All posts tagged Yard

We were lucky enough to receive a beautiful birdcage from my dad last summer.  He had it sitting in his yard, but he apparently wasn’t in love with it since he offered it to us (which means it must have actually been my mom’s doing or a gift).  Not ones to pass up cool things, we of course took it home.  And it lived on our deck last summer (and fall and winter….lazy as charged).  But we finally got around to hanging it (after I nagged Dain incessantly since he’s apparently also not as in love with it as I am).  And I added a fun little succulent assortment to take it up a notch.  It was cheap and simple, and I think it’s even growing on Dain.

Continue reading →

Although we felt like we were “done” last week when we shared our landscaping progress, we found that there was still more to do over the past week.  Since we had guests staying with us over the weekend, we actually managed to organize everything that we had lying around, run a load of trash to a dumpster, cut up the large iron railing we’ve had by our garage for a year, and clean our driveway.  And thanks to a generous gift of hostas and a sale at our local Bachman’s, we were also able to fill up just about all of the real estate in our new gardens in the front yard and along the alley.

Continue reading →

As we mentioned in our post about living in the land of 10,000 adirondacks, our neighborhood is a mecca for adirondack chairs.  And we have finally given into the peer pressure of driving by house after house with these wooden wonders (and plastic wonders) out front.  And now on a lazy summer night, you just may find us in our very own adirondacks.  You won’t be seeing our Aegean Blue beauties plopped in front of our house for decoration any time soon, but we do plan to use them in the backyard for a nice place to sit and enjoy the yard.

Continue reading →

As we mentioned in our big post about all of our yard progress last weekend, we added a container herb garden to the front yard.  We had originally been thinking about building a planter box, but then Dain had the idea to bury a collection of pots instead.  So we went to the Home Depot with that idea and with a simple wooden planter box as our backup plan if we couldn’t find any affordable pots.  But we happened to hit the mother lode thanks to our thrifty thinking.  And with our bargain pots, a little bit of paint that we already owned, and some more farmers’ market finds, we ended up with a vibrant garden that brings some needed pop to our yard.  Here’s a look at how we did it.

Continue reading →

We weren’t really planning to put in a paver path down our alley, but we found that amongst wood chips, a wood chip path is not very well-defined.  So on Saturday morning while looking at our large pile of bricks and blocks that we have found in our yard, I had the idea to use our big circular and square pavers to make a more defined walkway down to the backyard.  Dain was an easy sell, and we decided to try to paint them to give them a fresh look.  And we went into it with nothing to lose, since our original plan was to try to give them away on Craigslist.  And we came out with a fun addition to the yard.

Continue reading →

At least this past weekend we were.  Some days we totally loaf in our free time.  But on Saturday and Sunday, we knocked it out of the park on our landscaping.  After almost exactly a year, we have finally fixed our ugly yard where our concrete staircase came out.  Over the weekend, we annihilated our dirt pile, added edging, spread mulch, spread grass seed, installed a container herb garden, planted a bunch of plants, added a paver path to the backyard, and hung a charming planter.  And let’s just say, we don’t even recognize our own yard, and we feel like jello from all that lifting and hauling.

Continue reading →

Yes, we are the tortoises in the world of home improvement and landscaping.  Slow and steady wins the race.  At least when it’s 103 degrees outside.  After weeks of patiently waiting for our dirt to be delivered, we couldn’t wait to finally fill in dogpatch alley between the house and the garage.  So despite the heat and humidity on Tuesday, I went for it.  I must have looked insane to anyone driving by (since nobody else was outside), but I started the task of shoveling the dirt into the wheelbarrow and then careening with it down the alley to dump it out into nice little piles per Dain’s instructions.  Our wheelbarrow has some catawampus tendencies making it hard to steer with a load of dirt inside which just added to the fun.  I’m pretty sure Dain was guilted into helping me since he wouldn’t have been out there in that heat by choice.  But he couldn’t let his wife move 14 yards of dirt by herself.  So he joined in after my first 13 wheelbarrows full, and we cruised with both of us working it.

Continue reading →

Or more like in the driveway.  Although it’s in the house a lot too thanks to somebody’s ability to track in every single thing he encountered on the ground on any given day.  The joys of keeping the floor clean.  And we’re probably going to have a lot more dirt migrating in and out of the house thanks to our brand spanking new dirt that now takes up our driveway.  It took two weeks to have it delivered (due to rainy weather delays supposedly), but now we are back in business with our front and side yard landscaping plans.

Continue reading →

Yes, we may have a tree that is two times the size of our house.  Not really, but it sure looks like that from the front.  We find ourselves outside our little house more and more as the weather starts to cooperate, and we are realizing that we still have a lot to do to our outdoor space to make it fabulous.  So we figured we would show you what we are working with.  Our lot is about 1/3 of an acre so we have a fairly large lawn (at least in terms of our neighborhood). Which means we have a lot of yard to beautify.  Here’s the tour.

Continue reading →