I have this extremely annoying thing where I don’t like paying someone to do something I can do. I also have this other annoying thing where I don’t like paying someone to do something I never tried to do. So when we bought our house in October of 2020 I found myself with a lot of projects. Many of them were landscaping based, which I always enjoy because the results of your handwork are extremely gratifying.
When we did our home inspection I identified a very overgrown area that would be the perfect mini soccer field. After we closed on the house, my wife and I sped to the house to celebrate and to get a visual plan for the mini soccer field. Later that day we went back to the house with our friends the McLean’s to show them where this mini soccer field was going to go. That’s when my buddy Al noticed the overgrown area was really an overgrown oasis complete with a koi pond. Crazy right!?!
At that point my wife and I decided we were going to rehab the oasis to its former glory. To pay someone to come in and do the job would have cost tens of thousands of dollars, but it would taken only few days and we would have had this perfect oasis complete with a patio and koi pond.
BUT I have this extremely annoying thing where I don’t like paying someone to do something I can do. I can dig out weeds, lay some patio pavers, rehab a koi pond, and do some landscaping. Sure it was going to take a little longer (3 months in fact), save us a few bucks (close to $25,000), and not be as perfect (who cares), but I was NOT going to pay someone to do this project. The Watkins family was going to do it ourselves.
Lessons were learned, fun was had, mistakes were made, and a lot of positive memories were created from this family project.
During this collection called the Oasis Project, I’m going to walk you through the transformation. It’s going to take a few posts, but it’ll be worth it.
This picture shows what everything looked like the day Al discovered the oasis. Let’s just say it doesn’t look like that any more.
LeRoy J. Watkins III 