Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The New House Project: Out of Doors

When I first introduced you to our New House Project, I showed the facade of the house but did not include photos of the rest of the property. This is mostly because though a beautiful and expansive lot, it had been allowed to grow uncontrollably for several years. Here is the "front patio" area as it was when we arrived:


The vines growing on the house may look charming at first glance but their effect was to completely block out the light and view from the upstairs. They were choking some palm trees and stopping any flow down the gutters. Here is another photo of vines choking trees, this time in the side yard:

Here's the front patio while the workers were in process:

And finally clean...almost finished:

We felt that the separation between the pavers was too difficult to work with, to hard to fill in with sod, or even with gravel you had to sort of jump to the next paver because each was so far apart. This spacing also prevented a table or chairs to fill the area as undoubtedly one leg would always land off the pavers. My solution was to rearrange the pavers into a path from the garage door through this patio to the driveway. The rest was filled in with sod.

Another before:

And after:

The extensive clean-up and trimming of the property meant that we had at least 6 piles of leaves, branches, etc that looked like this:


Lastly, we opened up some space to allow for walking around the front of the house (in the opposite direction of the front patio) to the side and eventually rear of the house.


The areas you see with the old, red mulch (which I do not like) will be filled with poinsettias this week in anticipation of the holidays. There will also be poinsettias in the front patio area along the bare walls and around the palm tree. Continue around the side and the back looks like this:

Here is where my two youngest little ones play everyday (currently 2 1/2 and 12 months). All of the large trees are avocados, so there is no shortage of squirrels to watch and chase! I created the path with leftover pavers from the front patio and did enclose a gravel area bordering the house where I was certain the grass would not grow due to lack of sunlight. It is all a work in progress but we are quickly enjoying those cooler evenings spending lots of time out of doors. Hope you enjoyed the visit...stop by anytime.

6 comments:

Red Door Home said...

Pointsettas outside - how wonderful! Hope you will post a picture. Living where it is always snow covered for the holidays I have never seen poinstettas planted in the ground.

vicki archer said...

Your new home is going to fabulous....it already is, xv.

Riviera Boardwalk said...

My house was shaped like a U and I had workers remove my grass in the quadrangle in front of my house and put gravel there and gravel around a huge oak tree in front. I put wire planter stands under the windows making beautiful window boxes filled with flowers. I placed a wrought iron round table and chairs out there as well as a fountain and another seating area.
So I love your project and can completely relate to it. Once I was diagnosed with cancer, I sold my home to down size for me and my grandchild I am raising. Keep up the good work!
www.rivieraboardwalk.blogspot.com
nancy

Diane Dorrans Saeks said...

HI OLGA-


Fabulous post. I love your blog.

I must admit I loved the moodiness of the plants all around the house and the overgrown vines, but as you noted, it must have been rather dark and gloomy inside the house. Must be wonderful now. Garden looks groomed.
Like your style a lot--cheers, www.thestylesaloniste.com

cotedetexas said...

what a fabulous difference! i loved the vines too, but it does look better without. just beautiful. beautiful!!!

Renée Finberg said...

it was fun meeting you today.

i will have to catch up with you on your blog.
xx

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...