Curb Appeal...

When we first bought our house it was lacking somewhat in curb appeal. And in general outside appeal overall.  We've been in the house for almost three years now and while there's still a ton more left to do (and a ton more crap left to remove from the yard thanks to the generous previous owners who LEFT IT ALL BEHIND) I thought I'd share a little update on our outdoor spaces as we've put a lot of work into them this year.

So here's the front of the house before.  Please note the lovely pink color and the overgrown bushes with zero other landscaping except for some rocks:

And here's the front of the house now:

Much better!  Future plans include replacing the two spindly little holly bushes on either side of the front stairs with something taller (you can't even see them in these pictures), and doing something with the front stairs in general- railings are a must and I'd love to widen the stairs if we could so that they're wider than the door + sidelights rather than narrower.  The jury (aka husband) is still out on that one).

Here's the backyard before.  This is the area to the left if you're standing on the back deck and was previously unfenced other than the stockade fence that ran off the side of the house.

And here's looking to the right from the deck at some WAY overgrown pine trees (that's our neighbor's back yard behind there), a weird mini "deck" and an ugly chain link fence:

And this was the view straight ahead from the deck.  Note how the fence cuts the yard in half?  The previous owner was too cheap to fence the whole yard.  Nice.

And after! 

There's now a gate to the right of the stockade fence dividing the front yard from the back:

A new post and rail fence runs from the gate to the new shed (ok so it's not finished in this picture but it is in real life- just use your imagination!. (and the shed is painted in real life too.)

Told ya so!  New shed for our fancy new riding mower.  Veggie garden on the right.



And the best part- the view from the deck!  That line of dead grass down the middle is where the old fence was.  It ran down the middle of the yard and then took a right where those little trees are.  By fencing the entire yard we've doubled the amount of space!  Over near the pines (which Paul trimmed down a TON last year so that we can actually see the neighbor's house now) we've expanded the "mini" deck thingy with some more planting beds on the side, followed by LP's new sandbox (it's the thing on the end with the blue cover).  (and if you're wondering we got rid of the pool the first summer we moved in- posted it on Craigslist and somebody drove down from NH, took it apart, and hauled it away!)

We're so excited to finally have this done.  We've been spending a ton more time in the yard (a little guy who loves to play outside plus the purchase of some actual lawn furniture has made the yard a much more pleasant place to be) and are excited to have people over to show it off. 

And, I have to say it, I give HUGE props to Paul for getting most of this done so quickly.  I helped where I could (spent a day working on the shed, did some of the painting, and helped with nailing the backing to the fence), but it's hard to be of much help when you're trying to keep an eye on a toddler at the same time.  Paul did most of the work and did it much quicker than I thought- I totally expected these projects to take all summer!

So feel free to come on over and hang out- we'll have the sandbox open, the smoker fired up, and some ribs on the grill!