More Outdoor Projects

I thought I would mention some of our other outdoor projects.  I've been trying to be diligent at taking "before" and "after" pictures because I hope to put together a whole album of our house projects someday.  I was going through some old pictures and even though I've been very close to these projects, it still amazes me at the changes we've done so far.  We have a long, long way to go however, so we're not brushing off our hands and relaxing with a cocktail just yet.  But here are some recent projects.  (Quick note that when I say "we" with these projects, I must admit that Dave does about 90% of the work on these things, he is truly amazing when it comes to totally renovating something.  Dave, your work ethic and talent in this area is amazing).

The Barn: 
Now, to be fair, we've been working on the barn from about day 1.  So some of these changes are not as recent as others.  As you can see below, it was very run down when we bought the house (inside and out).  I'm sure our neighbors will gladly say that it's come a long way.  Also take note that there was not one speck of grass in our backyard when we moved in.  Last fall we scraped and painted it as well as a lot of inside structural help.  We poured a cement floor (it was literally a dirt floor with stalls for horses when we began) and Dave's been slowly making the inside his work shop.  This summer Dave has been putting in windows as you will see below.

When we first moved in:

Can't imagine why we'd want to make any changes!

Say goodbye to the horse stencils.

And here are some pictures of the recent window installation.  He wanted me to wait to post these pictures because he still has one more middle window to install.  But if I waited to post about any of these things until they were completely done, I'd be waiting about 20 years.

We have windows!  (and weeds...like I said, work in process for all of these things).

Front Walk (or lack there-of for a bit):
We had a landscape architect come to our house about a year and a half ago and give us a total layout of what we should put where for the entire perimeter of our house.  One of the areas we needed to totally renovate is our front walk area.  This spring and summer we started to do a few of those changes.  For one, we completely moved the front walk out about 12 feet.  Someday this new walk will be brick, but for now it will remain stone.  When we moved the walk, we had to change the landscaping along the front of the house as well as the steps to our front door.  I think there were a few months where you couldn't reach our front at all.  Good thing our house is situated such that we don't really use it much (if at all). 

Here you can see how the walk looked when we bought the house.  Very close to the front of the house and curvy. No landscaping.

Ripping up the old walk and laying out the new one.
 

Putting in the sprinkling.

Ready for sod.

Putting in the new steps.

A functional front door!

Island Landscaping:

We have also been working on the landscaping for our driveway island.  Planting lots of bushes and ground cover as well as adding about 5 yards of rocks.  I thought shoveling mulch was hard until we tackled these rocks. 

Creating the mound on the island:

Outlining the different areas.

And now!

We're taking a minor break but we have lots more to tackle this fall and winter!