Landscaping.

I realized we've made a few improvements around the house that I haven't shared with you yet! We recently did some landscaping in our front yard, side yard, and back yard. Keep in mind that we live in a townhome, so I use the term "yard" loosely!

After having a couple of great landscapers come over and give us estimates, we ultimately decided we could do the planning ourselves and hire someone to do the labor on the cheap. I am glad we went that route.  One of the quotes was over $10,000 and, while the design would have been amazing, we just didn't feel like it was worth it.  This isn't our forever home, so we didn't want to make a lot of structural changes to the yard (and it's so darn hot here, we don't spend a huge amount of time outside anyway). 

Anywho, we saved a bunch of money going the route we did, but I will say I that planning it out was one of the more stressful projects we've decided to undertake. I don't really know why, other than I guess it could have something to do with neither of us having any experience whatsoever with landscape design or knowing anything at all about plants. Thankfully my mom and Buchanan's were extremely helpful. 

With that intro, here's the backyard now . . .  

My favorite part has got to be the meyer lemon tree!  After a massive hunt around the city, we finally found one!  I can't wait for those babies to ripen!  You may have also spied the pink hydrangeas -- they are looking a little droopy above, but they are looking better now.  One of my least favorite parts of our backyard that you probably noticed is the awful siding on the house behind us.  Hopefully, the lemon tree will grow nice and big and help hide the ugliness.   

After we were well into the project, I realized that I never took proper before pictures. I found this picture below that gives you an idea of the sad state of our backyard before the facelift.  It's embarrassing, but look how cute Zoey is sitting in our chairs enjoying being outside (despite the ugly surroundings)! 

And a close up of the after.  Much better, if I do say so myself! 

While we were sprucing things up back there, I picked up some new cushions from HomeGoods to freshen up some old chairs.  As you could see above, Zoey likes them!  

Now for the side "yard," we have a walkway along the side of our house to get to our front door. It is actually one of my least favorite parts of the house because of the gas meter. Really, could it be any more in the way and obnoxious?

But hopefully now our guests will be distracted by the pretty flowers and not notice the gas meter (ok, wishful thinking, I know!). 

Before the new set up, we had jasmine on trellises that lined the fence.  While it smelled beautiful and looked lush, it was too bulky for the already narrow walkway.  Taking them out really made the space feel a lot bigger.  Now we have pencil plants, pentas, and watermelon coleus (my fave) lining the walkway.

We also added a container up by the front door to add some color.  This particular planter came from Crate and Barrel.   

As I was uploading the pictures, I realized I never took pictures of the front yard!  Fail!  But the good news is, it's the area that looks the least different.  We tore out the sad looking azalea bushes and added in pink salvia and lime coleus. Nothing too crazy, just enough to make it look polished and like people who care about their home and yard live here!

If all goes as planned (which is a big "if" since we are going to trial in 2 weeks out of state in a huge class action lawsuit), I hope to continue the home tour next Tuesday and show you the updates to our entryway!