It’s coming together!

Hi everyone! It’s time for a report on our front yard hardscaping project!!

Because our work is all about transforming our hideous front yard from a scraggly, dark, unsafe and just downright UGLY plot of land to an inviting, well groomed front-yard oasis (okay… I’m exaggerating my ability to keep plants alive!)… this report is a perfect fit for Susan’s Between Naps on the Porch “Metamorphosis Monday” blogparty!

If you’ve been following along you’ll remember that our front yard used to look like this:

The above two photos show the horrible hedge that we removed last summer and the mega-cedar that we removed earlier this summer.

Below: excavating the front (removing the stump was only one part of that excavation) and the beginning of our first retaining wall.

 

 

I had to share this photo… in an early yard project update I shared that our cat, Scotty, supervises everything my husband does out in the yard. Here he is testing out the quality of Brian’s top-cap placement!

It makes sense that Scotty would supervise… this area is, after all, “Scotland’s Yard”!

 

And now, some photos showing you where we’re at as of this morning…

This is the third wall… Brian will be finishing the last row across the curve and then he’ll lay bricks across the front (below the stairs) to finish off the wall.

I love how the stairs are turning out!! As you can see, we curved the walls of the first set of stairs so that they invited people up… the second set of stairs is more simple.

Wee set-back… we’ve run out of the darker grey top-caps!! Trip to the landscape store…

And finally… the walls face on. I think it’s going to look FANTASTIC once we have the yard landscaped! We’ll plant what we can before we move into winter – and I’ll share photos of that part of our project as we progress – but I’m sure we’ll have to wait until next summer for it to look really terrific… you know, with plantings growing in and filling out.

Anyway… thanks for dropping by and checking out our retaining wall progress! Next time I report in, we’ll be puzzling together our paved walkway. It’s never ending!!

Be sure to make your way back to Susan’s blog, Between Naps on the Porch, and visit other Met Monday participants… and we’ll see you back here at DesignTies another day!!