BEFORE and DURING yard pics

The guys we hired to build a fence, ramp, stairs, etc are also the guys who totally renovated the house in July 2003 (3 years before we bought it). We randomly met them when we were looking at the house for the 2nd time after we already had a pending contract to buy it. They let us see (and scan) the pictures they took of it during the renovation process. Here are 2 of their pictures before their work began (in comparing these to my current pictues, you will notice that they changed the glass front doors to a regular door and added a kitchen window as well as a dining room window and 3 living room windows on the sides of the house, amongst other things):



The original house didn't have any windows on the right side of the top 2 floors:



The first changes we had done to our property (other than replacing the stove and having an over-the-range microwave installed) was clearing of the underbrush and scraggly trees in our yard. Even though we liked the look of our jungle of a yard, we wanted to have a yard we could actually walk in and play in. The growth was so thick that it was hard to navigate through (I didn't walk or see our whole 3/4 acre property until the jungle was cleared), not to mention the poison ivy and many spiderwebs you'd get all over you. Plus, our realtor told us that landscaping is like the #1 way to increase your property's value (and you get the money you spent on the landscaping back dollar for doller plus more when you sell the house).

We hired 4 groups to tackle our land. The first group cleared out all the underbrush and sprayed to kill the weeds and poison ivy.







The second group removed all the trees we had marked and some dead vines hanging from the trees that we were keeping.





This branch fell during the night and landed right where Craig's Jeep had been parked the day before--it would have done some damage! This prompted us to look into removing the larger trees that were dangerous or had diseases and would become unstable.



Pine tree (lightest colored tree on left) and Sweet Gum tree (by house with lots of leaves) before removal:



Sweet Gum tree has been cut down and the pine tree (it was diseased) is next to go. This picture shows you how tall it was:



Side of house without the Pine and Sweet Gum trees:



Cutting down the big pine:



Pine tree on the ground (notice the heart-shaped base):



Grinding the big pine tree's stump:



The third group dug a ditch to divert the water that rushes down our driveway from the street when it rains, graded the yard to eliminate puddles and smoothed out the ground to get it ready for grass planting.

This young guy had fun smoothing out our yard with this setup (a 4-wheeler pulling 2 crates with cinderblocks on them):



The ditch, viewed from the main balcony:



The fourth group (just 2 guys, actually) built a fence around the house to keep Minga in (and to hide the uglier underneath parts of the house). They also added 2 stairways (from the master and main balconies) so we could let Minga outside in more than one place and she'd be in the fenced yard. They replaced the main stairs up to the house with a ramp to avoid the precarious walkway that has been deteriorating over the years. They made all of the main balcony railing tops uniform in size (parts were skinnier than others). Now they are nice and wide and we can have outdoor parties with lots of people and they can put their drinks or plates on the balcony railings! And, they screened in the front porch, which included making the office balcony leakproof since it is the roof to the front porch.

Back of house before the fence was built:



Craig and his mom (who visited us for a week in October) on main balcony looking down at the fence guys working:



Fence posts on right side of house:



The ditch runs along the outside of the fence along the southern (right side) property line:



The ditch diverts the water to the creek at the back of our property. Here is the full creek on 9-10-06:



Here is the full creek on 10-22-06 (so maybe once a month it rains really hard and the creek is full...when it's not full, the water is really clear):



Craig threw some rye grass seeds on the ground on 10-25-06 and they started growing by the next week. It is only a winter grass, so come spring time we will have to decide how to grass the whole yard (depends on what we can afford). The rye grass is a temporary solution to help control erosion on the hill when it rains (you can see pics of the bright green grass growing on the next post).



This is the dangerous walkway. The driveway has been slowly breaking apart over the years when it rains hard so there are pieces of it and also roots and other things that make this pathway unsafe.



Posts for the ramp:



Ramp without the railing:



Completed ramp (it's such a nice, wide and gently sloping ramp!):



Ramp with gate (so we can truly lock Minga in the fenced area):



The last project was the screened-in porch. There was more work involved than they had originally anticipated, such as having to remove the house siding and move the outside light in order to secure the wooden posts to the house properly. They did a such great job of putting it all back together that you would never even know what all they had to do. These guys are perfectionists and take their time to do things right.



On my birthday, they had a bonfire and burned more of the wood scraps from their projects. I wanted to toast marshmallows and make s'mores but they said the wood was treated and I shouldn't inhale the smoke or anything so I couldn't. Sigh.



View my next post to see the AFTER pics of all these projects!