Yard work galore

Up until about two weeks ago most of our attention was spent on the interior of our home. We still have plenty of work to do before the inside is complete but we decided that the exterior was in desperate need of some care. We have spent countless hours pulling weeds, mowing the lawn, planning, and preparing for planting our yard. We painted our once-red door a rockin retro green. It looks pretty killer. We also made a rock and moss path to our hose, planted some pots and reshaped and sloped our flower bed. Here are some pictures of our journey:

Josh got his first lawn mower and is so excited about it. He takes amazing care of it and mows our lawn once or twice a week.

This is what the 'flower bed' in front of our house looked like. It was full of weeds, lacked color, and to us looked like no planning or care went into it at all.

Our lawn was COVERED in these pesty buggers. I hate pulling weeds but it needed to be done. We now have a fairly patchy lawn but in time it will fill in and look much better than it did with all the dandelions and weeds.

This beast, which was almost as tall as our house, was overwhelming to look at. It was ugly and also disrupted the view out our big, beautiful window.

It is no longer:

Saturday the preparations were complete and the planting began. Josh had to move 7 boulders that weighed between 400 and 600 pounds each from our flower bed. He tore out the remainder of our plants and sloped the soil in preparation for fresh flowers.

We replaced that big fat pine tree with these smaller bushes that will fill in beautifully one day.

We have a few blooming peony bushes that I am completely obsessed with, therefor you get an overload of our peonies.

We also have whatever these are,

three hydrangea bushes,

and many roses all in bloom.

We have a gigantic maple tree in our front yard which I LOVE! It provides shade and charm, both of which are good.

We love to lean up against our tree and admire our home.