Let's Go Out Back

If our first front porch wasn't welcoming enough...then mosey on into the back.

Gulp..

See that screened in porch?  

It actually wasn't even a screen but more like a "cage" built with hog wire.

There were two abandoned raised beds, a neglected paint job, no window screens, no grass..you name it ..it was neglected.

Here is the side yard..Gotta love my pose and the really grainy photo! Photography has come a long way in 10 years for sure.

This is what it looked liked in the middle of our demo of the inside of the house....Talk about gratifying and overwhelming..Nothing classier than a toilet in the back yard;)

And here is the "view" looking back across the yard from the other direction

And here is the transformation!  

We removed the "screened in porch", painted, added solar screens to the windows to cut down on the morning sun(an prevent flying creatures from coming to live with us), built a deck, added an outdoor fan and planted tons and tons of drought resistant plants(and some that weren't native to central texas or drought tolerant that didn't do so well).  We babied what little grass was present and it eventually filled in really nicely.

Through this process we definitely learned what kind of plants work well for us and which don't.  If something wasn't doing well where we put it then we would move it and try again(if it wasn't too late).  Another thing that we learned with this yard is how to "not" space things.  We have a tendency to put things too close together and underestimate how big they are going to get.  I have a feeling this yard is a bit overgrown now..We haven't lived there in 4 years and before we left we noticed that several of our trees were getting a little cramped where they were placed.  Oh..we also added trellis to the top of the fence in order to block the "view" of some duplexes right behind us.  

Here is hubs tilling up the ground so we could add compost and provide a healthy base for the St. Augustine to spread.

You can also see that he added new taller posts to the back fence in preparation for the lattice that we added to block the "view".

Here the lattice is up, we have made a curvy bed along the back fence and planted the big players in the  yard...the trees, rosemary, agaves and such.

Here is how it was looking before we build the deck.

Amazing what a deck can do for a space!

Didn't the hubs do a nice job?  I think a deck makes all the difference in the world..It pulls you out into the yard to enjoy all your hard work!

Sadly I don't have a picture of the side of the yard but I promise we got rid of the toilet and it was looking might fine.  We also had a huge garden on the other side and I don't have a clue if I ever took pics of it or not.  I sure hope I come across them some day.

I did find a pic of this awesome that hubs built as an entry to the side yard.  I'm a lucky girl.

That's a carving of a tree in the circle on the top of the gate..

Cool huh?  

We LOVED this yard and spent many many hours drinking coffee(yep I am officially old and addicted to it) and grilling out here.   Can't wait to see what kind of deck we can design around the new casa in in the near future!  Hill Country View..Yes Please!

Linking to:

Houseography

Savvy Southern Style's Blog Party

Focusing Outside!

Since spring is among many of us I can't help but to want to focus on the great outdoors a bit.  There is a lot of outdoor maintenance and curb appeal sprucing up going on around our current abode but I am going to flashback to our first house again for the next couple of posts.  

I mentioned in this post how the hubby wasn't necessarily thinking that he just had to have this house when we went for our first look.  I can't imagine why??!

Doesn't this front porch just reach out and pull you in?  Now granted this could have been a lot worse and the very fact that we had the opportunity to own a home in our financial situation at the time was an awesome blessing!  Oh but I couldn't wait to get my hands on this little entry that would greet us home from work on a daily basis.  I am weird like this but I like to be greeted by a tidy home that smells good and makes you feel like sticking around for a while.
So to start we had to get rid of a few things like:
 The nice little ceramic kitty welcoming you in or warning you to stay away(depending on how you feel about cats that is).
The metal screen/storm door thingy..I think you can totally pull off a screen door in a classy, cool, or funky kind of way depending on the house and/or the neighborhood but this one just took away from what I think should be a welcoming and really functional(it was awkward and noisy) part of the home.
And....
See that blue post towards the front...this really dated the house and looked like a big turned leg from a piece of furniture in the 80's...unfortunately it couldn't be removed so we had to work with it.

Oh and the blue...For the longest time blue was one of my least favorite colors(if you look through any of my more recent posts you will see I am now a fan of many blues) so we started the whole exterior transformation with lots and lots of exterior paint, gallons of sweat , and some major paint spills from the tops of ladders(we still have evidence of two gallons of paint that were uh dropped and splattered on some of our planters)

After the major paint overhaul of the entire house

 we could focus on the smaller details like adding wood around the column to make it look more substantial and just update it period. We also added some funky fun house #'s that really made a big difference in the look/feel of the whole porch as far as I'm concerned.  We loved the look and feel of all the older smaller homes in central Austin but they were about 5 x the cost so we had to come up with ways to make it "feel" like a cool little bungalow instead.  Isn't it crazy what some house #'s can do?  If you think about it I bet that is one of the things that changes the whole look and feel of the curb appeal and I bet it is overlooked a lot.  Oh and the options out there these days are awesome.  These were just some cheapy home depot #'s but they worked.

 So in the picture above the big changes were of course as mentioned the column, paint, house #'s and the blinds.  The blinds actually lightened the porch up a bit and made it look more finished..and obviously had some function too.

In this next picture you can see that we had stained the porch and the whole sidewalk leading up to it.  We ended up using WOOD STAIN because that is what we had on hand and the real acid etching stuff wasn't in our budget at the time.  It held up really well!  I will say we did this at our current home on the back porch and it isn't holding up as well?  Not sure why? This change helped so much and was one of the best things we did for the whole "warm up" of the front of the house.  Stained concrete can really finish off a space because it takes away that cold gray look.  We also painted the front door black, added some new door hardware, and of course the landscaping changed a ton..It was actually a bit out of control in this picture..We couldn't get a handle on that lavender that wanted to grow right into path leading up to the door but if your going to trip on something it might as well be something that freshens the air as you fall to the ground right?

 And here is a pic of it from a little further away..I think we warmed it up a bit and brought out its "welcoming potential" don't you?

Linking to:

Houseography

Welcome Home

We went away for a couple of days and came home to spring in half bloom!  I would say full bloom but I know that in the next few weeks our flower beds are gonna be crazy with color!  That is the beauty of wildflowers!

Pictured below is one of our trusty perennials the flame acanthus it's a little hard to see due to the purple bougainvillea in the background

I should know this but I think that purple guy in the picture below is a larkspur...correct me if I'm wrong..I like to know this stuff!  Do you see what I mean about the craziness that is about to bloom in this bed?

 I just really like this view of the beds in the back yard.  We love to mix a little rustic metal in with all of our plants.  There use to be a big rusty metal cactus in the far corner but we removed it so potential homebuyers wouldn't expect it to come along with the house.

 Have you ever seen a red bluebonnet?  Doesn't even really make sense does it?  And...it is more of a maroon color to me.  Why we don't have any bluebonnets(the Texas state flower) in our yard I don't know.  We will have to work on that!

 Oh and these are my favorite wildflowers these days!  Red poppies..they put on quite a show...

 We were a bit shocked to see that we actually had some red strawberries when we got home too!  Only one was ready to eat so the two bigger kids had to split it! Ha!  Believe it or not they didn't mind..they get such a kick out of growing things and reaping the rewards

 Another newer favorite is this flax.  It isn't the show stopper that the poppies are but I love how delicate it is and it gets to be a pretty good size

 Love Love Love our agave plants(huge blue/gray guy in the background)...so easy and so cool!

 And one more poppy picture..Love how they look next to this texas white stone

Now the lawn on the other hand...still a work in progress ....but I just had to share some of the reasons this is my favorite time of the year!

Meet Mr. Stinky

I know I know that isn't a very endearing name for your first house. The first home you and your husband purchase together, the first home that your first pet as a married couple came home to, your first child's first  home,  your first big time project. He really was stinky and a bit sad when we bought him though. That doesn't mean that we didn't grow to love him. Maybe that is why I had to have him! Seriously as we started walking away from Mr. Stinky with our realtor upon the first showing hubby was quite surprised when I said "we can make this really nice and it is cheap in our price range!".  Although I have to admit I did shed a few tears of fear when I got a good grasp of what we had gotten ourselves into. .  So over the next several posts I will share a little about how we turned our sad little sittin on the market forever house in 2002 which was unheard of in Austin at the time house (I am really good at run on sentences..are you following?) into a let's put it on the market oh my goodness we have a few offers where are we gonna move house in 2007!

Oh these bring back some crazy memories!  We were so excited and so overwhelmed at the same time.  Little did we know we would be even more overwhelmed as we dug in and realized there would be very little that we could save.  We bought this puppy with 0% down for a reason...we had no money..

 So you might wonder why we would buy such a fixer upper?  I don't know..cause I wanted to!  I was ready to do all that fun stuff they did on Trading Spaces and we ended up charging a lot of it (which I don't recommend for most people) but I am one of those people that wants to pay off a credit card bill before I even receive the statement.  I can't stand it and I will move around that debt to every 0% offer I can to avoid paying interest.  We are also super thrifty and bought the best value for the least money kind of stuff..if it looked good of course!  Thankfully we don't have to operate that way anymore but I am glad we took the plunge and did it.  It all worked out in the end.  We had a house that we loved that sold quickly for a profit..what more can you ask for?(oh how the market has changed!)

Here is a sneak peak of how it all turned out.

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