One of the blogs I read every few days is called
Thrive and the woman over there does a fantastic job of re-using things she already has in order to complete projects around her home. Now, honestly, I don’t have half the ingenuity that she has, but I like her concept of
{use what you have}
As many of you know, we bought a camper trailer last spring and it was living in our driveway until our jerk neighbor complained to the City. We started making plans to rip up the front the yard and create a pad for the camper on the south side of our house, meanwhile re-doing the front yard.
We even went as far last fall to pull out a ton of bushes that were randomly placed around and in our courtyard to “get a jump” on this project (and lessen the amount of leaves we have to clean up – since we have to clean up all the neighbor’s too…looong story).
Weeelllll, time and money are short right now {isn’t this always the way?} so this project has come to a GRINDING halt! Meanwhile the front yard looks like doo-doo because we were anticipating tearing it all out.
Last weekend I had had enough, so I got my “rock what you got” attitude on and told Handsome…”front yard beautification in the works today.” I spent 8 hours out there on Sunday…and another 3 out there yesterday.
Just be warned...there is nothing MAJOR going on here, there will probably not be any "oooh-ahhhs" that escape your lips...there was just a lot of clean-up and bucking rock. But, I am pretty proud at how just a few hours of hard work can make such a difference and make you feel some pride in where you live.
I didn't take a lot of "before" pictures, but here is one - this is inside the courtyard where an obnoxious bush was planted...it rained leaves like no one's business, so I am so happy to have it gone.
I sent Handsome to Lowe's to get some decorative bark as a "temporary" fix for this spot (isn't bark always temporary anyway? At least here it is...with 60 mph winds, it doesn't last in your yard for long).
Handsome called from Lowe's...said, "not getting the bark - it is ugly." So we are going with this instead (still have to make a few cuts to make this lay right. It already looks better!
Yesterday, I vacuumed (yes, people, I DO vacuum outside frequently - is there something wrong with that?), scrubbed the siding, cleaned the furniture and sprayed everything down...then I rearranged the furniture (I told you there was nothing crazy big going on here)...but what a difference it made!
Oh, what's that you say? What's that little table? This was yesterday's BIG project (tutorial coming tomorrow) that has been swirling in my brain for weeks! Are you ready?
Why it is some zebra deliciousness...{AWE-SOME} in my sing songy voice! This table makes me smile every time I see it; I may have to start using the front door more often
{SWOON}
This little area outside the courtyard will receive the same paver treatment as the other area with plans to put a really large pot with some flowers in it. That will be this weekend's project.
And to the other side of the courtyard gate is this lovely (NOT!) area. First of all, I was really hoping to get rid of these hideous red lava rocks (were those EVER a good idea?), but Handsome says, "not yet" so I spent about 2 hours weeding, pulling grass and "cleaning" this red lava ugliness. I decided to pull these river rocks from our leftover stash in the backyard to create some dimension and hide the broken sidewalk. Even with the red lava rock...it looks 100% better.
And I carried that idea over into this little "gully" that was collecting dried grass, weeds and snails for the past season. Why do we have a "gully" like this in our front yard, you ask? Well, last year (or maybe the year before), I told Handsome I wanted this area to be a flower bed border. He slaved and worked, although didn't follow instructions and did his own thing...which left it not quite what I wanted. It was fine while it lasted, but the flowers died and were replaced with...rocks. Again, a good solution until we rip this baby up.
And lastly, because we don't have a lot of blooms in the front yard, I was able to score these two pots at my grocery store on clearance for $8.00...added a little color, which is always good in my book.
That's it for my 'rock what you got' project...still some other things to do and paint (need to refinish my bench in the courtyard). Look for my tutorial on the table tomorrow...it's one of my favorites so far and I'm now wondering where else I can do this...I think Handsome just rolled his eyes when he read that! LOL
Thanks for stopping by!
{alicia}
