Front Yard Makeover!

Beau and I are marking 3 years in our house - woo hoo! But that also means that we're coming up on 3 years of "ugh"s and "I hate our yard!"s when we pull up in the driveway. Let me explain. We really do love just about everything about our house. I don't even care that the kitchen is "old" or that we don't have enough storage - really, I don't. We are so content with this house and the lot, which is a beautiful feeling! I get tingles when I look back on this post*. :) BUT. The landscaping. Oh GAWD, the landscaping! I'll save you the 3 years of discussions, plans, canceled plans and more "UGH"s for our front yard. I'll move right along to yesterday and how we gave it a great makeover. And we didn't even have to plant anything new, build brick borders around the beds or hire a landscape architect or day laborers (all of which were in our original 3 years of discussions and plans)!


The big change came with removal of the PEA GRAVEL. The bain of our existence. The reason we kept walking away from this project time after time. We were correct with the time and labor it would take to dig it all out. However, we were incorrect about how much we would LOVE our yard once it was out, mulch was down and thus, not need to change any of the actual plants or borders to the beds!


Before:
Oh, we also LOVED [sarcasm] how they gathered large stones around the base of each bush and tree - also lovely to lift and haul away! Great idea, former owners! Every muscle in my body curses your name. :)

Let's gather MORE rocks around roses - that will make them look pretty?

Back story: there were terribly massive, dead plants in that bald spot before. We pulled those up last year. and yes, this is an improvement.

I believe Pea Gravel got its name for one of the following reasons:

1. Each pebble that makes up the BILLIONS of them in one front yard is about the size of a PEA. Imagine having a lifetime supply of baby peas in your yard. Now imagine digging them up and out of 2-inch thick mud with your bare hands. Damn you, Peas.
2. It can really P*** off the calmest, most laid back person (Hi, Beau!)
3. Two people drinking copious amounts of water (okay, and a beer too) during an 8 hour day of digging pebbles have to PEE a lot. Maybe it's actually Pee Gravel. 

Do you have any idea?!
Be gone, beast.

After:
You like?!

Taking at least a foot off those huge shrubs Monday. 

Still a few remnants when photo was taken last night.

My knock outs look MUCH better without rocks gathering at their feet.

Don't get us wrong, we dream of Austin stone-style borders around each bed and perhaps filling the massive hole between those tall bushes but you can't beat a makeover like this for under $200. We were thinking we would need THOUSANDS to make it happen. I am so proud of Beau for working so hard!


And a huge thank you to our neighbor Scooter who, after pulling up a chair and beer to watch, jumped in for a very sweaty hour to help. He was dressed for dinner on a patio with friends. He didn't have to do that and it was a great help!

Thanks Scooter! And we ruined a perfectly good shop vac (sorry, Grayson) for this project but it saved days worth of time!

*Side note on the link up top: I have to make this correction for my own peace of mind! I wasn't correct about plantation shutters throughout - only in the front windows. I was going off memory. And I was right about that dumb tree. Beau wishes for it to blow over every time a storm comes through!