The Big Reveal!

When the weather gets warmer, something gets triggered inside me and I try to bite off more projects than I can chew. Thankfully, I have a super husband who tries to make my visions a reality, no matter how much it means he doesn't get "his" stuff done. (Although, in the grand scheme of things, isn't "his" stuff really "my stuff"? I think so...)

One of the main goals I wanted to accomplish before baby #2 got here was to clean up and beautify the front of our home. Our house was my grandmother's house, where my dad grew up. My grandmother lived here from the time she got married until she passed away 3 years ago. She was never the outside, gardener, get dirty type, so when my grandfather passed away 18 years ago, the flower beds and landscaping went unkept. Until now!

Scott and I moved in a year ago, and have done a lot of renovations (when I say "we" I mean my dad...). Inside, we refinished the bathrooms, painted EVERY. SINGLE. WALL. and semi-renovated the kitchen. We kept a lot of things that were my grandmother's, including her dining room set, piano and stair runner (which was handmade by my great-grandmother). But one thing that could NOT remain the same was our front yard.

Because I could stand it no longer, Scott (did I mention he is a super husband?) and I headed off to Lowes to buy our first shovel, rake, tarp, and pretty much every other landscaping tool that homeowners may need. It took us two entire weekends to tear/dig/pull out all of the shrubs and weeds and to put everything back together again. Digging it all out was crazy. Some of the plants we pulled out had roots that we literally could not find the end of, so we just cut them out. It was a long process. Scott worked on the stuff that needed muscle, and I followed up by cleaning up the little stuff.

So, without further ado, our home used to look like this:

And here is where we're at today:

Prest-o, change-o! Notice the beautiful picnic table that Scott built for me!? We stained it, and the flower boxes, Behr Moss Blue semi-transparent, just in case you were wondering - two coats on the picnic table, one coat on the flower boxes. (Don't mind that the garage has no roof - it just got torn off this week because we're starting our master bath addition! So excited!)

Here's what we did:

1. We pulled out EVERYTHING except for the rhododendron bushes on either side of the front door.

2. We replaced the deer eaten shrubs on either side of the house with new shrubs (dwarf alberta spruce) that should be deer-resistant. We'll see.

3. My dad built flower boxes for under the two front windows. And, for my birthday, Scott's parents and my parents helped purchase the flowers.

The front of our house is pretty much full sun, so it's tricky to find flowers that can survive! I chose geraniums in mosaic purple (the large pink ones), calibrachoa in cherry blossom (the small pink ones) and fan flowers in new wonder (the taller, purple ones in the back and on the sides).

And look how pretty they are from the inside! Brooke loves to watch the bumblebees from inside as they crawl around the flowers...so fun.

4. We mulched the rest of the area (which is so frieken' stinky! The mulch, that is.) and hopefully it will keep the weeds away, at least for a little longer than without - plus it just looks so clean and pretty.

5. We also pulled out a bunch of ferns in front of our porch, but there's no picture of that...sorry.

Bella is totally smiling for the picture...and Wrigley, under the rhododendron, seems to be looking for a new place to dig. If only we could keep Wrigley from digging in there, I'd be a happy girl. The wire fence around our bushes does NOT do the trick.

It was a lot of work, but very much worth it. I do have major plans for the rest of the house, including a flower garden to the side of the porch and digging up every single fern within 6 feet of our house, but that must be saved for next year. There's a baby coming, and only so much I can do (and when I say "I" I mean "Scott").

On a side note, the rhododendrons bloomed this year, which I do not remember happening last year. I think all the TLC we gave them, plus pulling out the vines and weeds that were strangling it, did the trick. So pretty - and they match my window boxes!