More of the Great Outdoors...

Lets play BEFORE and AFTER...

We are focusing on the island of planting there in the middle of the photo.. This is before...

Now what's missing?

I hated that big post with the bug zapper on top...hated it...Like everything else when we moved in the bug zapper didn't actually work...it was just hanging there... I pulled it down and dragged it around the house and plunked it down onto the big pile we have of "trash for Rich, the trash man"...
I also pulled out a lot of dead plants... and while I was cutting grass Rich (not to confused with Trash Man Rich) started working in the back...  The back of the house is just plain ugly...  All of that area underneath the deck and sun porch needs to be enclosed.  Saturday he did some preliminary work and got four post holes dug, concrete poured into them and some post brackets set..  Today he got four posts in...

Three posts are already in...

before....really ugly and those satellite dishes don't help any..  Unfortunately we have to have TV and Internet... and with most of our land in trees, this is the only place to get a good "sky view"..

Stringers ready for next weekend...

Thought I would show you the planting on the left side...Hosta..

And more Hosta along with three Concord Grape plants..

On the inside I did a bit of DIY spray painting.. Our daughter was cleaning out her garage and she had that headboard..It was bronze which is not a color I happen to like, so I used Rustoleum Hammered in Silver...  This is the guest room..and still needs a dust ruffle and proper quilt..and a new lamp..and some artwork might be nice..

Closeup of the paint job..  I love how it turned out.. Not bad for the cost of two cans of spray paint..

 And I also did a little DIY on the refrigerator..  When it was delivered it had a big sticker on the front.  It was supposed to be stuck to the plastic coating, but it wasn't... I couldn't get that sticker off with anything...  Then my sister-in-law came out for Easter and noticed it... 

I used three items...

to get this off... it was worse, but I forgot to take a photo before I started...this is halfway through..

Add Miracle Whip (Mayo would work also) and let sit..

Nice and clean... 

Nancy

outside...

As the weather warms up here in the Midwest, I am being forced to work we are doing more outside work...  This past weekend I was gone Saturday from 8am and didn't return home until after 5pm...

"Someone" decided to do some planning and working on his own... I was surprised to come home to this..

Adding a step (or two) will help...

Sunday morning, I was asked nicely if I could help with some outside work, I was told to drink my tea, eat my breakfast and come on outside... ugh...

Remember, we started with this...

A partial walkway...
leaves everywhere...
no grass...

Oh wait!!  Did you notice the fence?  It's new!!   Since that happened a couple of weekends ago, lets start there...

Isn't it nice...  We needed to add the fence in order to be able to get dirt to stay IN the yard and not wash down the hill...

and then Rich and Ryan shoveled  dirt into the front yard.. This was 11 scoops of dirt dropped into our Chevy truck...

more dirt...

So now we have a fence and dirt... Remember that before photo?

Leaves, no grass, and more leaves... I don't know when the previous owners raked, but it wasn't anytime in the last 10 years...These leaves were matted down...into a leaf carpet...ugh...

I raked these....

Some came from the side of the garage...

Some from around the steps..

And now after working all day yesterday, in the rain, we have two stone walls...filled with dirt... two new steps...grass seed and straw...  and a pad of concrete pavers for the trash can..

Now we need to research plantings for those areas...We know absolutely nothing about plants..we need something that will grow in partial afternoon sun and that won't die easily...Hostas maybe? We did manage to save the Clematis on the right..I'm not a big fan of the lattice structure, but it's woven so tight on it I don't know if we can change it... We are open to any ideas on plantings.. Grapes are going in on the right..and the cat door is going to be closed up..I'm pretty sure that's where all the kittens are being produced...lol

Grass is already starting to grow in front of the house and hopefully with all the rain we got in the last two days the grass under all that straw will germinate and start growing...

And now we move to the back...

We've had more visitors show up...

FREE KITTENS... They are approximately4 weeks old now.  They were born under the steps below our bedroom window and I have seen 3 so far...this one has the bluest eyes... They should be ready to be adopted soon!!

And the same three deer show up every day unless it's raining or windy...  They are very comfortable and don't mind us being on the deck snapping photos..

Now I need to go and make a birthday cake and get the house ready for company...It's my grandson's birthday tomorrow and we are hosting tonight with BBQ pork steaks, baked potatoes, fried corn and pineapple Birthday cake...

Nancy