Who Needs Retaining Walls When You Have Rabbit Brush?

From the very first day, the front yard of La Casa Fickbonne has been less a yard and more a lesson in erosion. The only flat patch is to the side of the garden gate, which we naturally turned into a garden bed for the corn. (Some see “flat patch of yard,” I see “just enough room to fit another garden bed.”) Other than that it is a steep slope of dirt and weeds steadily sliding onto the sidewalk with every rainstorm.

A lot has changed since we took this photo 8 years ago…

Or at least it was.

Planting grass on the slope was out of the question. We live in a desert and we get charged for water. Grass is notoriously greedy for water. So we thought a retaining wall was the best way to go. After getting our first estimates of $4,000+… we decided to table the idea.

Then we fell head over heels in love with our landscape designer, Eryn Murphy. Her expertise is in using native plants and intuitive design to build landscaping that is sustainable, drought-resistant, and friendly to local fauna and pollinators. We started working with her two years ago on our backyard, and last summer we had her help us with the dreaded front yard slope.

The thing with landscaping is that you kind of have to let it mature to get results. Which is why the last two years I haven’t really shared any landscaping pictures here on the ole’ house blog. But I was cleaning up some fallen leaves and trimming our native grasses the other day and saw that all the lovely native plants Eryn helped us plant last year are popping up from their winter slumber! So I decided today’s the day to explain how we handled the dreaded front yard slope.

First things first, Eryn crafted a design for us that would incorporate water sources (i.e., gutters that drain onto the slope), blooming schedules (so everything doesn’t bloom all at once and then chill so our slope has a little color all summer long), and shade (the slope faces East).

We prepped the slope by ripping out as many of the weeds as possible and scattering some fresh homemade compost (of which we have gallons because I am obsessed with composting). We wanted a little bit of retention at the bottom of the slope to protect from erosion while the plants grew their roots, and also to give us a straight edge in the winter for shoveling against. So we used some old fence posts from our last fence repair to mark the edge of the sidewalk.

Then on The Hottest Day of the Year (or so it felt), we started digging holes and planting plantlings. Eryn had supplied us with tons of young asters, penstemon, rabbit brush, flax, grama, sideoats, sundrops, sage, winecups, pussytoes, and more. We tried to stick to her design, but toward the end we got slightly lazy and hot and just called some audibles on plant placement.

I laid down some insulating mulch to help with water retention and overall prettiness. Then we strategically placed a bunch of landscaping boulders I got for free on Craigslist. Note: people give away very heavy things for free all the time. You just have to be able to move them yourself. Thanks random Craigslist guy who let me drive into his backyard to collect all these boulders!

Aaaaaand then it snowed. Because Colorado. We lost maybe 30% of the young plants despite our efforts to cover the slope and insulate them. After that devastating blow, though, the plants took off! Here’s how one side of the slope looked at the end of summer when the plants had reached full maturity:

Pretty, right? And this year they’ll likely be even bigger now that they’ve had a whole year in the ground to grow their root systems and propagate. I specifically didn’t put down any landscaping fabric below the mulch because I need them to spread as much as possible. The bigger the plants’ root systems, the more erosion-proof the dreaded front yard slope.

To finish it all off, I placed some sandstone pavers at the top of the slope to lead from the front steps to my car. Since I regularly cut across that space anyway, I figured I’d make the path official.

Writing this post was my way of getting excited about gardening season. We’re SO CLOSE, but as it literally just snowed this morning (because Colorado), I’m going to have to resist for a few more weeks. I’ll post an update of all our native plants later this year when they’re all in bloom and surrounded by the buzzing of our honeybees and native pollinators. For now, I shall leave you with last year’s mini poppies… which were poppin’.

How Long Does It Take to Build a Pantry Door?

When we bought La Casa Fickbonne, it had kind of a crappy pantry. The door was clearly not original, and looked like it had already been shoddily repaired with some wood glue. Plus, there were no actual shelves in it—more of a narrow broom closet than a pantry. So we built some rudimentary shelves and went on with our lives.

A few years later, the dog broke into the pantry by simply nudging the part of the pantry door that had been glued in place. So we reglued it and added some nails for good measure. That fix lasted maaaaaaybe another year.

Finally, the pantry door was broken beyond repair. Filled with hubris, I crafted a brand new pantry door, complete with decorative trim. Before finishing it, I decided to fit it into the doorway.

Which is when I discovered I’d measured wrong and the door was almost a half inch too narrow for the doorjamb. Filled with frustration, I stuck a hook and eye closure on the damn thing and called it good… for the next four years.

The pantry door has been an eyesore and a source of frustration for all that time. If someone forgot to hook it closed, the dog easily broke in and ate tortillas by the dozen. Yet I hadn’t found the time to actually craft a working door that would fit the odd space and close on its own.

WE NEED A HERO DAD.

My dad taught me nearly everything I know about carpentry. Which is why when faced with a carpentry dilemma, I go to him for help. Do I feel guilty about putting him to work on a home improvement project every time he visits? Why no, I do not. Why do you ask? Are you suggesting my father would prefer to relax and see the sights when he’s in town instead of slaving away in my subpar wood shop with my subpar tools on whatever new project I demand of him? Shirley, you jest.

Dad was in town for a visit recently, and he helped me make a new pantry door, one that fit the space, that closed and locked on its own, and that actually looks pretty.

We got a piece of pine project panel large enough that when we cut it down to size, we could repurpose the discarded pieces as trim on the door to make it match the little cabinet above the pantry in the kitchen.

We repurposed the original hinges since they were already set into the frame. This meant chiseling out spaces for the hinges in the door itself.

Because the doorway is original to the house and not a standard size, the door would not swing closed all the way. So I got to learn a new woodworking technique! It’s known as making a chamfer. This is basically when you cut off a corner of a board at a 45 degree angle. In our case, it gave the door enough room to swing shut around the odd corners of the door frame. And all it took was a little careful cutting with the table saw. (Lots of table saw work in general here. On a related note, my table saw sucks.)

For the finishing touches, we glued and clamped the trim in place.

Then we added a sliding latch that looks nice and farmhousey, to match our overall aesthetic. When latched shut, it would take a whole team of dog scientists armed with opposable thumbs to open.

The pantry was officially pooch-proofed! And dad was allowed to rest while I cleaned up the tools and stained the door with Minwax Jacobean. My next step will be to sand and re-stain the cabinet door above the pantry and (eventually) to rebuild the shelves in the pantry to be a little nicer.

A job five years in the making. Now I can finally move on with my life without worrying about the dog breaking into the pantry every time we leave the house.