I figured now that everything is green and it is finally nice in Kansas, I should change up the header. Here is what we had before...taken on January 21, just a week or so after closing.
And here is what we have now...taken yesterday afternoon!
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| When Tony saw this picture, he asked if I photoshopped the grass at all. I hadn't photoshopped anything in the picture, except for the fact that it is a few pictures merged together, so I told him no. He was pleasantly surprised to hear that. He has worked really hard on getting the grass to grow in spots that it had been dead or patchy, and I think that he has done a great job! |
One of the coolest things about Spring has been finding out what all of the plants and trees are around the house. There were a few trees Tony was certain were dead in winter, and now they are big beautiful trees creating lots of wonderful shade!
We still have yet to do any real landscaping. We talk about it a lot, but we haven't made any real decisions. We really do love the patio on the back. It is very charming and was a reason that we loved the house. However, the brick is just a mess...it is uneven everywhere, drains horribly and just looks kind of messy. We originally thought it was set in concrete (and not on top of sand/gravel or whatever you're supposed to put under patio pavers), but to our surprise, we realized that it actually is set on top of sand. So, that also kind of changes things...
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| Chipping away to reveal what was underneath the bricks... |
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| The big reveal...sand! |
So, the big question is, do we replace the brick? We both pretty much agree that it needs to be fixed. We have toyed with the idea of just removing all the brick and leveling out the sand and adding some more and laying back down the same brick. (Tony's idea...not mine) However, a lot of the brick is damaged, and that would be a
lot more work to make sure and preserve the brick while we removed it all. Plus, there is about 500 square feet of brick on the patio alone.
So, the next option we considered is buying new brick to lay in the same place as the previous brick. It would be a lot more expensive, but would look a lot nicer. However, 500 square feet is a lot of brick. And if we're going to be spending that much on brick, shouldn't the patio be
exactly what we want? The patio has a lot of wasted space towards the driveway, and butts up really close to the neighbor's house. His yard is really big, and there is a ton of just unused yard on the left of the patio, but with a wall around the patio, it kind of closes it off to the rest of the yard. So, do we shift the whole thing over and redo the shape? And that brings us to the wall around the patio? We really do think it is lovely, but it also is in pretty bad shape...it doesn't look very nice when you're close to it, and would be difficult to paint. So, do we get rid of that too? If so, are we just going to far? I don't know...we still have a lot to think about.
Here is what we're currently working with...
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| This is the entry to the patio from the driveway. There is lots of brick there, and ideally, if we redo the patio, I think it would be smart to do a smaller path with mulch on either side (including next to the house) and have flowers or other plants surrounding it. So, that would eliminate some of the brick we would need. |
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| A view from the yard looking onto the patio. This angle was taken from just to the right of the arched entry you see in the first picture. Here you can see the ivy growing on the wall and kind of get an idea of the shape of the patio. |
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| Here is a picture looking back at the entry. |
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| An angle from a bit further back. As you can see, the patio exists mostly on one side of the house, and it just so happens to be the side of the house that is pretty close to the neighbor's house. Tony's property line on the left is about where you see a faint discolored line in the grass. |
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| His property goes from that faint white line on the left to the fence on the right...so, you can kind of see all of the wasted space on the other side of the yard. |
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| Just another angle of the patio |
So, we have a lot of brainstorming to do and hopefully we come to some kind of conclusion about what should be done. :)
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