Cape 27

Aside from the flower beds against the front of the house, we also landscaped around the new light post and mailbox. We replaced the mailbox months ago, and I’ve been eager to get my hands on it for a few final touches. A pair of Daylilies and a Clematis did the trick!

It wasn’t ten minutes before the Clematis had found the mailbox post and was already climbing away. I can’t wait to see this guy all full and lush with purple flowers!

Since the house and mailbox will have so much color we opted to do white at the post light, not to distract from it.

We planted a trio of tall Delphinium Summer Starts to surround the post and compliment it’s height.

It seriously is beginning to feel like a completely different house around here

Enjoy the weekend!

It’s sooooo close. I can taste it. The mulch is in, putting us one step closer to knocking out our summer to-do list. Just to recap, here’s what we’re hoping to accomplish (with those we’ve completed, crossed off).

• Replace the rotting header above the garage
• Give the porch column a smooth coat
• Add a railing to the side of the porch
• Build new window shutters
• Paint the exterior of the house
• Paint the roof (yes, we’re doing that)
• Remove ALL landscaping in the front yard and replace it with something more modern
• Landscape around the mailbox and post light
• Build window boxes for the front of the house
• Do something about that driveaway
• Hire someone to remove the FIVE trees that have fallen over during wind storms
• Replace damaged wood and paint the swing set
• Repair and paint the backyard shed

And as promised, here are few final progress and reveal photos

We’ve always bought mulch by the bag in the past. Never again. Unless of course we need, say, one bag. My dad lent us his trailer (with free labor) and we scored this entire mound of black mulch from a local store (Hafner & Sons) for $40. I think that’s a good deal. It really seems like a good deal. That’s a lot of mulch.

We were able to cover the entire front bed and side of the house with about three inches of mulch. And we still have this much leftover. Crazy.

I could hardly contain my excitement!

I want to curl up inside this corner.

(Don’t you worry about that shutter… )

Check out a full plant source list here and details on our color scheme here.

You’ve come a long way little house

We’ve been jumping all over the place with projects throughout this week, so I’m hoping to have some really fun updates for you guys next week!

This past weekend we made some major progress landscaping the front yard. Thankfully, we had squeezed in as much prep work as possible throughout the previous week, so we were a little ahead of the game. We had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to flower beds to look like shape-wise, and everything had already been tilled, so all that was left to do was shop and plant. Which, sounds a little less intimidating than it proved to be. But, spoiler alert, we made it out alive.

Now, we’re far from experts here, so what worked for us is no guarantee, but if it makes the process any easier for just one person I think it’s worth sharing. I feel fairly confident about decorating inside our home, but when it comes to outdoors I’m a little more hesitant to pull the trigger, so I can totally relate. The good news, I’m head over heals in love with how everything turned out (and hope you guys are too!) so I’m going to do my best to share the important details.

First, let’s take a look back. Before we started laying out plants, we had to shape the flower bed. The old bed was just a simple rectangle, running the entire length of the front of the house. Bleh.

We added a few curves and framed out the sidewalk to spice it up just a bit.

The center of the bed we kept pretty skinny, while the “ends” we beefed up to allow for some serious plant layering. The previous owner had already shaped the right side of the bed with a nice curve around to the side, so we just bought  more of the same black edging and linked right up to it. The curves really help break up the extra long bed and they give the flat facade of the house a little more dimension. We’re hoping the window boxes on our original summer to-do list will really help with that too.

When it came to shopping, one thing we were certain of was a color palette – a great place to start if you’re feeling a little lost. Our house is dark with red brick, charcoal trim, and black accents, so we knew in order to really make a statement we’d have to go bright with the landscaping. I shared this photo as one of our main inspirations, leading us to a color palette of bright yellows, a few shades of purple, and lime greens. Sticking with two to three colors, and then branching off into various tints and shades of those colors is the easiest way to keep from going overboard into color chaos. Then you just want to spread those colors somewhat evenly throughout the space, just like an interior.

My parents watched the girls for us on Sunday so we were able to shop in peace (planning/selecting an enormous amount of plants is enough of a headache without whiny children in tow). Good thing too, because while we only ended up making an appearance at three stores, we somehow managed six stops. Lowes (KY and OH), Home Depot (KY & OH), and two stops at the same local nursery, Burger Farm & Garden. I thought this was worth mentioning since we saw such a difference in variety from Lowe’s to Lowe’s, Home Depot to Home Depot, etc. We actually passed on a few plants on our first stop to Lowe’s in Kentucky (by my parent’s house), assuming we could just grab them at our local store in Ohio. No luck. Just something to keep in mind if you’re shopping around

In our fist house, our landscaping layout was nice, but a little on the traditional side. We really wanted to branch off this time and give things more of a true garden feel. Something lush, dense, and compact. Of course, gardens like these take time, but we tried to get a head start by grouping several smaller plants together and condensing the spacing between larger plants more than we would have in our previous house. And while I did keep some repetition in the layout for consistency, we also threw in plenty of random plants to throw things of a bit. I’m hoping this will really make the space feel more organic and less.. “we just planted all of these yesterday”.

 This is my happy corner.

Something I found that really helped me from getting overwhelmed with the layout, was placing all the plants in the grass nearby first, and grouping them by size and then color. That way when it came time to fill a spot it was more, “ok, what size do I need and what color am I missing?” and I could just head over to the piles and grab something. It helped keep things random, yet controlled. If that makes any sense.

 Another tip that kept me sane with such a large space was placing a few of the larger, staple plants in first, like the tall grasses and the azaleas. I knew I wanted to place plants with height in between the windows to fill some dead space, so those went in right away, along with a few other medium sized plants on the corners to round things out. Then I just worked left to right filling things in. Larger plants in the back, a few medium to small plants in the middle, and squat plants like Phlox in front to spread and fill out the ground space. Layers, layers, layers!

And, just like styling interiors, odd numbers and triangles are your best friend. Grouping plants in threes was my go-to choice.

After we were happy with the layout of everything, I took down the names of each plant and where it was planted to make a diagram for reference down the road.. For instance, next spring when half the plants don’t come back and I’m fuming mad. Now, I’ll know what we’re missing, and I can just take the tag and receipt back to the store for a replacement (crossing our fingers that doesn’t happen).

We’ll be busy mulching and planting new grass seed tonight, so I’m shooting have a full before and after post along with a diagram to help identify each plant we used throughout this week!