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...;)