The Great Outdoors

Since I don't have so much to do inside anymore I've been able to work on the front and back yard some. This is something I really should've done when we moved in, or maybe later that year when it wasn't over 100 degrees out for what seemed like every day until December. Anyway on with the show.

The front yard didn't need as much work as the back and I was able to take care of all of it in maybe an hour. Here's the before / after.







The back yard though - it's pretty bad. It's hard to convey the level of neglect it seems to have had since the 1990s, except for the grass anyway. Here's a short video of what it's like.



I spent at least 8 hours or so clearing it all out. So far all the overgrowth is gone except for the bushes next to the house. I hate to cut those down but they've become so overgrown it's impossible to trim them back and have them look even remotely normal within the next year or so anyway. The one fault I could find from what the original owners did was that they planted too many of them. Otherwise they made a wonderful layout that's given me a canvas to make something new from. The short trees have really matured well on their own.

Here's a brief count of things found so far:
Shoes: 1
Acorns 300,000
Beer cans from a nearby high school student or their friends: 1 (this one is on the house but any more are getting returned via their mailbox)
Lost dog toys from someone in the past: 2
Pirate treasure: 0
Huge broken pots that are now part of the landscaping: 1
18 year old RC Cola bottles: 1









I can't do as much when night falls so I go back indoors to pick up where I left off. So far the upstairs is nearly complete. Tomorrow it all will be, except for a couple of things I have to pick up at Target. By complete I mean absolutely nothing at all left to do. Staging, cleaning, building - it's all done. Here's how bedroom #4 and the hallway came out. Bedroom #3 from the last update is the room angling off to the right in one of the pictures.