The yard
I give Ted a lot of grief about the house. He owned it before me and although I think it is a perfectly appropriate size, I dislike the layout. It just doesn’t flow as well as I’d like. As much as I may dream of a more perfect house, this is our house for now so I try to focus on the highlights.
By far the best feature is the yard. For our area, we have a very nice large yard. I love our yard but when I first moved in, it was in desperate need of TLC. Most of the work occurred last summer and we are now reaping the benefits of our hardwork.
The first thing I did was convince Ted to tear out the shrubs in front of the house. These ugly things were replaced by lovely two tiered garden beds built by Ted and my dad and planted by my mom and I.
After the success I had there, we focused on the awful alley fence. The two fences were torn down and slowly but surely we replaced it with new panels. It took us a long time to do it but our neighbors assure us repeatedly the work was well worth it.
I also added a nice garden along the fence line, which I then extended this summer. One small garden was planted under the lilac tree last summer and we planted another small garden in between us and the neighbors this summer. This new garden has a blueberry bush which we have high hopes for.
The final garden was a raised bed vegetable garden in the backyard. It ended up being double in size and we are discussing expanding it next summer if all goes well.
Our goal is to maximize the play area for B in the backyard. The recent vegetable garden addition was a distraction to her so we spent this weekend looking for a playhouse. We found one for free on the side of the road and after cleaning it up and reassembling it, B is now a home owner. She is very happy in her play area as we relocated the sandbox to next to the house.
Now I just need to curb the desires to expand another garden.
