New Landscaping!

Mark and have been working on our yard for ever... or at least it feels that way. I think I posted a bit earlier this year about the dramatic down-turn our back yard took. Ugh. Well, things are on the upswing! Yesterday, Mark and I completed the first re-planting done since we moved in almost a year ago. And we have conquered the driveway strip! Yes, it is true!

Mere weeks ago it was dirt & sprinklers... now it is beautiful with 28 society garlic plants and lots of friendly mulch. Oh... it's just so beautiful.


Now we're pumped to keep it going... this weekend while Mark is continuing work on the sprinklers, I will be plotting and planning for the Front Garden!



It's almost too much!

Progress?...

When we bought our house last May the landscaping had just been redone & looked very nice. Wait, back up... when we first looked at hour house last April the landscaping had just been redone & looked very nice. Then we entered escrow & the owners of the house stopped caring about the yard & by the time we moved in we had dying grass & a ton of weeds. Then it got hot and even more grass died and more weeds popped up. Sadly enough, after that we decided just let things die out & we'd just attack in the spring. Well, it's spring!

First, a few side-by-side comparison shots... just to paint a picture.







The pictures on the left are from my first visit to this house. The grass is green, the trees are happy, there are accent plants all over. The pictures to the right were taken this morning. Dirt and weeds... and no trees.

One of the first "improvements" we made was to rip out all of our trees. Most of them were fruit trees and they really just were a pain. They attracted bees and dropped fruit all over the ground constantly. I realize that fruit trees do need some maintenance but this seemed excessive... especially for fruits that neither of us really ate all that much of to begin with. If it was a cookie tree or a beer tree, by all means... but lemons? Not so much. So out they went. The guys from Dana Pacific Landscaping did a great job!

This is an on-going project but we're both confident that it will look awesome once we're done. Maybe then we can finally have our housewarming party... a year later!

It's the little things..

We had a productive day yesterday... A while ago we made a "master list" of all of the household things we needed to do - some small, some pretty decent projects. Yesterday we actually got to cross a few off the list!

First was our shower door - bye -bye! I don't know about you but we weren't fans of our glass shower doors. The seemed to be dirty all the time & noisy and just a pain. So, Mark ripped them off yesterday & replaced them with a nice white shower curtain. Already the bathroom feels bigger & is definitely much brighter!

Next he installed a door guard for our sliding glass door. Since the construction of some of the doors in this house leave us questioning their reliability we're doing what we can to make them a bit stronger. So, in comes the door guard. A simple metal bar that rests between the far side of the door and the back of the actual sliding door. Keeps unwanted people or big animals out!

And last but definitely not least, Mark ripped off the cabinet doors and moved them over so they actually shut now. Before you pretty much had to throw your entire body into the doors to get them to close & stay closed but now it is so simple. I love it.

So... now you're asking "what did YOU do?" It is true... Mark spearheaded all of the above improvements even though I was the one who navigated Home Depot to find silicone caulking and razor blades. But while he was being Handy Manny I was making Creme Brulee and Tomato Soup from scratch... so THERE! Both turned out amazing, by the way.

Another productive day at the Lepperchaun farm!