Amazing!

Today my aunt, uncle, mum, dad, and Kylie came over to help with the front garden.  Aunt Candy had a bunch of flowers she wanted to give me, which turned into finishing the front garden.  Some plants were moved, mulch was put down, some pavers from the back yard were brought out front to use as makeshift stepping stones, and some flowers were planted along side of the house.  Oh, and I got a new rocker for the porch as well.  I honestly can't even believe this is my house.  It looks so homey - it's exactly what I was hoping it would be!

A Tale of Two Weekends

Hello all!  Over the course of the last two weekends, I successfully dug up the front yard!  All by myself (well, mostly)!  With nothing but shovels and my hands!  Amazing!  Here is what my front yard looked like before:

The porch side of my front yard.

The flagpole side of my front yard.

It looks like a pretty small front yard, and it is. But it sure didn't feel that way when I was tearing out all of that grass...

So I dug up the flagpole side on the 21st, and I dug up the porch side on the 28th.  And then I planted all the plants yesterday on the 30th before and after my family's Memorial Day picnic.

Doesn't look like much, does it?  I am assured that they will fill out as the summer goes on, but I remain skeptical.  The next course of action is to move those straggler plants from the middle of the yard into more acceptable positions.  After that, I want to get some stepping stones so I can make a path down the center.  Our mailman usually cuts through the yard and I want to make it as easy as possible for him.  Aren't I thoughtful?  Then mulch I guess, even though I've always hated mulch.  I just feel like it will look unfinished without it, you know?  I'd like to get a birdbath and maybe a few wrought iron garden accessories.  I'm going for a scraggly English garden sort of look combined with the sort of garden you'd expect to see surrounding a witch's hut.  Does that make any sense?  I can see it perfectly in my mind...  I'll try and post some inspiration photos.

Gardening Update

I went to the greenhouse again on Saturday to buy flowers for the front yard.  I bought a bunch of stuff that, including columbine and snap dragons, to name a few.  Most of them are plants I don't really know anything about, I just liked the way they looked.

Unfortunately the weather channel tells me that it is supposed to rain basically forever (or at least until next weekend) so it will probably be a while until I actually plant them.  Especially since I have to pull out all the grass first....

Speaking of which, Chris and I finally dug out some space for the raspberry bushes.  It didn't take nearly as long as I expected, mostly because we only dug out circles around them rather than digging out the entire section of the yard.  I think this is a bad idea, since it will make mowing even more difficult for Chris.  He says he will just use the weed whacker around them, but I remain skeptical.

I also planted a bunch of marigolds around the perimeter of the vegetable garden in hopes of keeping the rabbits out.  About half of my baby corns have been nibbled, but that's not even the biggest problem.  Those pesky bunnies have been rolling around on my veggies!  Most of my broccoli, radishes, and and beets have been flattened into the dirt!  Those rabbits are jerks.  But I had a lot of luck last year using marigolds as a form of natural rabbit repellent, so hopefully that will keep them out.

Back Yard

Hello all!  It's been a while, I know, but there haven't been any renovations going on lately.  Because of this decorating drought, I thought it might be fun to feature some of the work we've been doing outside.

As you may or may not know, we've had two Bagsters full of bathroom debris sitting in the yard since last October.  Yeesh.  I'm sure the neighbors are thrilled.  But there is a reason they have been sitting for so long.  You see, when they were originally used, we didn't bother to look at the included instructions which stated that the Bagsters have to be within 16 feet of the road.  One of our Bagsters was much further than that.  Also, they are not allowed to have anything sticking up over the top, which both of ours did.  We didn't have organization in mind when filling them all those months ago.

So my mum, sister, aunt, and uncle came over to help with the Bagster situation and also to help me expand my vegetable garden.  I say that they helped me, but really they did all the work while I took pictures.  What can I say? I'm just not built for physical labor.  Here, check out our progress:

So now the Bagsters are down at the alley, ready for pick-up, and the vegetable garden is expanded and ready for vegetables. More pictures to come.

The Bathroom - Day 1

So, without further delay, here are the pictures from Saturday.

Let me just say that this was one of the most terrifying things ever, initially. I mean, this is my house.  I paid quite a bit of money for this house, more money than I have ever spent in my entire life. As such, even though I knew that walls were going to come down, it was pretty scary to see it happen.  Like, really scary.  I apparently made some pretty hilarious faces, but I unfortunnately don't have any pictures of that.

But anyway, now that I've had some time to get used to it, I am really happy with how things went.  We (well, they, really - I didn't have much to do with it) got so much accomplished in one day!  And the things we found!  I now know what the house looked like before all this stucco and fake stones were stuck to it.  And I know that the doorway to the bathroom was not original to the house, since there was very old wallpaper underneath it.  I had originally though that the door might have opened to a porch or something, but I guess not.  I saved a few strips of the old wallpaper, I have to remember to take some pictures of it so that I can share it here. Also, under several layers of lineoleum, we found a very thin-slatted hardwood floor.  I am really excited about the clapboard and the hardwood floor.  I had pretty strong ideas about how I wanted to decorate the new bathroom, but now that I have found these things, I am getting new ideas that will better allow me to incorporate them into the design.  I am not sure.  I will make posts about both ideas in the near future.

My bathroom was not the only thing to benefit from the flurry of activity on Saturday.  My front yard was also spruced up.  That's how we found the baby bunnies!  Weeds were pulled, bushes were trimmed, ugly plastic fences were removed, and everything is generally improved because of it.  What a productive and exhausting day.