2016 Outdoor Tour (& To-Do List)

posted on : October 12, 2016

We’ve shown you a lot of the inside of our house, but not so much of the outdoors… well, today’s your day because we’re taking things OUTSIDE! The yard situation of this house definitely has its pros and cons. More pros than cons, though. After all, it was a big selling point for us when we were house hunting! I thought it would be a good idea to show you what the yard looked like around the time that we bought it, plus give you a road map for some of the things we’re hoping to do as we live into it a little more. And because we love a good video tour, I bring you… the Summer 2016 Outdoor Tour! Complete with Mitch as your tour guide. 🙂 Enjoy!

As you can see, we were blessed to snag a yard with TONS of potential. There is a lot of grass, a lot of trees, and a lot of space, which we love. However, potential comes with work and we’ve definitely got ours cut out for us. Here’s a run down of some of the things we’ve been dreaming about, yard wise. Some of them have already been completed (and I’ll get them into posts as soon as I can) and some of them will be waaaaaayyyyyy down the line projects. But, hey, it’s good to dream!

FRONT YARD

New House 1

  • Kill and remove poison ivy from big tree
  • Remove weeds from driveway and fill in cracks
  • Remove big bush from front right corner
  • Add garden bed under front windows next to porch
  • Replace garage doors
  • Replace wood framing around windows
  • Add a swing to the front yard tree!

FRONT PORCH

Front Porch-001

  • Paint front door (already done, as you can see in the video… post coming soon!)
  • Stain and seal ceiling and beams
  • Add furniture (started this!)
  • Buy cushions
  • Stain concrete floor?
  • Add safer/permanent steps leading onto the porch
  • Add garden in front of porch
  • Box in the bottom of the wooden beams to hide concrete bases
  • Add hanging plants

SIDE YARD (facing the house, to the left)

side-yard

  • Remove big bushes by mailbox and plant grass instead
  • Plant a garden bed around the mailbox
  • Add prettier numbers to the mailbox
  • Remove HUGE bush/tree by the backyard fence and plant grass instead
  • Clean up area right against the side of the house (garden bed?)
  • Build a tree house/ play house in the back side nook

BACK YARD

Backyard-001

  • Remove Sumac trees from along fence
  • Remove poison ivy from along fence
  • Remove poison ivy from trees
  • Trim back garden bed around the tree and add plants
  • Clean up back deck (short term)
  • Remove back deck (long term)
  • Add stone patio
  • Build a permanent fire pit
  • Hang bistro lights in the trees
  • Clear behind back fence and replace with prettier option
  • Replace the chain link back fence with tall privacy fence
  • Fix broken side pieces of fence
  • Repair fence gate
  • Figure out some way to add a hammock 🙂
  • Plant garden bed along back of the house

Boom, our To-Do List. Daunting? Kind of. But we’ll take our time and chip away at it slowly… after all, we’re planning on being here for awhile. 🙂