The grass is greener...

In my yard.  Or at least it is now after all the rain!

We moved into the house a week ago Saturday.  Everything is in, but not necessarily in its place.  This past weekend we had rain.  But not just any rain – torrential, can see to drive rain all day Saturday.  So, we thought that would be a great time to head to Home Depot to get some plants!  OK, truth is, in order to close on the house, it has to be appraised and in order to do that, the yard must be landscaped.  So it had to be done, rain or shine (literally).

Here is the finished product:

We have one flower bed in front of the garage, another that wraps the other corner and a large one out in the front.  We used brown metal edging from Lowe's, a double hammered hard wood mulch (that we got by the truckload! from a nursery just up the road from us.  The mulch was cheap, $30.00 for what they call a 'yard,' which is enough to fill up the back of a truck bed.  But the plants were WAY overpriced.  i.e. the hosta's I picked up at Lowe's for $4 each were $32 each there! And they were even the same size.) and most of our plants came from Home Depot  – not that we don't love Lowe's but now HD is closer!

I adore these spiral topiary trees!  The green pops against the rock and they have an elegant look that I really love.  

Here, we had to put a bed of river rocks against the house to help with drainage.  Another 'swirly' tree, hostas and some evergreens.

We used a lot of azelea's, mostly because they were only $3 each!

The purple grass-like plant is called cordaline, but we just call it purple grass (clever, I know).  The tree is a Japanese maple.  We both really like the red/purple ones, but that variety is a bit more expensive and we wanted a more mature (read taller) tree in this spot, so we chose this one instead.  I like it.  The tips of some of the leaves are reddish, and will probably turn that color in the fall.  Also, both of our neighbors have the purple Japanese maples, so this makes ours different.

Starting to look like home

I haven't posted an exterior photo in a while, because not much has happened, until recently.  We have a garage door!  You can't see from here, but it's the Carriage House style-without any windows.  And, we got the yard leveled, ready for our driveway.  Unfortunately, the lot isn't exactly ready for a driveway.  We need to have our grinder pump installed before they pour the sidewalk (since they will be bringing in heavy machinery through that area, it could get cracked -like the last one).  BUT they can't find where our sewer line is.  That cute little post that marks where it is?  Yeah, it's in that pile of garbage at the bottom of the photo. Oops!  So as soon as they find the line, they will install the grinder pump, followed by the driveway, followed by sod.

Inside, things are coming along too.  This is the hallway that leads from the garage to the master bedroom.  1. We have working lights!  2. All the trim is done.  3. All the doors are painted. 4. The floor is down (we will just go back right before we move in and grout it.)

It's so great to have everything coming together.  Our deadline to move in is April 11.  We will make it.  Even if I have to sleep on the carpet!  

Stone!

I've been pretty busy lately so I thought I would just drop in with a quick update!  They started on the stacked stone Monday.  Rain Tuesday prevented any work, but today is beautiful [but windy] so it could get finished -those guys work fast!

You can see that the trim is just about finished (actually from this pic, it looks done) and it makes the roof look even more brown.  I love it!

There is debate about the front door - yes, still.  I want the St. Charles *sigh* and the cost-conscious person in this relationship wants a cheaper one.  I don't think the cheaper one would look bad, I mean, it's still a solid teak door... just... Oh well, I've won most of battles, so I'm not upset by this if I let him have his door.

Be on the look-out for updates on paint – we finished the entire house in one weekend thankyouverymuch! and will finish the kitchen cabinets this weekend, so that one will follow too!

Brick! We have Brick

But we don't have stone.  And, that's OK.

Here is the front of the house.  Brad asks why I always take the photo from an angle.  I don't know.  I think it looks nicer.  It's a cooler angel.  Anyone can take a picture "straight on."  But, honestly, I think it's so you could tell that the front left is a garage and not more house.

Anyway.  Here is after a few days.  They started on the back (because the corner under the master is the deepest.)

And then here it is finished.  OK, not completely finished, they were still working on the inside of the doorway.  Everything [else] that is missing will be stacked stone. 
Here is the back of the house.  Closest to us us one of the guest bedrooms, a window for the dining room, the door that leads out from between the dining room and kitchen.  The other set of doors comes out of the master.  There will be a deck the width of the master and will come out just past the large window.
Here is the view of the master from the other side. (Can you tell I took these as completely different times of day?)

It was a lot of brick!  And after they were done, we spend the weekend picking up the pieces.  My uncle will do the final grade of the lot, and he recommended that we pile all the brick [away from the house] so that he can run the dozer over it a few times and then use the crushed brick as fill under the driveway.  Awesome!  So, we didn't have to pay to have it hauled away and we wont have to buy as much fill.  

We are planning on doing something a bit crazy.  We are going to paint the brick.  Which everyone has screamed, "WHY!?!"  Ultimately, we are taking something that needs no maintenance what-so-ever, and we're making a big fat mess of it.  Repainting.  Chipping paint.  Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance.  But, it will be beautiful maintenance.

We have narrowed it down to three colors:  

A name I forgot, Latte, and Hopsack.

The first has a greenish tint to it.  The second is a pretty basic taupe, and the third is a more golden, vibrant color that I LOVED on the sample card, but despise on my house.  I think that Latte is what we will be going with.  

The stacked stone we chose is called "Brown Cutface."  Brown is the color [obviously, but they do have some names like "Pennsylvania."] and Cutface is the style.  

It will be a dry stack,  (meaning there will be no mortar joints) this makes it about one dollar more per square foot.  We paid $6/sq ft for brick installed, and $11/sq ft for stone installed.  Our stone is being purchased from Stone Works in Maumelle.  They were really nice.  It seemed a bit overwhelming at first but you simply pick your style and your color separately to create the look you want.  This is a simulated rock that is made from casts of real chipped rock.  Actual stone would cost much, much more.