Yard Reveal Week!!!

It’s time for the Yard Reveal! Thanks for hanging with me through the 6 Week Yard Transformation Challenge hosted by my friend Nat over at Simple Family – Crazy Life

Week 1|Week 2|Week 3|Week 4|Week 5|Week 6

One of the things that I love about challenges is that it really pushes me to get things done. And I am really happy with what I got accomplished over the course of this Yard Transformation Challenge. Check it out!

Strip and Re-Stain the Fence and Planter Boxes

This is probably the single biggest improvement to the yard overall. When we bought this house in November, I though the fence was in really good shape, but it really wasn’t. In some spots it was down to bare wood.  I ended up going with Behr cappuccino semi transparent Stain. It has amazing water resistance.  I also used this Wood Cleaner and this stain pad that is FABULOUS. It made the job so much easier. Here are some before and after shots:

Before

After

Lawn

I’m so impressed with how great the lawn looks now. Check out this before and after of the same spot. It still has a bit of clover but it’s so much better.

Before

After

We added a bit of soil (Bags, not a truck load) But mostly we just added grass seed (I think about 8 bags) and fertilizer (LOTS). Greg is responsible for the lawn and he does an amazing job. Truthfully he mows the lawn every Friday night – wohoo!. And he fertilizes every week. We use Scotts Turf Builder and I remember my Grandma telling me years ago the the reason her garden was so fabulous was because she used Miracle-Gro liquid fertilizer as well.  It’s been around for a long time! We use the dissolvable kind that you use with your garden hose. We also bought a new lawn mower and are using the mulch setting. Plus we have in ground sprinklers which helps a lot. The crazy thing is that he thinks the lawn is not quite there yet. I really don’t know how much better it can get?

Trees

I only really had success with one of the trees. The little mountain Ash. One of the trees was falling over, and it didn’t make it 🙁 So we will be taking it out, and filling in the spot with grass. The little cherry blossom tree in font of the strawberry bed needs to be relocated elsewhere, as well. I might buy a small fruit tree to replace one of them.

Pressure washing

We did purchase a new pressure washer. But as I mentioned in Week 2, I broke it just after purchasing, so we ended up doing most of the pressure washing with my little electric pressure washer, which I have to say, did a pretty good job. I JUST got a replacement hose today. (long story, I ordered the wrong one the first time) so, will be doing the deck this week 🙂

Prune and Train the Roses

I did some pruning and have started to train some of the climbing roses. I definitely left them a bit too tall. And once they have had their first bloom, I will prune them back a little harder. I am feritilizing them bi-weekly. I also need to add back in a trellis or two. I keep discovering some of the varieties of roses, as the former owner was very good about leaving the tags on them, and the other day I was digging around the base of one of them, and I found this piece of string, and found the tag for this rose buried under the soil. Score!! Now I know that this FABULOUS rose is Climbing Purple Splash!

Re-Finish the Daybed

After a bit of debate, I decided to leave the canopy off of the daybed. Because there is no wall for it to be up against. So I painted it the same shade as the exterior door, and put it back together. I still intend to make a cover for it and add some pillows. But as of now it just looks like this. It’s such a comfy place to lounge, even Sage thinks so.

Update:

Here is what the daybed looks like now

Identify and Label the plants

I did manage to identify a few of the plants. But didn’t get my labelling done for the yard reveal. I will leave this project for a future post.

Add some Colour

I ordered this colourful peacock for the garden, he just arrived yesterday. You can get the same one here I’m still planning on adding annuals here and there amidst the perennials.

Furnishings

I’m amazed that we managed to purchase furniture. Mainly because it takes me forever to make a decision. But we did. We went with this set from Lowe’s. Here is a similar set.  It’s very similar to my old set which you can see in this post. I have had it in several different configurations so far, as the deck just isn’t very wide. I wanted to go with the gray furniture to match the outside of the house. I’m planning on making some accent pillows to add in a pop of colour and adding a rug and some decorative pieces. Still a way to go with this piece, but at least we have somewhere to sit now 🙂 This set isn’t available anymore, but here is a similar one.

Update:

I added some DIY cushions to add some colour to my furniture, you can see that post here

Shed – Inside and Out

I think my single favourite project of this challenge is my garden tool storage wall. It just makes me smile every time I walk in the shed.  This week we also did some more work on the garden bench and  added in some more storage.  I still have a bit more work to do here, so will update this in a future post.

Tallying up the score

Unfortunately I didn’t get everything on my list completed ;(Here is the overview

• Stain fence and Planter Boxes
• Lawn
• Trees
• Pressure wash 
• Prune and train the Roses
• Refinish the Daybed
• Identify and Label the plants
• Add some Colour – Done!
• Organize the inside of the shed
• Paint the outside of the shed
• Buy patio furniture

Overall I’m really pleased with what we got accomplished. Now I have all these projects to keep me busy all summer long 🙂 I will post updates once I get these completed.

A big thank you if you hung in to the yard reveal through the whole challenge. Feel free to drop a note in the comments and let me know what you think.

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