Curb Appeal

Warning- long post.

When we bought our (now) beautiful house it was in need of a lot of love.

Below are pictures from when we were looking at the house:

 

Lots of tall bushes, a rickety gate, and a very boring porch. The good news is that there was a porch- something that both Tim and I love. In the second picture you can see that the bushes pretty much engulfed that porch. They had to go. For several reasons. First of all, they encroached on the walkway to the front door. Second of all, they made the house look much smaller than it is. Most importantly, for the first year we lived here, the front door was our main point of entry and I was terrified I would come home late one night and someone would be lying in wait for me behind the bushes. Scary...I know.

 

The bushes along the driveway had to be trimmed back as they scratched our cars.

 

The last picture shows the bushes in front of the nursery window. To give you a point if reference, the top of the bushes were even with the top of my head. Not even kidding. They covered up most of the window so that when you were looking out all you could  see was green.

 

Last May, my amazing husband took out his machete and hacked away at the bushes. Unfortunately for him, we had just found out we were pregnant, so I couldn't help him with the heavy lifting. Strategic, aren't I?

 

After several days of back breaking work he had conquered the bushes and you could actually see the house. We planted a few meager plants that promptly died in the summer heat and then, like I said, we were expecting a baby so we ignored the front of our house until this Spring.

 

Now we have this:

 

 

 

 

Much better, no? Don't worry about the hose- I still have to find a cute storage box. I actually took these pictures about a month ago and the plants have about doubled in size since then. This front flower bed has always been a bit of a head scratcher. Its a huge space. I think we decided to just put in a ground cover that can tolerate shade- stay tuned.

 

In front of the nursery window we planted a blossoming cherry tree and knock out roses among some annuals.

 

On the left hand side we have ferns, hydrangeas,

 

impatiens,

monkey grass,

 

 

and Aurelia. 

 

 

The monkey grass is a transplant from my parents' house that they were going to throw out. So, score! Free plants! Plus, I think it seems very happy in its new home.

 

I cannot emphasize how much the curb appeal has improved on our house just by tearing out those man eating bushes. Let's do a side by side before and after, shall we?

 

 

 

 

I love our house :).