Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Front yard redo

Here are my before and after pictures of one of my outside projects. My main objective was to add a little color to the front of my house, as well as make it a little more attractive.


It looks quite horrible, doesn't it? I admit that during our long rainy season I don't really pay attention to whether my Summer plants are turning into monster plants as this silverdust in the planter did. Both the planter and the bench (which I bought from a local sawmill owner last year for a good price) are made out of cedar, but the rain has rendered them colorless. I stained the bench last year, but decided this year I wanted to paint it to brighten up things a bit. And the paint will hold up to our rainy season better.

The bench before:


I love this brick-red color and I'm using it on quite a few pieces of my outside wood furniture.
This transformation cost me around $20. (cushion included).


Here is my planter painted and re-planted. It's true that I could have used more colorful plants, but I went with these because I was able to get them super-cheap or on clearance. It still looks pretty to me, and I'm really looking forward to when the wave petunias trail down the sides.



I picked up this mosaic table from the thrift store last week for $12. I thought it was so pretty, and would be a great addition to my redo.


So here is the finished product. I couldn't get a close-up detailed picture without leaving something out, so this will have to suffice. As you can see, we added a few bags of fresh bark dust to the ground cover. And did major pruning of my daughters rose bush due to black spot.

All in all, I'm quite happy with the result. It cost very little, but makes a big difference to the front of the house. Perhaps all those aching muscles were worth it after all (just had to throw that in:).

I am almost through with a few other outside projects and plan to post those pictures in a few days. After I put in a few more finishing touches...;)


10 comments:

Nikki said...

Looks good! I wish you could come over and help me decorate my house. All those blank walls are, well, blank.

MyKidsMom said...

I wish I could Nikki!

I'm not a great decorator, but I do love fixing things unique to myself (translation: decorating with my own style because I'm not savvy enough to do it like the professionals, LoL:)

When I had two little toddlers running around, I did very little decorating, really just the basics. My focus was on other things, not that you can't do both (I just couldn't;). Adding little touches of pictures and flowers and such can make a big difference though. Just give yourself time.

Stacie said...

yes it is....i never let my kids play in those, although we have been to chuck e cheese and olie kawal's....don't know that i will let them in there any more...

Angela said...

Yay!! Strangely enough....your yard-makeover was the first thing I thought of when I got to work this morning, and I've been waiting to see the pictures. It looks great! Maybe it will inspire me to do something with my own flowerbed...

MyKidsMom said...

Stacie: thanks for stopping by:)

Angela: you're too sweet, I'm glad someone wanted to see the pics (along with Nikki, of course;).

Anonymous said...

I love how you were creative with what you had. Make it more personal and it does give you a sense of accomplishment. I love the color of the bench and did you make the cushion? You asked about the size of the property, we sit on approx 50 acres in a small community called Riverview, in New Brunswick Canada. It is very cute but has all we need as well. Subdivisions are cropping up all around us so before long they may be asking for some. We only use aprox 5 acres as the horses are only in small paddocks. Farming is fun but a great deal of work. I would love to have chickens but they can spread diseases to horses so my mom put her foot down.

If you want to see more pics we have a farm website that my brother does.

http://www.ashton-ridge.com/

p.s. that is our dog in front of the barns. Hope you like the site.

Mrs. Darling said...

Are you guys getting together tomorrow? if so what time?

MyKidsMom said...

Niki: I wish I could sew things like that (the cushion). I bought it on sale, and then used some paint from an earlier project to keep the cost down.
I would love to have all that land to let my boys roam, but I'm sure it IS alot of work to keep it going. I plan to check out that site-link soon:)

Mrs.Darling: Sarah is bringing the girls to swim around noon (along with the extra 2 girls). All the boys will be forced (:) to roam around outside, I don't want to have major clean-up on a Wednesday night. I suggested a park, but they had their heart set on swimming. I will probably have my 2 neighbor girls as well. So if you're looking for a crowd, drop on by:)

Little Natural Cottage said...

Beautiful! Great job, you really spruced things up for the summer!

~Kristy @ Homemaker's Cottage

Nikki said...

Looks great!! It's amazing what a little paint will do.