I'm still surprised that nothing can look better than something. Though, I suppose when the "something"s are overgrown, scraggly, who-knows-what's-living-in-there bushes, it makes sense. (It also makes me want to CHOPDOWNALLTHETHINGS!
....just for fun...)
Not that you really need a blow-by-blow of how things went down, but I took a bunch of pictures so you sit there and you look at them. And you'd better "Aww" and "Ooh" at the appropriate times! *brandishes hedge clippers*
(Can you tell it's getting close to my due date? I'm having some control issues. I apologize.)
So, first we cleaned out the beds of all the yard junk that had accumulated there since we took out the bushes.
Look at that pregnant lady raking. You go, Glen Coco pregnant lady. When you finish I bet someone will tell you to go spend the rest of the afternoon on the couch, rewatching Firefly and drinking tea.
....
Or you can dig and haul some rocks, like an old school convict.
(Guess which one happened?)
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Then we threw down some cardboard to act as a weed barrier, first measuring and cutting holes where (someday) we will plant replacement bushes. We then covered the holes with the cardboard we had cut out, figuring that was the easiest way to plant the bushes, but still keep weeds out in the meantime.
After the beds were clear and the cardboard in place, the men (and boy) folk unloaded all the free mulch we'd received from our benefactor my grandmother (she'd ordered some for her flower beds, but they wouldn't deliver less than an entire truckload, so who reaped the benefits? We did! Hahaha-ha! But, really, we were very grateful and super excited.)
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| Special "Thank You" to my brother for helping us haul and unload. |
In order to keep all that pesky mulch from escaping and running amok all over the yard, Joseph put in some 1"x4"s.
Digging trenches.
Some shanties were sung.
Ta-da!
Well, almost. Mostly, it still looks like dirt. But it's our dirt, that we put there.
We also, as I mentioned before, used some of the mulch to redo the tree beds. We dug up the old landscaping rocks, raked out the beds (in an attempt to make them slightly more level. Ha!), threw down some brown paper bags, filled in with mulch and put the stones back in to hold it all together.
And just for comparison, here's a before shot:
And here's an after:
I kinda like it. For now. (Oh, yeah, see that skinny tree in the middle of the yard? We also took that down. And we liked it. You other trees better watch out.)
Oh, before I forget, I have a question.
We noticed one of the shutters on our "picture window" (I think that's what you call it....the big, front window), had started to bow. (They're not nice shutters, just some kind of plastic.) So, being the impulsive, pregnant lady that I am, I decided it had to come down. Actually, we had discussed whether or not to take down the shutters, I just decided I wanted to do it nooooow! (Veruca Salt and I are kindred spirits)
Now our window has one shutter.
So, my question is: to take the other one down or put the first one back up. The logical part of me feels like tiny shutters on a window that size look silly. They don't function. But the smaller window on the other side still has black shutters. Our eventual plan (right now) is to paint the door yellow and replace the shutters (on one or both windows, depending on the verdict of whether or not to leave the big one shutter-less) with something that's a little higher quality that also spans the full height of the window.
I think we're a little concerned that no shutters might make the house look naked (and not in a classy renaissance painting way), but, as a friend suggested the other day, once we put bushes in, that may help.
So, I ask you, shutters or no shutters?
That is the question.
I'm thinking . . . no shutters on the picture window, but a flower box to balance it with the shuttered window on the other side? But I'd have to see it first, then maybe change my mind and try something else. :)
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