Dirty Days-Part 1

The countdown has begun....Since I work in a school setting, my days of summer are limited. Some summers I do speech therapy work in a nursing home. This summer, my husband and I looked at our finances and figured that I could stay home. So, I spent this summer spending every. spare. minute. working on the house.
Oh, and I don't think I've mentioned this before but I do all the outside work. This makes sense since Jesse can better handle the inside work. Air compressors, plumbing, electrical...they're not really my thing. So....I do what I can on the inside, mainly, pulling out nails, painting, and trying not to hurt anyone and then stick to the outside work. And...I'm proud to say, after a few wavy lines and bald patches, I have become quite the lawn "mower", "gardener" and "dumpster lady" (fancy for person who takes all the demolition materials to the dumpster). Naturally, I'm the one my neighbors recognize and see out in the yard every day. I tease Jesse that they probably think I'm the only one doing work on the house since all they see of him is pulling up in the driveway, getting the mail, and walking into the house. One of my neighbors even asked about this once. His comment took me back when he asked "Does your husband ever do any work out here?" I laughed but had to stand up for the poor guy as I heard the faint pounding away of nails inside as we spoke.
Throughout this past year, my dad has also helped my with the outside. It is still a work in progress and nowhere near completion, but I thought it would be helpful for you to get a good idea of our house, and you can't really do that without seeing the outside.

The Front
Here is what it looked like the day we moved in. It's actually a lot bigger then this, as it's had about 5 additions built on during its 125 year-old life.

Here is another view... This picture shows the breezeway going to our three car garage, which also contains a room above it.

This is Jesse's favorite part of the house....and has also come in handy for storing not only stuff that came out of the house but also things we are going to put in (drywall, insulation, etc.) It's so good at this job, in fact, that our cars currently don't fit. There is something wrong when two cars can't fit into a three car garage.
Now for progress....

At the beginning of summer, we painted the shutters a dark green, tore the bushes out, planted flowers, installed hanging baskets, swapped out the old light fixture, installed a new door (and painted it red), hung a flag, and (my favorite) bought some adorable little rocking chairs. Many cups of coffee are enjoyed here!

Okay, I'm going to show the previous picture again. Do you see the large, no gigantic bushes taking over this area? I kept thinking...."This bush looks really familiar." Then I got it! This bush looked eerily similar to Oscar the Grouch.






Can you see the resemblance?





Anyways, I, my dad, took it out. Sorry Oscar! We took out everything. The only bad part about trying to pull up vines is that they always come back. I sprayed, pulled, hoed, and I still have a few little stubborn ones that come up to say "hi." Oh well, the never-ending battle. But....weed cloth does do amazing things :). Then, I mulched and planted what I wanted: a picking garden, or garden with a lot of different kinds of flowers to fill a nice vase with in the summer.

The other side of the garage contained, yep, you guessed it: another Oscar! The previous owners sure did like those yellow, thorny, grouchy bushes! We found out later that some of our neighbors placed bets that tearing this bush out would be the first thing the new owners (us) would do to the house. Were they right? Yep.

Here is what it looks like now: mulched and replanted with some smaller bushes and my favorite: a hydrangea.





All in all, it's been a pretty good summer-load of work (and that's just the front!) Hopefully, in a few days, I'll have a post on the backyard. Talk about vines!