It's Great To Be Home

It’s A Jungle Out There

September 29, 2009 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 8 Comments

Even though I love the idea of flower beds, my husband and I have proved that we should never be entrusted with them. You see, I have an embarrassing secret – our backyard has turned into a jungle.

So here’s how it’s going to go – I’m going to give you a slew of excuses and explanations for the sad state of our backyard and then I’m going to show you the shameful pictures – and you’re not going to judge me. Mmkay, got a deal?

I realized our backyard had gotten out of control when I found myself admiring the lovely dappled light coming in the frosted window in our bathroom. You see, there shouldn’t have been any dappled light because there shouldn’t be any trees outside our bathroom window. This is how that little area of the backyard looked in April (back when we laid some sod):

And here’s how it looked last weekend:

Another area went from this:

to this:

Yeah. There are no words for the disaster that our backyard had become. It’s embarrassing. Who knew our backyard could go back to nature in just a few months? (But in our defense, this area is around the side of the house where we never look. See? I promised you excuses!).

Anyway, last Friday and Saturday we decided to take the first step toward ridding ourselves of this ridiculous eyesore by tearing up the jungle, along with all the random pieces of cement and edging that were sprinkled around. The plan is to replace the flower beds with sod (which we can handle). The area along the house went from this:

to this:

And those jungle-y areas now look a little something like this:

I know, we still have a long way to go before it’s remotely acceptable, but we made some serious progress – hallelujah! You can take a look at all of the jungle debris as proof of our progress:

And the concrete pavers in the pile below were quite a hot commodity – about half of them were gone from the curb after just a few minutes!

We’re hoping to complete the transformation next weekend, so fingers crossed that we get our acts together and make that happen. What about you guys? Are you as appalled by our backyard as I am? Tackle any big projects over the weekend?

P.S. You may have noticed that there’s no Inspiration Tuesday blog party today – I hope that hasn’t thrown you off! There just didn’t seem to be as much interest as I’d hoped, so it’s been retired for awhile – maybe it’ll make a comeback someday! In the meantime, you are still more than welcome to link to your inspiring posts in the Comments section – just be sure to put your link in “quotes” so that it will show up!

Our Flip: Lift Their Skirts!

August 10, 2009 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 3 Comments

Before we got ahold of it, the front yard at the flip was a hot mess:

The house was barely even visible behind two humongous magnolia trees that totally obscured the roof and most of the exterior – which might have been a good thing, given the not-so-lovely appearance of the house at that time.

And not only were the magnolia trees obscuring the house, they were blocking out so much sunlight with their dense and low-hanging limbs that grass couldn’t even grow over much of the yard – mmm, mud yard – just what everyone wants!

Jason and I knew that the trees were awesome so we didn’t want to cut them down, but we didn’t really know what could be done to (a) let the grass grow, (b) let the house be seen, and (c) let potential buyers mosey up the sidewalk without getting whacked by branches. After we asked around a bit, my aunt came up with this brilliant yet common-sense solution – lift their skirts!! (Her words, not mine!!).

Enter Landscaper Jared – you might remember him from such adventures as Fun With Big Machines and Backyard Oasis. I think it’s only fitting that the Landscaper Jared series gets a third installment, don’t you?

Anyway, Landscaper Jared shimmied right up those ginormous magnolias with a rented chainsaw in one hand and his life insurance policy in the other – kids, don’t try this at home!

Those low-hanging branches didn’t stand a chance!

After we waited a few hours and didn’t hear any sirens, we swung back by the flip and were greeted by this awesome sight:

Have you ever seen so many branches in your entire life? It took three trips to the dump to get rid of that huge pile.

After the magnolias were pruned and the ground was touched by sunlight for the first time in decades, we knew that anything we planted would finally have a chance for survival – no more mud pit!! We trekked over to Home Depot and bought a slew of bushes, plants and flowers – red tip photinas, holly bushes, purple ferns, and impatiens. Once we hauled them back to the house in Landscaper Jared’s truck, we spaced out each plant and flower on either side of the house:

That gave us a chance to eyeball the arrangement and spacing before Landscaper Jared planted all those puppies:

In no time, the front of the flip was looking about a thousand times better. But even though the beds full of ivy were no longer, the front yard was still begging for some new sod:

Landscaper Jared laid about a pallet and a half of St. Augustine over the bare spots in the front yard:

Curious how Landscaper Jared got the grass to curve around the flower beds oh-so-perfectly? I was too, until I spied Landscaper Jared with his secret weapon:

A machete!! Apparently he just gives the grass a few whacks with his trusty machete and he gets a perfect cut every time – man, I wish I had known that when we were laying sod in our backyard!

The lawn has now settled in and is happy as a clam, and the new plantings are looking fab. Have any of you tackled laying sod before? Got any landscaping tips or tricks up your sleeve? Fill us in!

Our Flip: Backyard Oasis

July 14, 2009 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 10 Comments

It’s a total oasis, I tell ya.

Remember that awesome brother-in-law of mine? The landscaper? Let me refresh your memory:

Well, it turns out that Jared’s also a miracle worker.

When we first bought the flip, the backyard was abysmal. And that’s being kind.

See what I mean? We knew that it had potential, and that it could eventually turn into a huge selling point for the house – but there sure was a long way to go.

I’ll fill you in on all the details with the pool later, but the landscaping was a huge hurdle all in itself. Basically, there wasn’t any landscaping. No grass, no flowers, no plants – it was kind of a wasteland back there. And there were lots of stumps – oodles of them.

There was no question that the stumps had to go – so two awesome guys went to work and had them all removed within 2 days (they might also be upgraded to miracle worker status). Take a look at this big sucker, mid-demolish:

It doesn’t look too impressive in the picture, but trust me – in person it was about 2 feet in diameter!

Once the ground was clear, my fancy brother-in-law Jared got to work bringing in the fill dirt and leveling out the backyard – remember that escapade? Then he laid out these big rocks to form the two planting beds:

I was very impressed that he managed to manhandle these ginormous and heavy beasts into position.

Then it was time for the sod – ahh, the sod:

It took about a pallet and a half to fully sod the backyard – that’s a lot!! (And all while working in 100+ Texas heat – I’m pretty sure Jared deserves a medal).

After the sod was down, it was time for the fun stuff – plants!!! The hubby and I took our merry selves to Lowes and had quite the field day in the tropical plant section – no backyard oasis is complete without tropical plants, you know!!

After we wrestled all the plants back to the flip, we laid them all out into position – it took us awhile, and we took turns telling each other where to move the plants. And let me tell you, some of those palm trees are really prickly!! My right arm looked like I had lost a fight with a fork (ok, I’m exaggerating, but it wasn’t pretty). Here are the plants all lined up and ready to find their places:

And here are all those gorgeous plants in their new homes:

And sorry, I couldn’t resist – they were begging to be photographed from every angle, so here you go!

Awesome, right?? Here’s a huge thank you to Jared, who gave up oodles of time to help us out and created a totally gorgeous backyard oasis that any buyer is sure to adore. Thank you!!

So what do you guys think? Are you ready to move in yet? I know I’m ready to jump in that pool!! What’s your backyard like – did you go tropical, go for all lawn, or are you a sucker for bushes and flower beds? We want to hear about it!! (And later I’ll fill you guys in on the plants that we chose, so stay tuned!)

P.S. A little birdie told me that Jared is thinking about moving to Dallas next year to start his own landscaping company – how cool would that be???