It's all happening! We're finally getting started on our landscaping, a mere 3 months late, heh heh. But at least we have a good excuse, when Rob was first laid off we wanted to play it safe for a while until cash started rolling in...and with contracting work comes a backyard, woot!
We don't have the official landscape schematic yet, but I figured to refresh your memory, I'd take some pics of our current "yard" AKA the MUD PIT AKA Walter the Weed's playground.
Here's a view of the front of the house, I LOVE how those plants' little white flowers are coming in! We plan to take out that sproinky green crap in the front (called Myaporum, for those of you playing along at home) and put in more of those pretty red carpet roses. Our guy is also going to install a big "up light" lighting up the tree, which sadly is just currently a bunch o' twigs but we've been told it'll bloom like crazy and be beautiful eventually. Right now it's a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree kind of situation, wah wah.
And here's a view of the front right part of our house - dittums on ripping out the Myaporum and putting in carpet roses, we're also going to line the driveway with cobblestones, pretty! And finally, we're having concrete poured from the driveway wrapping around the back which is where our trashcans are kept. No more dragging the trashcans through the muck for Robbio.
Here's a view of the front steps leading up to the house. Down the road we have grand plans of tiling this with slate or flagstone, but for now we're just going to install landscape lighting down the path - as any of you who have visited at night can attest, it is wicked dark and spooky right now!
Here's a view of the path from the front door facing the street, same goes with the landscape lighting, no big changes on plants planned here.
Now, turn around - you dizzy yet? Here's a view through the gate to the back yard, see Walter in the back? He's glorious and will be missed. Can we please have a moment of silence for him? This will be colored concrete 3x3 pavers (not in a row, kinda offset) with green ground cover inbetween. On the left next to the wall we'll have some full trees so I can bounce around and work out up in the loft without feeling like the whole world is watching. I'm sure no one can actually see in due to the glare but I still feel paranoid...
And a view of the rest of the "yard" - where the rolly BBQ is, we plan to install the built-in BBQ. It'll be stucco colored to match the house and will have a fridge and a bar with stools, built in an L shape so the bar part can look into the courtyard - it's all about party flow, yo. And back in the fence area, we're doing a big arbor with vines and trees for privacy - that's also the future home of a hot tub down the road when we win the lottery.
Ah, hello again Walter. To the left will be our water fountain, I'm soooo looking forward to that - I love the sound of running water although it might increase the have-to-tinkle quotient to sky high levels. And when Walter goes to the meadow in the sky, we'll replace him (sniff) with a huge tree with uplights...tree type TBD.
Another view of future water fountain placement and Walter's "good side"
We'll have a seating wall all the way down this area in "stonework" (concrete) called Country Manor - it's really cool and much more cost-effective than actual stone. Again, that lottery isn't really coming through for us yet, dang it.
And one more view of the future BBQ, water feature and hardscape planned.
We're going to have planters all around the house to break up the concrete and bring in some color and warmth.
Nothing planned for the courtyard right now, when we tile the walkway down the road, we might do in here too. For now it's going to have all our stuff crammed into it so the guys can work in the back mud pit. Stay tuned, we'll keep you updated on our progress! It'll be about 2 months of chaos, but please remind me when I whine that it'll all be worth it in the long run. woohoo!
And finally, random pic of some wildflowers in an open field right down the road - glorious, right? Maybe we can replant Walter here among his people.
