30 Day Blog Challenge: around the house.....

Well, actually, outside the house.....

I was determined to make the space outside of our backdoor a little prettier this summer! Our pet goose had taken over, resulting in a messy, ugly entrance. I also couldn't plant any flowers, since she ate everything in sight. While I had several grand ideas for making a pretty space, Peter wasn't on board for my backyard oasis plans. So, I made a list of things that were most important and went with that. The top two musts on my list were (1) flowers, flowers, flowers and (2) making a nice entrance from the back gate to the house. The fire pit would just have to wait.....{maybe next year!}.

I knew I wanted to use some of the old bricks that were left at the b&b, and I knew I wanted to use marble chips. I reused the pavers I already had, and started there. {I am curious about staining concrete, and plan to look into this since all of my pavers aren't the same color.}

First, I moved the grill.... 

June 2012



I rearranged the pavers....

Here's how this section turned out....


We came up with the short lattice fence idea as a barrier to keep the goose away. It runs the entire length of the walkway. Peter did a great job on this and actually loves how everything turned out. Hopefully, next year we'll work on expanding the area with a seating area {and a fire pit!}.



Behind the house before:

and after....


This is definitely a start in the right direction......



I've been bringing the fern inside and out, but didn't have a place to hang it outside, so Peter added a couple of wrought iron hooks to the bird feeder to hang plants on.


and I planted lots & lots of bright colored flowers!!!

 
 
 


I love my new pretty backyard space!