Baby steps

As of last night we cleared out the rest of the concrete and laid a path just to make sure we were keeping enough aside. We probably wont even need this much. The plan is to recess it into the ground and have grass grow between...

You can get a glimpse of the shutters we added to the garage last week.

Wow, this is going to give us so much more grass! I still can't believe someone built a garage on the opposite side of the yard all the way back there...

An idea of what I am envisioning
(photo found in google images)

I should have posted an exterior shot of the back of the house...but here is an idea of what we are going for. We'll have a small area of pavers for a yard level patio-the stairs will inset like those do on the right to the back door. We will also have a set of inset stairs on the other side to our side door.

Their porch wraps all the way around. Ours will go to the corner of the house then a small one from our side door will tie into the mail deck. And the pergola.....sigh...



Another beautiful pergola. Couldn't resist. the plan is to have a long skinny farmhouse table undderneath as well which is why I've saved this photo for all of this time.

It's been really difficult to "see" how it will come together. Now that all of the white concrete is out of my eyesight I'm starting to see it... ;)

On the agenda this week: removing the sidewalk by the side door. I will then call the gas company to have them come move the gas meter to a better location. I'll also need to line up a visit from the a/c people to talk about moving our air unit as well. Exciting-lol.

Last 3 pics courtesy of Country Living.

~Amanda

Bye bye driveway!

Wow, it's been a long time! Not that we haven't been busy with house projects-that's a constant with old houses...I've just been lazy keeping track of things and getting pictures on here.

The project of the moment (well, 1 of 3-lol) is finally getting rid of the driveway that ran diagnal across our backyard. We had flipped our garage door over a year ago to the alley for rear access so we'd have a large yard once all of that concrete was removed. It's a bigger, harder and heavier projet than we bet on-but isn't every project like that?

You'd never know that Chloe actually offered to help out by that look she's giving me. The kids have been great at picking the smaller chunks out and wheeling then to the pile with their kiddie wheelbarrow...

Doesn't look like we'll be parking inside the garage anytime soon, huh? That's about 1/4 of the drive-waiting for the city to come pick it up to use it for around the lake.

The best for last :) lol
The arial view of our backyard. It's ridiculous how much more room/grass we'll get once all of that is gone!There is still a good 5 ft toward the house you can't see-all the way over to that rickity fence-(replaced soon hopefully) and about 15 ft or so down the rear of the driveway next to the house.

Unfortunately we're at a standstill to haul until the city comes to haul away the 1st load.


If you look closely you can see the window boxes we just hung on the garage. We made some shutters that I need to finish sealing today and they'll be ready to hang :) Will show that soon.