We moved into our house in September of 2007.
This is what the front of the house looked like then…
(and yes, this is the best picture I could find.)
Our house was lined with old bushes and an even older sidewalk. The bushes made the house look outdated and the sidewalk had sunk into the ground so much that when it rained it turned into our own little creek. Sweet.
So last summer we (meaning Chris) ripped out the bushes and then we (again, meaning Chris) broke up the concrete sidewalk. That was quite the project–apparently in the 50’s when this house was built, they didn’t plan on anyone ever wanting the sidewalk out. Had Jesus come back, that sidewalk would have survived. Word.
After we hauled the concrete to my parents’ house, we Chris laid drainage pipes to run water away from the house. Because even though we were told when we bought the house that the basement didn’t get wet, surprise! It gets wet. Really, really wet.
Then we had a new, pretty sidewalk poured.
Then we took out one of the two trees in our front yard. Unfortunately, they’re both dead, but we tackled the really dead one first.
(before)
(during)
(almost done!)
Sadly, I don’t have an after picture. Right after that last picture, the chainsaw died in a weird carving accident. I don’t really want to talk about it, I’d really just like to forget about it. Let’s just say for about two weeks after the majority of the tree came down, we had a slightly unfinished letter carving in our front yard. It was quite embarrassing. One of our neighbors said he thought we were trying to make a bench out of the tree stump. Embarrassing.
That was all last summer. So our house sat bare all winter long.
Then this year, Chris ripped out the large bush in front of the living room window. That, apparently, wasn’t worth photographing, but you can see the bush in the tree photos above…and then imagine it gone. It really was that simple (says the girl who stayed in the house while this was being done).
Last month we finally got around to buying and planting some, um, plants.
Planning the plant placement. I {love} P’s.
Look! No bush! No tree! Doesn’t that look better??
Pretty, no?
So here’s the house as of today.
What we did:
-rip out old landscaping
-demolish sidewalk
-have new sidewalk installed
-removed one dead tree
-removed giant ugly bush
-painted the front door red
-new landscaping
-installed cool solar lights
What we still need to do:
-power wash the house
-paint the shutters
-plant hostas under the living room window
-maybe a bench under the window? a bird feeder?
-replace the screen door
-(eventually) buy a new front door
-change out all the hardware to stainless steel
-plant a Japanese maple by the driveway in the fall
-(hopefully) save the other tree by trimming it
It’s taken us over a year to do the first part…why?
money.money.money.
We do things when we have the dollar bills. No credit cards, no home loans, no stealing (?). So it’s taking us longer than we’d like, but we refuse to spend money we don’t have.
So slow and steady gets the job done…eventually.
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