outside..

Even with the nasty temps lately, we have been doing outside work.  We hate outside work..oh, wait...have I said that before? Yea..we hate it..  But it must be done..

So here are the before... what you cannot see are the new gutter guards that went up on Friday...

Front Yard before, although you can see supplies there..

These plantings were at the house when we purchased it, but not tended to in a long time...

This holly (ivy?) is by the back deck...

looking down the steps on the deck

Back deck steps..

And here are the afters...  after sweating and raking and lugging and sweating and carrying and well, you get the idea...  WE WORKED!!!!

Three planters across the front of the house

Ten years of leaves were raked away from these plants, more than one dead plant removed and mulch added.

Nothing will grow here...nothing...it gets no sun..and the cats would tear up any plantings while new...   We thought about mulch,  but we figured the cats would just scatter it everywhere..so Rich carried 28 bags of white granite chips down the side of the house and i ripped them open and dumped them... It may not be the best landscaping but it looks clean...go back and take a good look at the before photo again.. See all the leaves he raked away...we didn't even realize that the concrete step went all the way over to the house...

Somehow i missed getting a photo of the clipped holly (ivy?), so look at that before photo and imagine it all clipped nice and round with black mulch underneath...believe me it's pretty..

 Rich mowed the pasture...twice...with a riding mower...

 but that was after he tore down a section of fencing, weeded and cut..

This is us in the truck driving out of the pasture...

And so we proceed....

This is our parking situation at the moment.. At the most we have three cars and a truck parked in various places..the problem is that propane tank.  It's in the worse possible position...many a times we almost hit it backing up in the snow and ice...

see how close it is??

The propane man came today and trenched across the driveway (and might have cut the phone line, uh oh!!)    Tomorrow he will return and move that propane tank across to the other side of the driveway....behind a stand of trees...and out of our way...

And more workers are coming tomorrow to do a HUGE job...  photos to come...

Nancy

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