I've posted previously about the work we've put into our house: inside and out, since we've moved in. The inside was much easier, it had great bones (a great kitchen) but it was more of a blank slate. Or I guess it was literally a blank slate as in the years the previous owners had lived there since having the home built, they had not painted one single room. Each and every room was beautiful builder white. Very stale. I guess the bonus of that is that we didn't have to REpaint any rooms, and we've finally gotten almost every room in the house painted (recently the living room and dining room were finished); the only exception is the guest bedroom, and we are still deciding what we want to do in there. Next on the list is new carpet, some hardwood floors downstairs, and of course finishing the basement...but those projects might take a bit to come to fruition.
The outside of the house was a different story. Not only was it TWO colors...but the landscaping left MUCH to be desired. Our first step was to invest in a fence, due to the doggies. We then had the outside painted (one color this time, which elated our neighbors). But the landscaping...because the beds had just been sitting there, untended to, for quite some time, the weeds and other vegetation completely took over. We can't take the entire credit for where we are today with the landscaping, however. We owe a lot to Tom ("Juan") Pucci who put in a lot of effort cleaning out the beds last summer...and Ben and I have been slowly chipping away at what needed to be done...and on Mother's Day, my mom and I finished up by putting in a lot of perennials and taking out a lot of garbage plants (in my opinion) from the beds. The result are nice, clean beds which I am happy with. We're not entirely done, but it's miles from where we started!
And, one of our last projects was to put in a patio, as all we had before was a STOOP. We decided after much debate and research to go with pavers, and we loved the outcome...except we had decided not to take out the stoop, and just to add on to it. The stoop was concrete, and so we painted it a nice matching gray last fall...which didn't last through the winter and peeled and chipped off, detracting from our patio. So, we bit the bullet and had the steps paved over. They just finished today and we love that the patio is finally complete -- good way to start the season! We will definitely be putting it to GOOD use this summer and fall!
The completed steps
This bed is where the previously-posted about hideous bushes lived...and now my azaleas live here. The pink ones have already bloomed (they were so gorgeous) and now the red ones are blooming.
The front was also a mess, it was just blank rocks and dirt, so we created a mulch bed this Spring and planted another azalea
The previous homeowner had countless cut logs thrown around this tree by the golf course and there was no grass at all; we think he was trying to line some of the other beds with the wood (at one point we were going to use it for firewood but the g.course superintendent, Keith, warned us that it was treated with a chemical that might explode our home, so we refrained..we then tried to dig post holes and put the logs in the ground to create a round bench but it ended up looking more like stonehenge so we also scrapped that idea). Keith was then kind enough to haul it off for us, and we then sodded the area, planted some hostas (that either Dobber or the bunnies or both have been snacking on, much to my dismay) and made a mulch bed. Significant improvement.
This bed was also full of scrap plants, dying ugly bushes, etc. Tom and Ben tried to plant a tree here, too, last summer (one that had voluntarily grown in another bed that they transplanted) but unfortunatly it didn't make it. My mom and I finally put it in it's resting place and pulled out all of the other mess and planted some perennial grasses that are supposed to grow tall and wide, so they will hide the ugly boxes. They are little now, but in a couple of years I'm hoping they cover them up.
This area, also, was a whole lot of messy "nothing" so we planted some miniature evergreens and hydrangeas last summer -- I'm thrilled that the hydrangeas are coming back up, especially given Dobber's penchant to pee on any new plant in the yard (as you can tell from a couple of the miniature evergreens). Very frustrating habit. Thank goodness Tucker still pees like a girl! :)
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