First I went shopping for 2 file cabinets for the drawers and I found these oak file cabinets for $50 each

I searched online for ideas of how to get the most storage out of a small space. I also needed a large tempered glass top for a price that wouldn’t break the bank. I ended up on Craig’s list and I found a glass desk for $50. It was an L shaped desk with tempered glass. I was really surprised to find it has 1/4 thick, heavy glass. I would have paid more for the glass than the whole desk cost and I got 2 pieces. “JACKPOT!!!!” Here is one of the sections of the desk.

Next, I decided I wanted a bookshelf for storage and I also needed a section to store the tall thin things I had standing up against the wall. I got some wood and built those 2 parts. I had to cut an opening in the bottom part to access the phone jack. (Please excuse the mess)

So here it is all put together. I stink at getting the stain color to match, and as you can see I had to add my touch of red.

After I got it all put together, It was a little tall for me to use the keyboard and that white table underneath the glass was a visual disaster. Since I still had another piece of glass from the original desk, I decided to use it for a keyboard tray. I just had to figure out a way to attach it. Here is what I came up with. (The second stain color doesn’t match either. LOL!!

Last but not least, I added some photos to the side of the bookshelf.

Functionally, this desk is wonderful. There is lots of room on the desktop but it doesn’t take up much more floor space than my old desk did, so overall, I am pleased with the result. I’ll figure out what to do with the stain color later.

The Objective

I needed to make something tall enough to keep away from the dogs. I needed to have it close to the kitchen to make it easier to use the herbs and I needed it to be nice looking to go with my future “backyard beautification project. I finally decided on tall tables to hold the pots. I found the table tops at a yard sale. They were actually shelves from an Ikea wall unit. The price was 2 for $5.00. Added to that were 2 X 4′s from home depot for just a few more $$$$$. The other challenge was to make them level. That took a lot of sweat and persistence but I finally got the ground level under the legs.
I found the pots at the 99 cents only store for…..you guessed it. $0.99 each. Actual clay pots (not plastic).

First Step-The Tables

After I constructed the tables, I needed to make them weather proof. The test will be seeing how they look after a couple of winter rain storms. I used exterior paint on the table legs and put tile on the top. This is my first tile job and I think it looks pretty good for the first try. The tiles on the front and side edges form a ledge to keep the pots from sliding off of the table.

The Result

This is what I have so far. As you can see there is still work to do in my poor yard but I hope to be able to use it before summer ends

Preparing the Plants

Those $0.99 pots were quite a find. I could use a couple more but I’m afraid they will be gone when I have a chance to get back there. I tried to get a big variety of plants. Some of them I had never heard of. I also wanted plants that will have colored flowers so they can look nice outside of my kitchen window. I plan to decorate the pots eventually but that project is for another day.

I also need to know what I have out there. I still need to make a few more name tags.