Our story so far: As we renovated the old Methodist church into our home, we chose stone for the fireplace and the counter tops, and we were pleased with the poured concrete for the garage.

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The easiest stone to install at the church was the decorative rock we purchased to border the exterior.

The gravel that was there was old, tired and indistinct. Tyler wanted to freshen up the look, so he took me to the nearby landscaping supply store (where we had ordered a fireplace hearth) to browse the options. In the past, we might have used fresh mulch next to the foundation of the church, but we did that with the first house we owned together, and it just invited bugs inside. So we left the mulch to insulate the roots of the bushes on the perimeter of the church property.

Until that morning, I had no idea there were so many different gravels, rocks and crushed stones with which to decorate a yard. Like to many things in my life, I just wasn’t paying attention. We could choose from every shade of gray and brown, plus a few blues and reds, in every size from pea gravel to boulders.

We were drawn to the grey slate with its rocks shaped to skip across a pond. It glittered in the sun with fifty shades of grey, mind you, not gray. I liked the cool blue hue which I didn’t know at the time but was very pleased to realize coordinated perfectly with the color the foundation was already painted.

We also chose some edge stones. Tyler and his hired man St. Johnny sweated it out to place the stones and spread the slate, and when they were done, it rocked.

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Tomorrow: Chapter 25 opens with the story of another construction project. Read about it here.