Coming in closer to the house, I was still standing in the less-landscaped area. It is landscaped, just has been neglected and gone wild!! There is no lawn, but strategically-placed trees in amoeba-shaped areas. Around those areas is a path winding through the entire property. It's neat. But--we are going to have to do a lot of work to make it beautiful again. It's a good bike-riding path, kind of just a neat path meandering around. You can see the pile of branches and palm fronds (cut from our neighbor's trees, left on our side of the fence...). Julia and a couple friends built a teepee with them and it fell in. :D It's on a little putting green. One-hole golf, anyone?
Coming in closer yet, to the left. You can see our little storage shed. The POs removed the wrought iron fence that was between those stucco posts, and took it with them, the neighbor on that side told Brian. That is our side property line; the white fence is the neighbor's. You can see the back of the garage, w/ its door. The dilapidated dog house. :P
Turning to the right a bit, you see the breakfast nook bay window, and the patio.
You can see the two entrances to the patio and the two magnolia trees.
This is in the back, less-landscaped area. We think there are two lemon trees, but one might be a lime?? We've gotten fruit from both, and today I noticed two of the fruits are green. ??? It would be nice if one is a lime, time will tell! You can see the brown, dead pine branches on the ground. That neighbor said the PO cut them down and left them all before they left. All the white fences on our two sides are vinyl! Happy about less upkeep than wood.
Also in the less-landscaped area. You see the pea-gravel area. The POs had a playset here. We saw it on Google Earth pics from 2004 (I think that's the year). Plus the start of our burn pile. We've been putting our dead branches and the hedge bushes here for little fires. Sunday Brian built a fire, and he and the kids roasted hotdogs for dinner, then marshmallows later. Fun! Austin especially loves making a fire with Brian!
This picture was taken in May when we looked at the house before making an offer. "Weeping" birch trees... Dead pine branches. Now none of the needles are green!
Picture taken in 2008, from one of the POs visitors.
Picture I took, last month.
Another 2008 picture. Looks like their kids liked riding bikes on the patio just like ours do!
Another angle. You can see the patio entrance to the back yard. And the gate to the back yard, with the missing panel! It's actually handy having the panel gone, easier to get to that side of the patio. Ha ha. I don't know if we'll replace it. Yet we like the gate too. :)
Picture taken in May... These were the only gutters on the whole house. Who knows what happened to the rest?! They are cheap, plastic/vinyl gutters (per roofers), and are now replaced w/ gutters that match the others we got. The bank had all the original locks removed. You can see how they just put a deadbolt on this door. So the knob hole was just a hole! One day we were looking at the house, and Austin stuck a lizard through the hole!!
You can see the lawn area and part of the less-landscaped area. We love the patio. It was one of the things I really liked the first time we looked at the house. I like the benches and planter boxes. There are some pretty roses, gladiolias, geraniums, alstromeria, and other plants in them.
1st pic is from May. Lattice needs to be replaced. We have totally not decided, not even thought too much about, whether we should replace it with more lattice, beams, slats, etc. The original owners had a hot tub outside this sliding door. I saw it on the 2004 listing our realtor shared. We are the third owners. Another pic, showing the putting green better.
2008 pic. POs used the putting green for their Little Tykes toys. ;) Actually not a bad idea. My friend suggested us putting a pool there...it's flat, out of the way, not on dirt or grass...
Picture taken in Sept. The back pine trees are our property line. The magnolia branches in the foreground are just outside the patio. Is this making sense?! LOL You can kind of see the winding path. The poor little picket fence has half-fallen over. :( Got to fix up the flower beds!
Picture from May. Pea gravel, playset area. We think there maybe was a sandbox? in that wood square frame. There was plastic under it. Brian removed it, and that is our fire ring for now. Some day we'll get a nice one. But this works, surrounded by rocks... Brian also has done a *ton* of work cutting the weeds down with the weed eater. It looks a *lot* better now! I'd go out there, and think, "Ok, I'll pull 20 weeds." Well, 20 turned to 30...then 50... LOL And you couldn't even tell! There were soooo many weeds!
Also from May. The dilapidated dog house is *away* from the house. It never was attached. Just resting on cement blocks, with river rocks underneath. Brian moved it to the dirt/gravel area and ripped the roof off. We might save the frame to use for a chicken house, not sure. We might plant fruit trees in this dirt area, also not sure. That big bush across from the dog house has a ton of dead branches, here. I trimmed them all off, and the big kids hauled them to the burn pile, one day before school started. I did a lot of work cleaning up several (not all!) the flower beds. We've weeded, but with no new plants growing, the weeds come back. Boo!
View of side yard, back from PO's visitor in 2008. The birches were smaller! The bush in the middle was smaller! Brian and I did a ton of pruning on that bush--it grown huge! Wild! There were lilies? agapanthus? plants hidden underneath it, still growing too. Crazy. You can also see their playset here, behind weeping birch trees. And the pine trees on the three property lines.
See how big the middle bush got? This was before we trimmed it!
A pretty sky in September. I was standing on the patio, at the entrance to the back yard. :)
Next post I'll show you inside the house. :)
Picture taken in Sept. The back pine trees are our property line. The magnolia branches in the foreground are just outside the patio. Is this making sense?! LOL You can kind of see the winding path. The poor little picket fence has half-fallen over. :( Got to fix up the flower beds!
Picture from May. Pea gravel, playset area. We think there maybe was a sandbox? in that wood square frame. There was plastic under it. Brian removed it, and that is our fire ring for now. Some day we'll get a nice one. But this works, surrounded by rocks... Brian also has done a *ton* of work cutting the weeds down with the weed eater. It looks a *lot* better now! I'd go out there, and think, "Ok, I'll pull 20 weeds." Well, 20 turned to 30...then 50... LOL And you couldn't even tell! There were soooo many weeds!
Also from May. The dilapidated dog house is *away* from the house. It never was attached. Just resting on cement blocks, with river rocks underneath. Brian moved it to the dirt/gravel area and ripped the roof off. We might save the frame to use for a chicken house, not sure. We might plant fruit trees in this dirt area, also not sure. That big bush across from the dog house has a ton of dead branches, here. I trimmed them all off, and the big kids hauled them to the burn pile, one day before school started. I did a lot of work cleaning up several (not all!) the flower beds. We've weeded, but with no new plants growing, the weeds come back. Boo!
View of side yard, back from PO's visitor in 2008. The birches were smaller! The bush in the middle was smaller! Brian and I did a ton of pruning on that bush--it grown huge! Wild! There were lilies? agapanthus? plants hidden underneath it, still growing too. Crazy. You can also see their playset here, behind weeping birch trees. And the pine trees on the three property lines.
See how big the middle bush got? This was before we trimmed it!
A pretty sky in September. I was standing on the patio, at the entrance to the back yard. :)
Next post I'll show you inside the house. :)
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