Dreaming of Spring...

So when we looked at the house in late May we noticed the landscaping needed some love in a few places.

We have railroad ties that are falling apart, heaving brick patios and a deck that is soft and spongy in more than a few places.  We smiled and said "no big deal, we can dig this patio up and reset it" or "I know I can get some of my friends over here to help replace this deck" and "these railroad ties aren't in that bad of shape".

Then we took another look in June when we decided to buy.  "Hmmm, some of these weeds seem a bit large" and "that patio is going to need some attention stat".  Then later in June, after we bought the place but before we closed, we came by for some measurements and noticed that the weeds were growing unabated, but really couldn't do anything since we didn't own the place.  Most obvious, the north side of the house had a nice landscaped walkway that leads you from the front of the house to the back yard that seemed to be disappearing.

Fast forward to August 19, closing day.  We were proudly showing everyone around and then - CLUNK - outside.  We were fortunate enough that the previous owners paid for a lawn service and continued to water the lawn, so the lawn was nice and green, but anything that wasn't lawn - weeds.  Weeds taller than 6 feet.   So many weeds that you didn't even know there was a walkway on the north side.  You couldn't tell there were tiered planting beds in the backyard.  Vines growing like crazy up the side of the house.  Sigh.

Trust me,  this is the backyard

Hello heaving patio with weeds included!!

We spent most evenings in September pulling weeds on the north side of the house to restore some sense of livability.  Here is what it looked like before...

Why, Mr. North side of the house - where is
your lovely walking path??

And, here it is today.

There's the walking path

Ahh, much better.  This is the easy side of the house.  All we have to do is not let the weeds grow and it'll look like this.  Now for the rest of the exterior.  Sigh.

Those are railroad ties that are falling apart.  And the
only way to walk from the deck into the backyard

See the patio?  I don't think it should be
draining toward the house, do you??

The camera is level, it's the fence that's not :(

This is going to have to wait, since we are the only
ones who would use these "stairs" that go
 from the front entry to the backyard

This is the south side of the house.  It also drains the wrong way - toward the house

Now we've got big plans.  Sadly, we've also vastly underestimated the amount of effort and money that exterior projects eat up.  But we've budgeted and planned for the immediate needs, so the agenda for summer 2012 is as follows...

1.  Replace deck.  Fortunately, the framing is solid as a rock, the 30 year old boards are not.  Hopefully we'll get by with only replacing the floor and rails, and trellis...

2.  Dig up and reset heaving patio.  We were going to build a lower tier to the deck there, but seriously - how many square feet of deck does one family need?  So for now, we'll reset what we already have and it will be just fine.  I promise.

3.  Regrade south side of house.  We suspected it was a problem, and now the snow has melted, we know it is a problem (it looks like a sweet little lake out there - 2 feet from the house).  Hopefully we'll find some free fill dirt on craigslist.  I'm also planning on building some planters underneath the windows to the boys' rooms for privacy and some pretty.  We'll see how that goes.

4.  If the budget allows, we'll also have the ash tree removed before the ash borer comes along and does it for us.  I'd prefer to have professionals remove it so it doesn't crash through my living room ceiling.  I'm scared to call for estimates though.  It's not going to end well for the tree or our checkbook I'm afraid.  We'll see if the tree guys feel sorry enough for us and give us a good deal on removing the pine tree as well.  It's got the wilt and isn't looking too good these days.  Poor fella.

Since this will be our first spring around here, I'm hoping that lots and lots of pretty flowers come up this spring to help us through this.  We'll need all the pretty we can get for motivation!!