Category Landscaping

Once the pool concrete pouring was done, the pool was fully usable but there was still more work to do. First, the fence had to be installed. I went with an aluminum fence in pre-fabricated sections, which made it easy to anchor into the concrete and install.

The end result looked really good, and fit with the aluminum railing style from the deck that went in last summer.

Once the fence was done, the pool cover was installed and I assembled some pool furniture. Given how far back ordered most higher end pool and patio furniture is, I went with what I was able to get from a local big box store, and it ended up looking pretty decent.

The current pool cover is a simple hand-cranked cover, but I wanted the option to install a powered cover in the future. To facilitate this, the electricians installed an outlet on the far side of the pool, that can power the cover as well as future lighting or other things that require electricity.

Lastly, I removed as many rocks from the dirt as I could, then hand tilled the dirt and planted some grass seed and threw down some hay over top of it. In the spring, we’ll do it properly and have top soil brought in and re-plant much of the grass, but I needed to get something growing before winter to help prevent erosion. It’s coming in fairly nicely, and will at least do the job until spring.

In the meantime, there are still three more weeks before we shut down the pool for winter, so my wife and I are trying to get as much use out of it as possible for as long as the weather cooperates!

While the pool was usable and very delightful after the initial installation, it obviously needed a concrete deck poured. I brought in Concrete Keith for the job, who had worked with me on the three season room and deck project last summer. He got to work pouring concrete, and the results were incredible. The first step was to pour a small ring of concrete around the pool, before pouring the rest of the deck and the stairs.

After that was done, he and his team poured and stamped the rest of the deck, along with a sloped walkway leading up to the pool from the hot tub area.

Now that the concrete is done, I have to wait a couple of weeks for it to fully cure on the inside before installing the railing and the pool cover, but until then there’s plenty of time to spend enjoying the pool!

In a previous post I mentioned plans for a pool in the summer of 2022. Now that the summer of 2022 is here, I’ve been hard at work coordinating the pool project. In addition to working with the pool builders, electricians, gas company, and concrete company, I had to have the land where the pool is going to go graded, so that rainwater will run around the pool and down the hill, and not cause problems. This ended up being a pretty dramatic amount of earth movement. The first step was to carve an entrance through the trees onto the property from Range Trail, which allowed the backhoes and other equipment to get to the pool area.

Once that was done, the workers were able to quickly remove trees and brush, and create a level space for the pool.

After the land was leveled, I needed to have the area surveyed and the property lines marked, obviously to make sure that the concrete around the pool and the railing were all on my side of the property line.

Once that was done, I was able to finalize plans for the pool and get permits in place with Dane County and the Town of Verona.

I worked with my concrete contractor (the same person who did the concrete for the three season room project last summer), and also got railing ordered and delivered to be installed around the pool.

Excavation for the pool itself starts on July 1st, and the majority of the construction will be done by the end of the following week!

Just like in previous years, an important part of my spring is opening up the lake house, getting the boat lift in the water and the boat on the lift, restocking the bar, and getting the lake house yard in gear for summer. The first thing I did was work on clearing the yard of weeds, and clearing bramble from the path down to the water.

I then shoveled sand and dirt that accumulated over the winter down around the dock deck and stairs, and made sure the dock was good to go for summer.

After that, I did some painting touch ups on the outside of the house, most notably the window frame from the window that was broken when the new roof was put on last fall.

After that, I restocked bar and tidied up the interior of the house.

Once the house was all set, I got the boat in the water and onto the boat lift, and with some help from my friend Bret got the lift awning in place.

After that, it was time to hit the tiki bar and party cove, and enjoy the summer on the water!

Once my spring landscaping tasks were done, there was a final bit of work I needed to do outside at the Verona house. Over time, a section of the wall had sagged a little bit, and needed to be fixed. To address this, I dug holes around the concrete footings for the posts, and then was able to tilt the posts forward back to a straight position. After this, I poured additional concrete around the footings to lock them into place.

It was a relatively simple fix, but it worked very well and, along with replacing a few post caps, brought the wall back into tip-top shape.

After finishing my spring cleaning tasks in March and early April, I returned from the Masters ready to start landscaping and getting the lawn back in shape. As usual, the first thing I did was haul several palettes of mulch, and replace all of the old mulch from last year in the various beds around the house.

After the mulch, I tore out the overgrown shrubs and bushes near the gate, since they had reached a point where they were becoming an eyesore. Eventually, I’ll replace them with new bushes, but for now it is nice just to have the gate and wall more visible.

Next, I installed a panel with my address number on one of the posts, which had been needed for years to help delivery and Uber drivers figure out which house was which on the private drive.

As the weather warmed up and felt more like spring, I planted new arbor vidae to replace a couple that had died over the winter, and I planted flowers in the platers on the front porch.

All that was left was the lawn, which proved relatively easy this year since there hadn’t been any major construction projects that tore it apart last year. I fertilized and mowed, and with a little bit of watering and a lot of spring rain, it came to life very nicely!

After the deck, three season room, and hot tub projects last summer, the next step in outdoor construction at the Verona house is going to be an in-ground pool. There will be concrete steps to walk up to where the pool will be from the hot tub area:

I’m working with Patio Pleasures, the same company that did the hot tub, and the pool itself is being built by Optimum Pools. It will be a 32×19 “free-form” pool (meaning kidney shaped), and will have a large concrete deck and fence around it. Here is a rendering of the structure:

And here are some photos of a (much smaller) version of the free-form pool from Optimum:

Construction is scheduled to start in June 2022! In the meantime, it’s still winter in Wisconsin so I’ll have to settle for enjoying the new hot tub.

While the deck and three season room project isn’t completely done, it’s definitely getting close. Over the past couple of weeks, the three season room has turned into an actual building, complete with windows, doors, siding, and a (mostly) done interior.

While the interior still needs trim, window casings, and some other minor touches, having the shiplap painted and the furniture plus other decor in place makes it feel like a pretty complete room.

I’ve also got the railing done, and the deck furniture set up.

We had a party last weekend, and our guests were able to use the space and enjoy it. The cats have also really enjoyed sitting out there and looking out the windows.

In August, I’ll wrap up the project with the new hot tub, new TV’s, the remaining trim work, and the outdoor kitchen. It will be a lot of fun to see the vision I had for this project during the winter fully realized!

As part of the massive deck and three season room construction project, I wanted to remove all of the existing pavers (including the walkway around the garage) and replace them with newly poured, stamped concrete. I was introduced to a contractor named Concrete Keith, and he and his team did a phenomenal job. First, they removed the pavers, along with bushes that were along the side of the house and were at the end of their life.

After that, they brought in dirt to change the slope of the hill so that water will run away from the house. Once that was done, they got to work pouring, stamping, and sealing the new concrete.

After the concrete was done, we brought in river rock to replace the rock that had been dug up along the side of the house. I also mulched along the other side of the walkway and put in a barrier between the grass and the mulch, and planted grass seed to replace some of the grass that had been torn up.

When I planned out the deck project, I hadn’t even considered what an amazing difference the new concrete would make. It’s truly transformed the side of the house, along with the upper and lower patios around the new deck!

Now that the landscaping situation at the Verona house is mostly under control for the summer, I’ve started tackling the lake house. I’m not trying to plant a lawn, but I wanted to beat back some of the ground cover, especially the poison ivy, that had taken over the areas around the house. The first step was to go crazy with a weed whacker, and then to blast everything with a combination of ground clear weed killer and anti poison ivy spray. Over a period of several weeks I did this multiple times, and it ended with the ground being mostly clear.

After that, I got to work laying down mulch around the walkways and planters, which both looks nice and also will hopefully help keep future ground cover growth at bay.

I took a break for a couple of weeks for a trip to Vegas and also worked on some other projects around the Verona house, but as we head into July I’m going to lay down more mulch and then plant some decorative bushes in the planters.