A Landscape Renovation Part 2: Progress Made

It's been two years since I brought you along for A Landscape Renovation, From the Beginning, an explanation of the changes we made to my MIL's yard. After she purchased the house she had been renting, she wanted to address her yard which could honestly be described as boring (or at best as ho-hum) with nothing but strips of overgrown builder-grade evergreen shrubs and a rundown entrance bed. So we began a multi-phase project, with the first three phases described in the post referenced above. We have since completed phase IV, which comprised additional perennials, and phase V which primarily involved replacing perennials that had not thrived/survived and installing a tree and several shrubs.

 

Let's see the progress made thus far —for a garden is never truly finished! 

 

   

My Stylishly Redesigned Study

More often than not, re-imagining or redesigning a room in your home is a process instead of a quickly accomplished project. So it was with my study. What had once been our study became mine after we set up my husband's home office, which you can see in An Elegant Home Office — The Reveal. In some ways his office was easier, beginning as we did with a blank slate.

 

   

 

A Landscape Renovation, From the Beginning

Are you faced with a boring landscape? Or worse yet, an empty yard or overgrown/rundown garden? Here's how we tackled my MIL's yard, one phase at a time, from the beginning.

 

An Elegant Home Office — The Reveal

The past two years have seen a lot of changes in our lives. One of them was a dual event — in January 2020, Greg retired from his position and set up his consultant business. For that he needed an office. Coincidentally, our daughter had just moved to another city to accept a paid internship and begin studying for a Master's degree. Thus a room that had been hers was available!

  

The next six months involved choosing a design theme, selecting paint colors and drapery fabric, and ordering furniture that was both business functional and appropriate for the style of the rest of our home.

The Backyard Landscape — First Phase

Hello, friends! Welcome back to my backyard! You may remember that we completely renovated/redesigned our yard, patios and deck last year. That saga was shared in Backyard Renovation Reveal Part 1, the Reveal Part 2 and Deck Update - Railing Installed.

 

Where we left the landscape portion of the project last fall was that we had installed sod between the driveway and the upper patio and five upright conifers. I had planned to install shrubs and perennials throughout the backyard in the spring. However, my plans went out the window when Greg had to have emergency surgery the first week of March. He came through splendidly and has continued to recover (yeah!!). But landscaping went to the bottom of the to-do list, along with blogging to some extent.

    

Puppy Challenges in the Garden

Meet Finnegan, mischief maker!

We brought him home in April at eight weeks old, the cutest bundle of fur, with curiosity in his eyes!

As puppies do, he investigates everything with his mouth. Things allowed (food, toys, treats, big brother Jake, mom and dad) and those things not allowed (everything else!).

When we first took him outside, he discovered that a big world was out the door — and that there were a million things to pick up, tear, chase and chomp. Chomping on everything in the grass, along the path, in the planting beds! Now four months old, he has put more things in his mouth than Joey or Jake ever did in their stints as puppies.

  

Since I had not yet begun to install plants in our re-designed back yard, I decided to go with plants that were puppy-safe.

 

Deck Update - Railing Installed!

I suppose this should really be entitled Part 3 of the backyard renovation, since it has had its own saga. If you've seen my previous posts, you may remember that we started demolition of the old deck on May 11, then progressed through demo of the rest of the backyard and then construction. The deck was the most straightforward part of the renovation. Both demo of the old deck and construction of the new was accomplished fairly quickly.

Backyard Renovation Reveal - Part 2

Late spring, the entire summer and early fall saw the renovation of our backyard. The project was designed as a whole, but the actual process took place in stages. I showed you the first stage in Part 1 and now I'm excited to share the next stages with you!

 

Although the entire backyard was a construction zone throughout the summer, thankfully we were able to use the deck fairly quickly. Since we sheltered at home, the deck offered a welcome area to spend the time outdoors and watch progress on the other areas. The photos below were taken the second week of October.

 

We'll start where we left off in Part 1 — the bridge that crosses the upper stream. The stream begins with a waterfall that's visible through the bridge's guard rails. The flagstones lead from the upper patio to the bridge and resume on the other side. . .

 

Backyard Renovation Reveal - Part 1

Well, it's about time, isn't it?! We started the renovation of our deck and backyard on May 11 and finished the demolition, re-grading and construction the last week of September. And we're not quite done — we still have the deck railing to install and landscaping to complete. But we're so pleased with how it's turned out so far that I couldn't wait to share it with you!

First, a bit of background. We built this house twenty-three years ago. At the time we convinced the builder to save most of the trees which were on the lot. We've enjoyed the shade they provided, but it meant that most of the sloping backyard was never graded. Over the years the trees had grown considerably taller and shaded more and more of the backyard. 

 

Shortly after we moved in we had two small stone retaining walls built to provide somewhat level areas. We had a large back deck off the kitchen/breakfast room and a medium-sized concrete patio outside the French doors on the lower terrace level. Seven years ago we added another stone wall and flagstone patio beside the deck. Although we had the flagstone patio installed on several inches of packed sand and gravel with pebbles between the flagstones, we had gotten to the point where we could no longer keep up with the weeds growing on the patio in the soil washed down from our neighbor's yard. In addition, the deck was now long past its expected replacement time frame.

 

So in the winter we began to plan the transformation, not expecting to live in a construction zone for so long! Juggling schedules of different contractors who had to proceed in a sequenced, coordinated manner while dodging the wettest spring and summer in a decade!

We'll begin where you enter the backyard through the gate off the driveway.

Our Renovated Kitchen -- At Last!

Welcome to our new kitchen! One year ago we were midway through our nearly 6-month renovation. It's hard to believe — that it was 30 days behind schedule at the time, that we were living in the house the whole time, and that the past year has gone by so fast. We survived the renovation and we love the result!

We had neither the desire nor the time to handle the renovation ourselves. We've refreshed or replaced the kitchens in several houses and knew the scope of what it entailed. So we hired a designer and kitchen remodel firm to translate our ideas, but remained very involved throughout the entire process.

A New Look for the Master Bath

I want to invite you in to have a look at our new master bath! You may recall that we renovated our kitchen last fall/winter. What I didn't mention is that we gutted the master bath at the same time. I know! How crazy is that? We did it to save on labor costs by bringing the various trades to the house fewer times. (At least in theory... with renovations that lasted from the end of October through the beginning of April, it's hard to tell.)

To start at the beginning, we built our house 22 years ago. We loved our bath from the start. It was spacious and boasted two vanities and a closet for each of us. Our house was semi-custom, in that we were able to modify some aspects of the house including placement of walls and expansion of the back of the house with changes in the roofline. We also specified the flooring and cabinet choices.

Nonetheless, 22 years can take quite a toll on rooms as heavily used as bathrooms and kitchens. The bath had reached the point where it was no longer functioning, and we were using the guest bath instead. So a complete renovation was in order, and we thought long and hard about the features we wanted.

Now onto the photos! We chose large porcelain tiles that mimic marble for the floor. What you can't see is that the floor is heated! The bath is above the garage and was unbearably cold in the winter, even with the portable heaters we dragged in each year. We replaced the wall-to-wall mirrors with smaller, prettier ones, and flanked them with sconces.