Home Improvements

As those of you who know us know, we've been tinkering with our yards for several years now. Three years ago we tore out the backyard and planted drought-tolerent California natives. That worked so well, we did it again the following year in the front yard. Then last year we converted our garage into what realtors call a "bonus room"--that is, we now use it instead of cars.

Since the garage is no longer auto-friendly, I decided the rear concrete driveway was just wasted space and so asked our landscaper Joel to design a third garden. We quickly dubbed it "phase 3" of our ever-growing re-landscaping project. He did his magic and we now have a wonderful new garden right outside our backdoor. The concrete was demolished, but saved to create a step-stone path from the remaining driveway to the garage. The backyard was extended to the front of the garage as well and two new small gardens were planted: one along our wall and the other beneath our backdoor steps. In addition, our gate was pushed forward by 8 ft. so we can now hide the trashcans on the side of the house. The new plants (mostly natives) are still in their infant stage, but I already feel like this is how our yard and patio were always meant to be. And, oh yeah, we also bought new front and back doors and, of course, painted them red! Looks pretty good, don't ya think?

"Before" and boring

Demolition

Construction (notice the white back door)

All done: the path from the driveway to the garage door

Trashcans now live on the side of the house (hooray!)

Peering through our new side fence

The backyard and patio