Outdoor Projects

This summer, I've been working on outdoor projects to add some curb appeal to the front of our home.  Here's a picture of what the house looked like when we bought it last year:

There were no flowers or personality anywhere and the grass was pretty dead.  In June, I enlisted DH's help to put in some flowerbeds in the front yard.  It was nice to not have to dig up any flowers/shrubs/small gravel in order to put in the flowers (we've done that before!).  

Below are the "After" Pictures of the house with the flowerbeds added.  In addition, I painted the porch railings and the ceiling of the porch as it had all flaked off once I sprayed it with water to clean the dirt off (oops!).  So began my painting project that took several weekends to complete.

Here is a view of the side of the house.  We added border blocks that I'd gotten from my dad who was getting rid of his and thankfully they went all the way around where I wanted to put flower beds!  The flower bed area was mostly dirt anyway, so there wasn't too much grass to dig up.  We did end up getting a tiller for the soil prior to planting the flowers and then added about 50 bags of dirt (the cheap bags! ha!) in the flowerbeds so we had dirt for the flowers as well as slope the dirt away from the house.  We have tall grasses that really took off, as well as the other flowers in front of them.  In front of the porch railing, there are some lilies that never really bloomed (but are still alive) and a few other plants as well.  I'd have to look up names of what the plants actually are.  I'm not that great of a gardner.  

These are the plants in front of the porch.  I have hostas in between some "Celosia" annuals that are yellow, red and orange.  There is an open spot on the corner as I killed that plant, so I might move my pink hydrangea there.  I planted it behind the tall grasses on the other side, so you definitely can't see it.  Trial and error.  :)  I'm not sure if I like the "Celosia" as they aren't very bright in color.  I mostly just see green overall, so I want to find another annual next year with more color.

Here are my flower pots.  I really loved how they turned out!!  I got the containers from Mena.rds and added some Begonia flowers (orange, white and a purple one that accidentally got in my flower packet), some tall grass and some vine plants.  I've kept them watered and they are really filling out!  I've had begonias in hanging baskets before, but they always seemed half dead, although I watered them daily.  These pots are much easier to care for.  Thanks Lucky at Sunshine for your recommendations on what to plant!!  :-D

We installed a new porch light that we got off of a garage sale last year and I painted the star black.  I hope to paint the door itself black too and leave the orange trim detail around the window ... I'm just waiting for a day that isn't hot as I'd have to leave the door open for awhile to paint it.  If you have another idea for the door color, please let me know!  I was thinking an orange (like the color in the flower pots, but I'm not sure if that "goes."  I also was thinking purple, like the color of the flower pots, but not so sure about that either.  Your ideas are welcome!!

Well friends ... that's it for now!  I'm off to start some indoor projects like painting the foyer, finding curtains for the living room and figuring out what theme to do in Luke's room.  Goodbye white walls!!