House Updates!

Over the past two weeks, LOTS of new updates have been happening to the outside of our house! With the weather cooperating, we have been able to get lots of things done. We are concentrating on the front of the house first, because that's where most of our gardening will take place.

We came up with a new color scheme for the house. We decided to go with black shutters, with light brown accents. Justin built a new post/pillar which was built around the old existing iron one. Painted the triangle above the house light brown, and will eventually do the concrete area under the roof with light brown as well.

You will see in the "before" pictures that we wanted to start with getting rid of our hideous shutters, and 2 large ugly evergreen shrubs. So Justin took down the old shutters, built new board & batten style shutters for all the front windows. Then Justin had an excuse to buy a new tool for his small (but growing) collection to take down the bushes. He got a new reciprocating saw to take off the large branches, yeah a regular saw would work, but this was way more fun! Then it took us one afternoon to take out both of the stumps, we really should have video taped it, it would not have been kid friendly however due to adult language. Thought about chaining the stumps up to the buick, but thought better. After that, we moved on to the area left over from the shrubs, which we were going to fill with new dirt, and transplant a few of our rose bushes, and plant new stuff we got at a lowe's sale (thanks dad christensen for the tip). We quickly realized that most of the leftover bed was filled with white rocks, which we had to shovel out and move to the side of the house. We still have about about 1/2 the rocks to shovel, but we were able to clear an area to plant new stuff.

Before with old shutters, iron post, and ugly shrubs

Old Post, old shutters

Justin taking off old shutters (got to buy a crowbar!) Can you see sammy in the window watching???

Cutting the branches of the shrubs (nice butt)

After taking out the shrubs, and removing the shutters

Justin building new shutters (completed ones stacked up on the left)

Painted black

Justin hanging new shutters

Mary amending the dirt after 1/2 the rocks were removed

Then we moved onto the garden area to the side/front of our house. We took the rose bushes from that area and moved them to be underneath our windows. Transplanted a few bushes to the back, and made room for mary's square foot gardens (to be done next week).

Rose bushes that we moved to the front by the windows

Justin hanging new house numbers on the new post

At some point (don't really remember), we broke a shovel...damn

Completed post

Mary planted a poppy, and it bloomed the next day!

Completed font garden, new shutters, new post, and triangle painted

Mary posing in front

Next on the agenda is to remove the bushes and vines from underneath the window on the left, make the area level, and put in pavers to create a front patio (Carter, and Erica I need you skills in this area!). We already have a table and chairs from our old apt. to furnish it...this should be done within the next week or so.Also, to be done next is our backyard patio (already got new furniture), a grilling area, and more flowers in the back.
Also the kitchen is coming soon within the next two months!!!