Yard Spiff

The side of our house that leads to the front yard has been a mess since we moved in. When we had our patio poured out back we fixed up one side of the house but left the other looking like this:

Hot mess. And the worst part of it is that's where you have to drag the lawn mower to get it out front. Plus, it's what I see when I look out the kitchen window. Not cute. Over the weekend we decided to tackle it. And when I say we, I mean Loren. My total help was probably about 4%. But it's because I'm fragile and throw my back out getting laundry out of the dryer. Plus I hate outside work...just being honest.

Anyway, the first thing that had to happen was getting rid of all the weeds and leveling out the ground a bit. There was one corner in particular that really dropped down. Loren decided to build a little wall of sorts to fix that problem. He used some pavers that we already had and some cement glue to hold them in place, then just covered the area with dirt. It seems a little more permanent now instead of just dumping a bunch of dirt over there and hoping it doesn't wash away. Plus, it was free. Win!

Now the ground was pretty much level (or level enough for us and the lawn mower) so it was time to lay the path of pavers. We covered the ground the landscaping fabric to keep weeds out and then laid the pavers in a super simple alternating pattern.

We got them laid down pretty quick. After the paver path was down we filled in the remaining ground area with pea gravel. We have that on the other side of the house so now it sort of matches. And that was it!

I included some pictures with a few of my existing plants just to get an idea of what I want to put along the path. Loren said the ground didn't seem very hearty so I'm just going to go with planters. We'll see what happens. While it's not perfect, we feel like the area is looking a lot better and it will definitely be easier to haul that dang lawn mower out front!