as 2020 unraveled

Now here I am in this weird year {weirdest year ever} wanting to get back to this little piece of the internet | world that I call my own.  One of the first things I want to share and start documenting here is the redesign of our front yard.  Mister Masterpiece and I started it in the Fall of last year and we restarted this year {weirdest year ever} when the weather started cooperating again.  This redesign has been a long time coming and we are doing as much of the work ourselves as we can.  I was | am so happy to finally get rid of it all.  A blank slate is totally what we needed and it’s what we got.

We started in September of last year by having a contractor do all the demolition for us.  There was a TON of cement as you can see in this before picture below plus a few medium to smaller trees AND a ton of shrubbery | plantings that were a hot mess.

We knew some things that we absolutely wanted.  A secondary gravel driveway was one of them since we now have a driving teenager with another soon to be driving teenager.  We used decomposed granite {DG} throughout much of the design.  We were inspired by the Patina Farm aesthetic and used the granite for the driveway, in the walkways with the slate and in the sitting area.

We definitely wanted to use some kind of blue | gray slate for the walkways.  Originally we were going to have the crew who did the demo lay the slate for us but one morning I woke up to this…

Yup, that’s Mr. M.  He’s a Doer.  I helped him a little bit but he pretty much cranked out the entire job in record time.  It was a giant jigsaw puzzle which was fun at times but certain spots were a bit tricky.  I am still amazed we DIYed the whole thing.  Here we are in November while work in progress…

Once the walkways were done the crew could lay down the sod.  They also ran all the electrical and irrigation for us.

We did a few plantings before we called it for the winter season since the rain was coming. So far I love how it has turned out.  We still have much to do, plant, design and the list goes on.  I am enjoying the process and I am really trying to not get stressed out about the decisions I am unsure of.  As we get more hardscape done and plants in the ground it gives me a better understanding of my end vision.

We will also add a livestock fence, incorporate a fountain and repaint the house.  We will hopefully replace the front door and maybe add shutters to the front windows.  So you see, we have many decisions to make and plans to develop throughout the rest of the  year, did I mention it’s a weird year? {weirdest year ever!}.  As far as the yard,  all of it is good.  All of it is exciting.  All of it brings a little bit of stress along with it.  Like I said, I am being very deliberate about enjoying the process.

“Landscaping is living space that just happens to be outdoors.”

~Greg Southard~