This is what we started with — a monoculture of of grass. For many in this suburban community, the epitome of suburban bliss. For me? An eyesore.

So, it began…

Oh what changes the front yard has made!

This was after the first summer when I dug up the turf grass adjacent to all the hardscape in the front yard. I used my yard transformation to begin recovery from my Ovarian Cancer surgery.

But that was just the beginning…

Last summer I enlarged the garden, adding to the area around the Red Oak tree:

Bikurgurl 2016, Changing Landscape of front yard

‘Golly, I’d been gardening‘ was the post I wrote last June about all the changes.

Of course, that was before we’d had a few light construction and maintenance projects, including painting our house, concrete, and my pulling all that grass in the curb/street crack….

that’s actually a never-ending, thankless gardening task.

The front patio:

And these changes I posted about previously:

And the back yard:

From this to this:

This is our back walk, but further updates of the deck and that battered railing is forthcoming with our deck resurfacing (but we’re still working on it!):

The cedar decking was my husband’s choice {and is a better fit for our budget than the engineered decking with wrought iron banisters to eliminate maintenance!}; he and I both love the look of wood, with all its’ lines and character.

What’s left to do after our construction projects all last summer? Not much! I’ve got gardening galore to do, but that’s currently on-hold while I do my massive July, Annual Homeschool Planning!

But all the hard work is paying off with this view!

How are your projects going?