3 V's: Outdoor Home Projects

We have had outdoor projects galore since we bought our house. Because we bought our house in December, there wasn't much curb appeal with the trees lacking leaves and the grass being dormant. Here you go:

Before:

After:

With it being December, we couldn't do a ton in the grass department, but we did plant some seed and raked up old leaves and grass. It's frustrating, but this is definitely going to be a multi-year process. I wish we could afford it and had the time to blitz it and do it all at once, but there's no rush, I suppose. It's just that so many families in our neighborhood have gorgeous yards, that I get envious, but that's a personal problem that I need to work on. We still need to grade the backyard. There's a low spot in the middle from where the previous owners had an above ground pool. It stays really damp there and makes the grass grow incredibly thick. Robert removed an old stump in our backyard several months ago, and this weekend he removed the gravel that had been around it. Maybe next year we can aerate the yard, kill out the weeds, and put down seed.

We have a couple of quick and low cost/free projects coming up in the coming weeks. Pepaw came over to replace the weather stripping on our garage door this week. We might do a bit of trimming/pruning soon. I also have some flower bulbs to plant. I'm excited to see them pop up next spring!

When we were buying the house and got it inspected the inspector said that the gutters needed to be cleaned out, and he was very right. The previous owners got a new roof a couple of years ago, and we needed to remove a lot of the sandy grains that had come off of the shingles. The two maple trees had also dropped seeds that were sprouting up all over the place in the gutters. Our down spouts were incredibly clogged so the water just flowed over the gutters. Thanks to Robert, they're now in tip top shape and draining properly.

The previous owners also had satellite TV. We don't, and so we didn't need the satellite on our roof. Robert removed it and sealed up the holes with tar caulking, and it looks so nice to have it gone.

Two other small projects were re-caulking around the windows and doors and removing some wood scraps that were in the crawl space.

Robert has gotten a bit of experience with electrical work thanks to our new house, and one of his projects was to replace the light on the deck. The picture doesn't do it justice, but the old light was too tall for the space and was pushing upward into the awning.

Before:

After:

So at some point, a previous owner or builder was obsessed with gravel. Our River Birch had gravel all around it. I'm sure it looked good at one point many years ago, but the gravel had gotten spread up and the weed barrier was very ratty, so Robert dug it up in the spring. It was such back-breaking work, and I don't envy him. Unfortunately, there is our tree as well as three neighbors' trees that prevent grass from growing well here. We planted seed, but it really didn't take, so we'll have to try something else. Like I said, it's a multi-year thing.

So this is what our backyard looked like at the beginning. The darker soil is where we graded the yard a bit to take care of the low spot from the old pool.

One weekend Robert and my dad power washed the deck, fence, swing, and table. We didn't stain the fence since it belongs to our three neighbors, but I did stain the swing, table, and deck, and they look so much better now!

Swing - Half power washed, half dirty - Such a big difference even before the new stain!

Clean deck!

Continuing with the theme of tons of gravel, the front bed was full of it. Robert removed the gravel, we put down some fresh soil, and mulched it. Some hostas, irises, and a hydrangea randomly popped up which was pretty fun. We also added a crepe myrtle, viburnum, three fire bushes, three azalea bushes, and two lilies. See the oxidized pot below? The former owner was a band director, and that's a timpani drum. Memaw and Pepaw cleaned it up for us, and now it's shiny copper. There's one in the front and one in the back.

Stained the table and swing. Robert moved these pavers from the back to the front to create a bit of a front porch swing feel.

Stained our part of the fence. Also pulled out this mulberry tree that had started growing right up next to the house.

I don't seem to have an after picture yet, but here's a before for you. There was a hole in the garage wall that Pepaw helped us patched up. I'm sure you can imagine what it looks like now that it's been patched.

These zinnias did so well after we planted them from seeds!

We made a little flower bed by our deck, and Memaw gave us some of her daisies. They ended up doing really well!

Rose of Sharon in the backyard

The door was forest green to begin with, but I wanted it to be brighter, so we used Mom and Dad's leftover paint from their front door and painted ours and put on new hardware. Robert also made shutters from the front window and used the same paint.