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Previously on the backyard build. Today we are building Facebook Marketplace fencing. Wham bam. So I got it on marketplace. All of this for $300, which was such a steal. It is what it is. It’s wham bam baby. Just the little things. Egg. Oh my gosh. That worked out perfectly. Look at them. I feel like this is the biggest difference from like start to finish. Look at Aggie sitting in his little pen. I’m a chicken. Maybe I’ll start over here. You start over there. We’ll meet in the middle. Yep. [Music] I can’t even describe the feeling of touching this soil with my fingers and just feeling it. I love it. Yum, babe. Especially cuz it’s a little bit wet, too. Oh, get it in there. And I just feel it on my fingers. Mush it up, babe. Wow, that looks phenomenal. A little more full. Oh my gosh, look at the leaves falling. I know. Time is a ticking. Let’s just sit here for a little longer. We’re running out of time. Let’s just relax. Welcome to episode 13. Is it 13? Wait, 10 was the greenhouse part one? Maybe part two was 11. It’s episode 13. It’s episode 13. Okay. Welcome to episode 13 of the backyard build. 13 is also Taylor Swift’s favorite number. And Taylor, if you’re watching, congratulations on your engagement. And if you’d like to have your wedding in our backyard, feel free. Yes, anytime. We won’t charge you very much. We’ll give you a discounted rate. Unfortunately, we have some bad news. It’s just unfortunately for us. It’s not even unfortunately for them. What’s the bad news? We did things a little out of order knowingly and it made things a little more complicated now. Yeah, we never trenched or did any electrical ran anything ahead of time because we just wanted to keep moving forward. Today we get to trench for the electrical for the pond and just some outlets for outside lighting and stuff. Yes, I should have done that before we did the interlock. It could have trenched it nice easy as it was all excavated. could have just dropped the conduit in and done it. Then it it doesn’t really make things a lot harder. It’s just you have to be more careful. Like you can’t just dig a straight line where you wanted. You kind of have to work around this. Which that’s fine because if it happens all the time like if there’s an existing space and you want to add electrical, it’s the same thing. It’s like in 5 years if if this was here and we wanted to add a pond, we would have had to do the same thing like if next year. Right. Right. So, no, it’s not it’s not the end of the world. I knew in the back of my mind, I have to get to it. I have to get to it. Will it make it a little more difficult? A little bit. But I just wanted to get all of this stuff done and out of the way. Yeah. Because if you think about it, episode one was digging. And the reality of this project, if it wasn’t being documented, would have been a whole lot more digging than what we did in just that episode. But in order to keep it entertaining for you and not bore you to death, we skipped over some of the digging. But now we have to dig again. But going off of that, we did share a little preview on Andrew’s channel. Allow me to show you. Boom. Just like that, you can see we have the start of our pond. It’s a nice shape. Yes, it is. If you guys want to see that little fun bonus video, check it out on Andrew’s channel. We’re trying to share more of the little bonus footage, extra stuff that you guys don’t usually get to see on his channel. So, make sure you subscribe and we’re going to get right down to it today. So, we’re going to start trenching. We need to run electrical from our main panel in our house over to the greenhouse for a sub panel, which will distribute power to different plugs for the pond, landscape lighting, things like that. On an angle, I’m going to shoot from the grass there across and run it behind the greenhouse. And then I also have to cut the driveway, but I don’t have the saw right now. So, we’re going to focus on cutting this. It has to be 18 in deep here, but on the driveway, it has to be 2 ft deep for to meet code. Um, it only has to be about like 4 to 6 in wide because you have to drop the conduit in. So, I figured we’ll just use this to dig it. Why? You’re not serious. I don’t want to use a whole shovel because then it’s going to be like a foot wide. I think if and it’ll be easier. We won’t hit as many rocks, babe. cuz I’ll break it up with the pickaxe and then you just have to be on your hands and look. Literally just go like this. I genuinely can’t tell if you’re serious. You want to do this on our hands and knees? Yeah. It’s like 100 ft. That’s okay. It’ll be so fast with this. It’ll be faster with this than a shovel cuz you can literally sit on your butt and do like a foot deep and just keep scooting along. You can’t be serious. That’s what we have to do. I’m not overdigging it. There’s going to be way too much dirt that comes out. Babe, I can’t I genuinely can’t tell if you’re being serious cuz I have Why would I joke about that? I have a newer one of this like a one in better quality. I’ll You can use the newer one. I’ll use that one. We’re going to edge it first. I’ll set up a straight line and that’s it. We just got to put our heads down and work. Okay, I’m joking. Babe, I’m going to set up a string and you’re going to edge and I’m going to start digging. What am I going to do? You’re going to edge and I’m going to start digging. Okay, maybe we’ll just cut the driveway like this. We’ll have to dig that out if we want to get it right to there and dig that out. Is that okay? I do want this to be more garden. I always I want less. So, we can just cut that out then. Yeah. Okay. So, if we just trench to here. Okay, babe. Okay. Shout out to the individual who commented on our first episode. Literally like the fifth comment that came in was somebody saying, “Do your trenching now.” See, while you’re still doing up your backyard, cuz we did read that comment, but we didn’t listen. So, babe, that was so cartoon of you. Was it? Yeah. I was giving Scooby-Doo. So, I just have to edge it and you’re going to do the thing. But we have to go 18 in deep. That’s pretty deep. Yeah. A foot and a half. Just think, remember when we did the pool plumbing? Yeah. We went like a foot and a half all the way around the pool in no time. It was just Do you want me to just spray it and you Cuz No. Or you know, you know what you’re going to do? You’re going to edge on either side of it like this. Like boom boom boom boom. because then I can take the grass out. So, just cut it straight down. Don’t you don’t have to go on an angle. You freaking would suggest doubling it up. [Music] Just rent a trench or No, that’s too easy. Do you want to rent a trencher? How much are they? I don’t know. I could look. Maybe. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to to do a quick Google. I’ll look cuz I don’t want to wear you out either. I need to think about that. Dave, that is I’ll do this all day. I don’t care. I love it. But you’re different than I am. Yeah. So, I need to look out for the two of us as a group. One hand. So, there’s an 18-in walkbehind trencher. Yeah. 170 bucks. So, if we went and got it, we could trench this. I don’t know. We’d still We’d have to move that flag stone. Yeah, we could trench to the corner and then I think we would just have to do a little bit by hand behind the greenhouse. Okay. What do you think? 170 does seem steep. It seems kind of high. I guess I’ll just keep going. Well, if it saves time, too, we can get to more stuff. Really? What else we got to do? This is all we have right now. I’ll just power through. [Music] Does that trencher go 18 in down? Yeah. Like cuz Yes, it does. [Music] Let’s just rent the trencher. Seriously, kind of. How’s this work? Cutters can kill you. Is that what it says? Yeah. Stay away. Whoa. What’s this informationational packet? And it’s got the manual, too. Do you need to read it? No. [Music] What do you think? You’re doing it. It’s not deep enough. I’ll have to Can you go lower with it? Like maybe do one pass at that height and then just see. I think that’s what I’ll have to do. Yeah. Yeah. It’s working though. Yeah, I think that’s how you do it. You want to watch a little video while I do this? Yes, I was. Yeah. Am I doing it right? Do you walk backwards? Yeah, you walk backwards. Popular on alibama.com and home. Add break. You’re always walking backwards. Well, you’re doing that part, right? You are walking backwards. [Music] Maybe it hit a root. Oh, what’s that? Something stuck? Yeah, it’s like a big spike. Open. See that thing? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s crazy. Oh, all those buried treasures going to break the machine. The size of that. 18. 20. Oh, yeah. That’s like 20 in. Okay, good. Perfect. We only needed 18. [Music] [Music] You’re good. Holy cow. I thought that was going down for sure. No, it was snaps into a million pieces. [Music] [Music] You know, it was looking so good back here. I know. You know, we’re in great shape, though. We’re trenched from the driveway to the greenhouse and then kind of from the fencing to the post where the thing’s going to go. We’ve done all this. Move it a flag stone that we set and put dirt around nicely. I just got a little bit to do here where I couldn’t fit the trencher and it the conduit’s going to come up run along the wall along here. And then I just need to fill this window in. I might even just fill it like a little bit. We’re going to put a sub panel here. And then the wires are going to go down. We got to trench this still. And I got the trencher in here. And it’s going to go over. And there’s going to be a couple receptacles on here. Oh, and I trenched where the plumbing is going to go for the pond. So, I guess we’re we’ve established the waterfalls over there. The skimmer baskets over here. A lot of work though, eh? I mean, it’s all things that needed to happen. It just kind of sucks that we’re doing it so late, but what are you going to do? Now, it looks like a mess again. But it’ll literally by Monday, hopefully it’ll all be filled back in and clean electrical will be done and then it’s just plants and pond. All right, people are definitely laughing right now. I was just thinking that. That’s okay, though. We knew all along we had to do this. We just That’s what I mean. If I had forgotten, I’d be kind of like bummed out. Like, really? Like, we got to do this. But we knew all along. It was always on the list. Yeah. This would have been a different experience if we had forgotten. Oh, yeah. Like the time you hooked up the toilet in the basement and forgot to run water to it. It happens. [Music] Tell them about your new present. What was that? What did I just get you? Oh, Andrew surprised me with another present. If you guys watched a few episodes back, he surprised me with this shovel. Look everybody, we got a new shovel. Andrew surprised me with it. I thought it was going to be something else, which was such a great gift. I really wanted a new shovel, and today he surprised me with some golf clubs. I’ve never golfed before. What a great surprise. I truly did not see it coming. Your very own set. Thank you, baby, for my special gift. There’s more to come. Oh, great. What could possibly be next? Golf balls. Oh my gosh. Shoes. Golf te’s. Golf glove. Oh my gosh. The possibilities. Golf shirt. Oh yeah, that’s 20. Even that’s 18 to the top of the concrete. That one just a little bit more. [Music] Oh. Oh. Oh no. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] That’s not another layer, is it? It is another layer. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] I don’t know how to get the rest. That is some thick concrete cuz it was poured and then they poured another one on top. Like I don’t know how to go about driving in here to [Music] You know what I mean? Uh I was going to say if you could just chip like almost a section away from this so that you can get the fork under it and lift. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] crumbly. It’s a lot of ash fall. Oh, yeah. Oh, it just disintegrates. So, I guess we are going to be 2 feet with the trencher cuz this is already 6 in lower than the driveway. [Music] [Music] Like there’s no second layer there. No, it’s just dirt. [Music] That’s awesome. And look how thin the ashvault is. Look at that’s why this whole thing’s so cracked. Mhm. That’s great though for us. So this will just get gardened. Good. Less concrete the better. Oh, what happened? It crumbled like a Nature Valley granola bar. [Music] [Music] [Music] You’re out here. Yep. There you go. Did it get you? Yes. Are you okay? Holy frig. Are you bleeding? You should let it scab. Yeah. Be a man. Rub some dirt in it. For the record, we’ve had locates done several times. There’s nothing buried here. We have no city water or sewage anyways. All we have coming in is internet and gas and hydro, like electricity, which two of them are on the other side of the property. The hydrometer is right here. So, it’s kind of scary to think, oh my god, like they’re doing it right next to it. We’ve had locates done. The power runs across the driveway this way. It comes this way and across. Just in case. Ontario 411. Call before you dig. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Just sand, eh? Mhm. Are you enjoying this? Love it. This is what I wanted to do. Remember? Told you we’d be on our hands and knees scooping. The guys are coming tomorrow to run the conduit and all the electrical and the inspection is also booked for tomorrow, which is great because then we can back fill. Um, but yeah, it’s trenched from the house all the way over to there. And it’s really nice because we’re going to have a sub panel on the greenhouse, which allows us to run some extra outlets for landscape lighting and obviously for the pond pump and the equipment for that. So, that’s really great. That’ll all be done tomorrow. Going off of that, I want to take you guys through. Follow me, cameraman. Okay, so coming over here, I want to talk to you guys about what my plans are for lighting, and you can kind of share what you think. So, I want to do string lights in this tree, which will be so fun to hang. But I think it would look so beautiful. Every photo I see on Pinterest is like string lights hanging in the trees. I think it’s like such a just creates such an ambiance. Stunning. If you guys saw our waterfall videos, I love the lights at our waterfall. They’re still going strong. They’re beautiful warm color. So, I think along here will be landscape lighting. Now, I would love to do a lantern on either side of our little potting palace. My initial design had two right here, and I ordered solar ones, and they came and they were just way too small. They just looked funny. So, so maybe if we have power out here, I can do ones that actually plug in. That would look really cute. And then over here, I always envision string lights across the cut flower garden, which would look really magical, except I don’t know how to go about hanging them there cuz I don’t really want like a big ugly post off the side. So maybe just around the arbor. Continuing this way, some landscape lighting would look so beautiful here. And then I want to do lights on the pergola for sure. We ordered our string lights already. We just haven’t hooked them up yet, obviously, because we won’t have electrical in this area until, well, by the time you guys see this video, we’ll already have electrical on this side. I’m thinking more lights, maybe another arbor, maybe some lights here along with the string lights on the fence. But all that will have to wait because in the meantime, we have a lot of work to do. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Ooh. Hey. Hey.

38 Comments

  1. OMG how cool is that. Now you can put a Christmas tree 🌲 in the greenhouse. Love the idea of lights on either side of the greenhouse door. 🚪 two years ago. Very good job Andrew bluffing Sabrina on digging with that little trowel.😂😂 Another great episode 👍✅❤️

  2. I HAVE A SERIOUS QUESTION SO PLEASE REPLY.
    HOW ARE YALL'S DOGS SO TRAINED? DID YOU TRAIN THEM OR PROFESSIONALLY DONE? THEY ARE SO GOOD THEY JUST SIT THERE. IM JEALOUS. I HAVE THREE ENGLISH OVER 250 LBS MASTIFFS & AN 8 LB MALTESE AND THEY ARE NOT THAT TRAIN UNLESS I WALK THEM FIRST TO TIRE THEM OUT🤦🏽.
    WHAT'S YA SECRET?

  3. I like the idea of the spot lights going up into the trees. I have seen yards with this type of lighting and it is so beautiful. Too many string lights might look overdone and as the last gentle person said attract bugs. Just kinda giving you some thoughts. ❤

  4. With all the projects going on in the backyard I think you guy's should make a dog area for your dog's! Idk I think it's something to think about. The best part of this episode was definitely the half story about the toilet in the basement. I think more bloopers / stories is definitely something ppl would like to hear/see. I personally like to watch how you navigate the tough issues like that small driveway piece but you got it. It definitely helps the not so seasoned diyer that everything is usually figure out able.

  5. "We should rent a tencher" he says, "nah that's too easy." says the one who didn't want to dig with the tiny hand shovel. 😂
    Love the videos!

  6. Loved Andrew’s little moment with the hand shovel/trowel/spade…laughed so hard at your reaction Sabrina. Super excited for next week’s video. Like, literally can it wait!!!

  7. Oo! you should put some spotlights in the garden beds pointing up on either side of the front of greenhouse. I'm a big fan of upward facing spotlights on the bases of the trees and on fences too, but that could wreck the ambiance of hanging lights.

  8. I can't believe you trenched that close to that tree. Google "critical root zone" and you'll see what I mean. How big were the roots you cut? There's a good chance you've significantly shortened the life of that tree.

  9. You guys work so well together. Every time I watch you two, I think we need to do this kind of stuff together – and then I remember I like my marriage and it would not exist if we were to take on home renovations 🤣🤣🤣

  10. Wow Can you imagine digging all that by hand?! holy moly good call on the rental lol I'm so excited to see the plants get put in! I've been scoping out Landscape Direct for a couple trees! They have a great selection.

  11. Can everyone just watch all the ads all the way through, and add a comment so they can pay for the Trencher!!😂

  12. Lights on the arbor would look lovely and also on the tree. Have you seen the post covers with lights? Those look nice in the fence vs the string lights.

  13. Hanging lighting from the top of the greenhouse thing to the pergola would be pretty! Then it would hang over your cut flower garden too!

  14. So fun ! My hubby bought me golf clubs this year. You’ll love it I’m sure. Highly recommend taking a few lessons, it really helps not to get into too many bad habits. I’m not very good, but we have the best time.

  15. Please reconsider NOT putting string lights in your tree. First and foremost, it is a hazard to anything flying in and out of your tree – please save the wildlife. Second, since you will have string lights elsewhere, it will be a bit excessive. Third, it is nice to vary your lighting options. REMEMBER – Research which plants can and cannot handle landscape lighting. Many plants fail with lights cause they interrupt their "nocturnal rest" from daylight. If your tree can handle lighting, consider putting lights IN the tree, which highlight the branches.

  16. That was the best $175 that you guys spent on this project. There is no way you guys were gonna dig that manually absolutely no way love from Chicago.

  17. I loved the video, but also love Andrew's Taylormade™ hat. When does he ever have time to golf???

  18. "I genuinely can't tell if you're serious." – a phrased used by (I assume) all wives to their husbands shenanigans.

  19. I highly recommend looking into dark sky compliant lighting, it’s honestly all you need and would keep your backyard friendly to the natural inhabitants

  20. Love this! Sabrina, what shorts are you wearing with your bright blue tank top? Looking for a great outdoor activities short 🙂

  21. The place where I got married screwed outdoor outlets to all the trees and ran electricity to all of them underground that way all the trees had lights

  22. I want to see the bottomless pit Andrew has to dump all the bad dirt, rocks, etc. That thing must be huge

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