Denis and I are on a mission this summer. We want to clean up our front yard, fix a problem in our kitchen, fix our dented garage door, and start a garden. Yep – you read that right!
Our front yard is “that” yard – all it’s missing is a random toilet sitting in the middle of it. It’s all weeds, and I’m not ashamed to say we’ve received a letter or two from our HOA demanding we cut our lawn per the covenants of the neighborhood. Pffffft.
We have a dent in our garage door that has been there since BEFORE WE MOVED IN, and we’ve gotten a couple letters over that one too. Even though it’s been like that SINCE BEFORE WE BOUGHT THE HOUSE.
Our backyard is unsalvagable, but we don’t care since no one sees it. We just mow the weeds every now and again and react in surprise when we see actual flowers bloom.
Oh, and my flower bulbs that I planted in January, significantly later than I should have? Well, the benefited tremendously from the Big Freeze we had in February and are now popping up nicely. Yesterday I counted about ten grape hyacinths beginning to peak their way into the world. I’ll take pictures eventually, but it’s looking like four of the five containers are going to have a REALLY NICE display of flowers this spring/summer.
Our kitchen sink is hideous. It’s only 5″ deep which means the minute you turn on the water you get splashed. So last night we headed out to Lowe’s and picked out a nice new sink. It’s 10 inches deep on the left side, and 8.5 inches deep on the right. We also ordered a new faucet set that features a very high tap – this way once we add our Pur water filter back on, we’ll still have plenty of space between the faucet and the bottom of the sink (it’s a comedy of errors trying to wash dishes with the Pur filter on our current tap in our current sink). I can’t wait for it to be installed – it’s going to be like having a brand new kitchen (which is the same effect we got when we redid our kitchen floor two years ago – it changed the WHOLE LOOK of the kitchen).
As for the front yard, we’re going to rip out some stuff, expand the area of landscaping so that we have less lawn, and then remove and resod the little bit of lawn area we leave. In the landscaped area we’ll play it simple – hostas and a crepe myrtle tree. That’s it. Up next to the house we have a small area in which we’ll put a birdbath, a couple big rocks, and my containers that have the bulbs. All in all, it should look VERY nice when we’re done.
Denis is going to build a 6″ garden bed in the backyard to plant corn and strawberries. The kids are excited, and Denis has already bought all the lumber needed for this garden bed.
Our hope is to have everything done within a month – before it gets terribly hot outside. Here’s hoping!
We replaced our shallow sink during our kitchen redo and it makes a HUGE difference. You will love it!
I’d really like to plant a garden but the one basil plant I have in my office is barely hanging on. I’m horrible with plants. But good luck, strawberries and corn sound like they’ll be great this summer!
One word of warning re: strawberries– they send out shooters and can climb over railroad ties. Once in your lawn they can be pretty pervasive. First hand experience talking here…
NJSue – thanks for the warning. Maybe we’ll put some kind of barrier down at the bottom of the garden bed to ensure it doesn’t leave the intended garden area.