Day Three-seventy: the great outdoors

Well nature lovers we spent an overcast but mild weekend whipping the grounds into shape. With the help of a local garden center we're pretty pleased with where things stand now.

The previous owners may not have had green thumbs but they certainly liked to plant things. In out opinion too many things that grew unwieldy. On the left side of the front of the house this is what we had to start with (ignore the new walkway that was done months ago):

A few plants, shrubs, and fragrant cedar mulch and presto!

As the shampoo bottle says, lather, rinse, repeat (on the right side).

This is a work in progress in the front yard, which has too many obstacles to avoid when cutting the grass.

With extra yard maintenance items (rocks, mulch, etc.) on hand and our tools already warmed up we decided to clear out the overgrowth at the back of the house. Our goals with all of this yard work are to make things a little neater and to get the plants and old mulch (as deep as 8 inches in places) away from the foundation.

All yard work and no play makes Jack a dull boy (or something like that), so we continued to make some progress on the deck, adding new lumber to give the cypress decking a more secure base. At the end are a couple photos of an extension we put on the laundry exhaust vent.