Oh there it is!

Every Spring I wonder where my yard went.  And then I trim my terribly placed willow tree and find it all over again!

Here it is half way through trimming.

And done.

Another Garden Update

My other DIY post will be saved for next week, because it needed a little tweaking.  You'll see what I mean. =)

Today I'm showing off a little garden progress.  The tilling is done and the railroad ties are down.

 And again the dirt in front will be getting grass seed.  We just pushed it out there to level the very hilly ground.

 

And we are hoping to get enough dirt from putting in the patio to fill these beds, but if we don't we'll buy extra.  The sides will be landscaped... bushes, flowers, those kinds of things, and the middle is the garden.

 Jake even put in a step for Raeleigh. =)

I took this pic because of my excitement for spring, it's my willow tree starting to turn green!

 

Just for fun..... check out the before and current.

 

We're gettin' there!

Patio!!!!

It's official.  We have now scheduled a time to have our patio put in.  It will be at the end of March.  It will be a 12x28 stained stamped concrete patio and it will go out from the bottom of our deck.  It will go where this current temporary landscaping is.  It will be larger than the landscaping though.

We will be knocking down the tree that is at the bottom of the steps, but will keep the weeping willow.

Can't WAIT for the patio, I'll definitely post pics next month when its in!

Here is a picture of the stain and stamp we are going for.  I really wanted the border too but it wasn't in the budget.

And here's more garden progress!

They knocked down the wall and tilled quite a bit more.  The garden will not go out as far as the dirt.  They pushed the dirt out to better level the ground in front of where the garden will be. So we will then put down grass seed there.

Garden Progress

Rather than do a complete before and after I thought I'd update you as we get closer and closer to gardening season!  When we bought our house, this is what the garden looked like....

 

Not really the ideal conditions for gardening.  So last night Jake borrowed a tiller and started tilling it all up...

 Mad props to Granny Granny for letting us borrow her tiller.  And a shout out to Jake Wright for going to get it.  And thank you Miss Raeleigh for overseeing it all...

As you can see progress is being made.  The back section is pretty large so we plan to put the garden in the middle and landscaping on either side.  Jake also wants to replace the beat up retaining wall with some railroad ties.  Keep checking back on the progress!

Before and After

Another before and after of our deck.







Again, it was powerwashed and stained and a support post was added. What I didn't show before was the nastiness that was in front of it. What you can't quite make out in the pictures is that in the before picture the ground level is twice as high as it is now in the landscaping. So that was taken down then we replaced the nasty rotting wood with landscaping stones and added new mulch. We plan to put pavers on the left side to set the grill on. This is all just a temporary fix. We are hoping next summer to extend the deck out further from the house, so we didn't want to sink too much money into this in the meantime.

The deck

Finally a before and after for you guys! And as is only appropriate, I'm currently enjoying the very spot I'm posting a picture of. Now be aware this is not a true before and after. We had already removed a lot of stuff before I took the before picture. Like a big dirty storage closet. But notice the gray wood, dirty siding, nasty hanging shade thats falling apart, etc.... Also the deck had no support post under it and was sloping. It was only being held up around the edges where it was attached to the house.
The before...


The after...

The deck was jacked up so we could get a support post under it. The deck and siding were power washed. Jake stained the deck(it's even prettier in person). And we got some new patio furniture. I'm so pleased with it!