A few before and afters....

a
We're coming up on our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of living in the "H House".... I am hoping to get in gear and do a big "Before and After" post with all the changes we've done.

For now... I thought I'd post one "big" project we accomplished this weekend. Or... should I say Ryan accomplished? My walk in closet has been a disaster zone since we moved in. Whenever we knew we'd have company and would possibly be showing the house to people for the first time (note... first time.... after that you see the real, true mess! LOL) I'd do a quick once over on the house and anything out of place got thrown into my closet. I am not sure there was ever a time I could see the floor of it!

I've been wanting Ryan to build me a closet organizer for awhile but we've continually put it off because the back wall needed to be mudded, sanded and painted. I didn't want to deal with the sand. (the back wall used to walk through to Hudson's room). Well, my wonderful hubs decided to jump right in and get that wall done. I'm so glad and relieved to have some organization in there now!

I also worked a bit on the landscaping today. Not long ago we ripped out about 75% of the existing overgrown shrubs and well, our landscaping is pretty bare. I've slowly been working on it. I have finished 2 small areas...

The first area is by the mailbox. I cleaned out the weeds, filled in with more dirt and moved that bush. This spring I added some annuals which i wasn't sure of at first. They never look very good when they're first planted. However, now that they're growing a bit they do look nicer. I wish they'd fill out a tad more though.



This other little area is on the side of our house by our driveway. I was a mess of weeds when we moved in. It now has some sedum, a mum and some othe rplant that I'm not sure of.
That's all for now! Must head to bed now that we can actually FIND the bed in our room... the past few days its been covered with the contents of my closet!

Neighborly love... or not?

At the other end of our road is a house with lots of landscaping and they have some perennials out by the road for sale. Cuttings from their perennials.

This house is one that Kathy and I had invited to the Neighborhood Party (of course... because they live on our road, right?) and the husband had answered the door and acted quite confused as to what we were inviting them to. What? A party? Where you MEET your NEIGHBORS? He acted like it was unheard of.

So today Porter rode his bike and I walked down to this house to check out their perennials. Since digging up those bushes in our landscaping, I've been trying to figure out what to plant!! There was a bucket with a box in it that said "Leave money here." Ok...

I knocked on the door to see if someone could tell me more about some of the plants that I was unfamiliar with. The wife came out and admitted that she didn't know much about the plants... her husband was the gardener.

Anyhow... after some plant chit chat and me telling her where I lived, she asked if I was one of the houses who put on the neighborhood party. I said yes, and she asked how it went. (This family didn't show up).

I mentioned the families that did come and said the party was great and it was nice to meet people who lived on our road. She said they had lived there 16 years and didn't really know anyone on the street... not even their neighbors. She said when they moved in they heard that it was a pretty private street and everyone kept to themselves. And that they had really liked that.

Oops.

I laughed and said "And then we move in and mix it all up! " HAHA!

Well, come on, SERIOUSLY? You don't want to know the people you live next to? Weird.

At least the 4 houses immediately near us are extremely friendly. So much that we even mow each others front lawns LOL! A month or two ago when Porter and I were into our "Friday Morning Mowing time", Porter and I mowed Gary and Linda's front lawn for them two weeks in a row. Not that we HAD to, but Porter really likes riding the lawn mower and Hudson was sleeping and well, their front lawn connects to ours and it isn't that big or anyting. So we'd just ride all the way across and mow their front lawn.

I was kind of doing it as a thank you for me going beyond the "Hey can I borrow a cup of sugar".... I had wanted to make pancakes for dinner one evening and realized I didn't have eggs. So I sent Porter next door to ask to borrow and egg (in which he ended up standing on their front door staring in the screen door at them watching tv because he didn't know to knock and he couldn't reach their doorbell) and they sent back an entire dozen eggs. And then a couple days later I had to borrow some baking soda. I didn't want them to think I was an absolute mooch HAH!

And now, the past two weeks, Gary has mowed our front yard. Now isn't that nice? I guess its our turn to return the favor now...

So tell me... what are your favorite perennials to plant? What about shrubs? My favorites, I'd have to say (and I'm pretty limited on knowledge of plants!) are Stonecrop (aka Sedum), Hostas and Spirea. And I do like Stella de Oro Daylillies too. OOOh and Hydrangeas. I love those... but haven't attempted to grow them.