Our New and Improving Backyard

Our backyard has come a long way. When we moved to this house, we were excited just to have a fenced yard, but a year later we've realized that we want more for our family than just a yard with a fence. We want a place to spend time and enjoy. We found an online company http://www.directgardening.com and http://www.michiganbulb.com. We only have one nursery here and Wal-Mart to help us with our landscaping needs. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart hires anyone who applies in their nursery department, so they have little or no knowledge of plants. The other nursery charges way too much money for what they offer. So we turned to the Internet. Turns out they have the same plants for a LOT less. Your plants come to you in small sticks or twigs, but with a little love, water and time they will grow into big beautiful plants. Just to give you an idea, we went to our local nursery and were quoted $100 for 4 plants. We went to direct gardening we got:

2 - lilacs
2 - burning bushes
2 - royal empress trees
6 - honeysuckles
1 - lavender
1 - butterfly bush
3 - festuca (a ground cover)
and a couple random flowers

We paid $45.00, which included shipping. Anyway check out our before and after pictures. They will get better and bigger as time goes on. I'll have to update our front yard pictures later on.

Before

After

These Hostas were there when we moved in, but no one had watered them, so they were dead. Beautiful and big this year. We created a new boarder with bricks this year for them.

Remodel--Phase 1

We've made some changes to our house, and I don't think that anyone has really seen the transformation. Here are a few before and after pictures of the house. One of these days we'll get to Hailey's room and the guest bathroom. After that we have a few adjustments for our kitchen, a covered deck out front, a patio out back. These are all small changes, that have created some sweat equity. We are proud of the changes that have taken place so far. Tomorrow I'll post some pictures of our backyard, that has really changed for the better so far.

Office before

Office after

Kitchen/Dining room before

And after...more to come here

Silly serving window in our kitchen

All gone... and much better we think

Almost finished with this project