Let's Talk Trash

Rebecca Peterson
by Rebecca Peterson
7 Materials
$12
4 Hours
Easy
I am a Type A personality kind of gal. Everything needs a place to live and that living space must be neat and make sense. I moved into my grandparents 1950s home and things just kind of stayed where they had for years. I am beyond grateful and ecstatic that I am living in our family home. Moving things around always seemed.....wrong. Granny and grandpa had these things set up this way for the best reason, even if it was unbeknownst to me. Well, I finally started changing things up slowly.

The trash bins were always placed behind the house and not the garage. As an adult now, I'm not really sure why? All I know is that I don't like it. In my humble opinion, behind the garage is a much better home. Out of sight, out of mind. It was now my mission to make a home for my lovely trash bins. The daunting task of how to do it weighed heavily on me. It had to look good, be budget friendly, and be doable for this single mother of two with only one set of working hands. So let the makeover begin!
The beginning
I started the project by cleaning all the brush from around the fence and back of garage. I then pulled up all the pavers. That was a daunting task but I was able to reuse. Free. YAY!! I'm sorry but I do not have pictures of the work in progress.


1. I measured out how big of a space I would need to house the trash bins.


2. I tried to level out the base dirt.


3. I poured the leveling sand. I took a 2x4 the length of the width of my work space. I put a level on the 2x4 and slowly started to level the surface area. I added more sand when needed. I leveled 2-3x until I was satisfied that I had a level area.


4. I layed newspaper all over the surface area. I did this because the newspaper will suffocate the grass and weeds that may try to come through. It will kill the grass and weeds and because it is biodegradable it will make clean up easier if and when I decide to do something different.


5. I started laying my pavers one at a time. Again, I used the level to ensure the paver was level. If more sand was needed I added more sand. I continued the process ensuring each paver was level with it's sister paver until all pavers were in place and level.


6. I then walked on the pavers to ensure there was no movement. Then I poured more sand over all the pavers to fill in the cracks to stop movement. I swept the sand to fill in every nook and cranny.


7. I put black fencing around the pavers and VOILA! Done.
That little triangle is there to hold the fence in place. I need to go buy another post.
Finished Home
I had my boys put the trash bins in their new home. This was the result. I have since turned them to have the lids facing forward and the large trash bin is now first. We add trash to that bin almost daily and the recycling bins gets filled 2-3x a week.
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3 of 6 questions
  • Dee Dee on May 03, 2019

    I am super impressed with how neat, clean, and attractive this turned out. Love love the black fence touch 👍🥰

  • Sabina Sabina on Jun 16, 2019

    what kind of soil do need for dessert roses in Florida

  • Mary Mary on Apr 25, 2020

    How did you clean up the rest of that messy side yard?

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  • RichandTammy Whiteside RichandTammy Whiteside on Apr 28, 2020

    Really, really like what you've done. You may have already done this but you may want to add a diverter to your downspout so that it doesn't undermine your work.


    We also own my grandparents home which is truly a blessing. Some of the things that our grandparents did which make no sense start to make sense when you look at it from a different point of view. For example, I couldn't figure out for the life of me why the boiler system and the hot water system are almost smack dab in the middle of the basement. One day while doing some plumbing work it hit me like a ton of bricks -- it's in the middle of the home giving almost every faucet in the house darned near instant hot water! I never doubted their intelligence but what my grandmother did when she designed this house blows me away to this day. She even went as far as to have all pipes ran to the garage in case she ever wanted to expand. Again seriously mind-blowing.

  • Rebecca Peterson Rebecca Peterson on Apr 29, 2020

    I couldn’t agree more. Living in a grandparents house is truly a blessing. I Love it!! I, also agree design practices while at first make you go....hmmm are practical and genius sometimes.


    Thank you for the suggestion on the down spout.

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