Thursday, April 25, 2013

Landscaping The Front Yard


You may recall what the house and our front landscaping looked like when we bought it back in 2010, under snow.  We're kind of terrible about remembering to take before shots, before we rip things down, so this is the before shot that you get.

Last fall we ripped out the big tree, that was eating the front corner of the house and all of the lilies that had taken over our front yard.  We waited until spring to rip out the bushes under the front bedroom window, the lilac on the side and the lilac out front that was literally planted on the sidewalk.



We decided we wanted something to cover that ugly meter out front and to flank the sides of the front portion of the house that juts out.  We also wanted some foundation plants to help cover up the cement area of the foundation that stands out.  We ended up with some arborvitae (that won't get enormous), goldmound spirea, and some grasses in between.  Then we knew we wanted a feature, so we went with a redbud tree, but made sure it had plenty of room between it and the house, so we don't run into the issue we had with that giant evergreen.  We also decided that the small round arborvitae looked great next to our new slatty railing. I look forward to them growing in a little bit more and to all the lights on them during the holidays.

Mudroom Phase 2, Cabinets

Sorry folks! We've taken quite the break from projects and posts for some time!  After many months of debate and saving up for cabinets, we finally pulled the trigger.  We contacted my friend Sarah, who gave us our great handyman, since she had cabinets made for her kitchen by a wonderful Amish man, Jonas Weaver.  So, we wrote him a letter and settled on a mutual date to meet.  We drove about an hour to meet with him at his home and shop and then brought him to our house to measure. After a about four weeks we were lucky to have these beauties installed by Jonas and his son.  We're thrilled to have all the extra storage and plan to finish up the handles and the counter top sometime this spring.