2002 |
2003 |
 July 2002 Garth and I weren't so sure about this house when we first drove by - it looked kind of small. |
 July 2003 A year later, and there is much more greenery in the yard. On the left is the new south bulb bed. To the right of the driveway is several new roses, a monkey puzzle tree and a few other plants. |
 July 2002 Still, it was a cute house and we wanted to see the yard. |
 July 2003 On the north side of the house is the new north bulb bed full of crocus, tulips, alliums, gladiolas, day lilies and firepokers. Also in the front yard are two Pistachio trees, a magnolia and a weeping something-or-other. |
 Downstairs fireplace with original shag carpet The fireplace is great, but the brown-orange-white shag carpet was 34 years old, with 34 years worth of dirt in it. |
 New carpet October 2002 After a little accident while dog-sitting, and not immediately seeing the accident, we knew it was time for new carpet. We were out shopping the very next day. |
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 April 2003 Close up of the North bulb bed with the tulips in bloom. All of this was planted in october 2002. |
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 2003 Close up of the South bulb bed, also planted october 2002. This bed is jam-packed with all kinds of plants, planned to bloom in succession from Spring through Fall. |
 View from the south corner of the yard, October 2002 |
 2003 house. |
 View from the North corner of the yard, October 2002 |
 From the North Corner, 2003 |
 View of the south corner 2002 |
 May 2003 It's a little hard to see, but there are fruit trees added on the level near the bottom of the picture. On the middle level there are eight Horse Chestnuts, and in the back, there is a concrete Venus De Milo, which I got Garth for his birthday. |
 View of the middle yard 2002 |
 May 2003 On the walkway down to the back deck, there are a new set of urns, small and medium sized. Garth and I bought each other a set for Christmas and our birthdays. We just got the large sized urns to replace those palms in the plastic pots right by the deck. |
 View of the north corner 2002 |
 May 2003 There two more fruit trees in the foreground, four practically invisible Golden Catalpas in the middle and no real changes in the back. There are also four blueberry bushes by the utility pole. |
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 May 2003 No real changes to the side yard, although we are planning to add in an Asian themed garden. |
No 2002 picture |
 May 2003 Not too many changes here, either. Adding in a few new plants, but there's not too much to be overly creative here. |
 2002 This is the Before shot of the south side of the house. Pretty bland. What this needs is a ... |
 May 2003 New Deck! Not only is it the entrance to garth's piano studio, but it lets us get from the back yard to the front yard much easier. |
 2002 the kitchen as it was when we moved in. We both like dark wood, but this is BAD, stained, nasty, dark wood. |
 May 2003 The seeling realtor of our house thought we put in a whole new kitchen when she saw this. Actually, this is cleaner, liquid sandpaper, three coats of primer and two finish coats. It tooks us at least two weeks of constant painting to do the whole kitchen. The old flourescent ceiling light is replaced with hip modern track lighting, and all of the doors and drawers got handles. |
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 This used to be a 1960's era cake pan light. Totally boring. It is so much better to have a multi light ceiling fan. It only took one trip to the attic to reinforce the bracing. |
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 The was a tiny nothing light in the dining room until we replaced it. This only took two trips to the attic to add some serious bracing to support it. |
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 This Venus de Milo was my birthday gift to Garth for 2003. I had him running around the house and yard on a treasure hunt looking for clues, and he finally wound up outside to see her. |
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 I saw this life sized version of Nike, also known as Winged Victory, at the February garden show and waffled back and forth over getting it for the yard. We saw the original statue at the Louvre in Paris last year, but this just seemed SO big and such a large purchase... but in the end, we both decided to go ahead and get it from Lucca Statuary . We had to move Venus out of the way, but she wound up in the north raised garden. |
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 This fountain is one we got at Lucca Statuary when we actually went to pick up something else. Garth thought it would look great along the garage wall out front, and of course, he was right. It adds some visual appeal above the plants, and it has a calm soothing sound. |
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 We had seen these urns at Lucca Statuary for nearly six months, hemming and hawing about when to buy them for our yard. Then one day, while we were "just looking" we saw them on sale. So of course we had to get them. It's the first tangible part of the French patio that I plan on building for Garth for summer 2004. |
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 Apollo was one of the busts that Garth wanted to have out in the yard, and on one of our trips this summer to Lucca , we ordered one in this grey finish, and got the column later. It was also Garth's idea to put Apollo in the center of the landing just through the arbor out back - and it worked out well as a visual focal point, minimizing the fact that the view through the arbor itself is just open and kind of boring. |
 The back yard rose garden 2002 |
 2003 house. |
