Landscaping Project

Last weekend Justus and I decided it was time to start our first landscaping project. Phase 1: The south side of our house gets hit by the sun, so the sod is tough to keep looking good. Plus, we have a side garage door and wanted a path to the driveway.  Phase 2: Orton put in 2 trees and 10 plants per HOA. It looks nice, but we wanted to expand the area and put in edgers. We headed to Lowe's to get mulch, tall grass to cover the electrical meeter, pavers, and edgers. Lifting 72 edgers (weigh ~20 lbs each) on the cart, into the trunk, and out of the cart was a lot of work. Our cars were ridin' real low on that trip back from Lowe's!

I left this cart for Justus to push...

Justus looking thrilled! 

We picked the hottest day of the year to start the project (not smart).  We were idiots thinking we could do phase 1 and 2 of our project in one day. We started off strong and ambitious, but several hours in we started to get  sick feeling from the heat. Thankfully our neighbors stopped by to keep our spirits up! By that point we were so muddy, sweaty, and sunburnt. We started around 11:00am and finished around 5pm. Needless to say, we are going to wait for a nice cool day to do phase 2! 

That night we met up with friends for half-price beers and great food at Exile. Great friends, great 
beer, and great food was just what we needed. 

Later in the week my parents came down to bring flowers and tall grass from their garden. This is when we noticed our front landscaping had been expanded. Orton came without us knowing and expanded the flower bed with more mulch and adding a few curves. I loved the surprise and it looks great! Now we just have to do the edge with our stones. Checkout our before and after pics below. Wonder when this ambitious, honeymoon phase of homeownership is going to wear off?!

Before

After

Done! So sweaty and tired! 

Gutter and a few more flowers added.

Much better curb appeal