Junk in my trunk…

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a big pile of Junk!”

~Thomas Edison

I like junk. I confess. Rubbish, as my friend Radka says!

I bought my first antique when I was 18 years old. An old chair for my bedroom. My father helped me pick it out. I loved that chair.

I am not obsessed. Nor is my home filled with them. Many of my “Treasures” as I call them are actually family heirlooms. Heirlooms I choose to display. Because an heirloom tucked away in a box is of no joy to anyone in my opinion.

I have always enjoyed antique stores, thrift stores, yard sales, etc.

There is just something I can’t explain about picking up an item. A well made item. And listening to it tell its story. Wondering who all this item served in its 30, 40 or 50+ , years of life. I like that. Finding a new purpose for an old object brings me joy.

And that’s about as simple as I can make it to you non “junk” people.

I am not a hoarder. I do not go crazy. Yet. I go on my treasure hunts looking for specific items that I collect or that “Fit” my home.

And then every now and then. Something finds me!

As in the chair I am about to introduce you to.

I have a front room in my house. I suppose it’s the living room. And yet, Brian and I have never “Lived” in it. It’s not because we don’t want to or we don’t like the room. It’s really just a math problem. The upper floor of our home alone is about 1800 square feet. There are only two of us. So we tend to use about 600 square feet on a regular basis.

We just don’t go in there much. So since wasted space stresses me out, we decided awhile ago that this would be our “Archive” room.

We love history.

We love genealogy.

We love our family.

So quite by accident, this room started taking shape as a quiet place for us to get in touch with all of that.

Several years ago when Brian’s dad passed away, he inherited these funky 60′s wall shelves. I HATED them when I first saw them. WELL before I moved into this home. I had NO appreciation for gaudy 60s and 70s decor.

Then, when we moved here, they seemed to fit better. I painted the brass brackets a darker “nickle” color and that helped.

So these shelves started things:

These shelves now hold things we love.

My grandfathers silver trumpet.

My fathers “Man of the year” award.

Pictures of those I love.

You get the point. These things are my heart. They mean everything to me.

Okay, back to the chair that found me.

I have been struggling with color for this room for a while. Waffling between browns and blues and browns and oranges.

And then the answer came. Through a chair.

We were out last Saturday running errands. We see the unavoidable “Community Yard Sale” sign. We decide we HAVE to take a look, right?

So we stop at a few places not really seeing much we need or want.

Then Brian spots this chair. Orange. Hideous. Lovely.

We get out and I am truly expecting her to tell me its 30 bucks. WAY too high for a garage sale. (I have VERY strict rules when treasure hunting about what I am and am not willing to pay!) to my surprise she says 8 bucks.

Now, I NEVER carry cash. But I just so happened to have exactly 8 dollars in my purse. So after a thorough inspection of the chair, we brought her home. It was fate. That chair needed us.

My ex husband stopped by later that day as I had her out in the carport cleaning her up. He said “Dawn, that is one ugly chair!”

I could not disagree more. She is perfect.

We cleaned her up and gave her a new home and now she too “Fits” my house.

I stuck her next to my 4 dollar floor lamp I won on an online auction. I put my grandmothers afghan over her. And next to her on the walls hang even more family treasures. I could not be happier with this chair.

For indeed, one mans junk is another mans treasure. ENJOY!

Oh, yeah, Ozzy cat seems to think its pretty grand too!

EIGHT dollars!

“Chaos is a friend of mine”~Bob Dylan

My beautiful Built In Cabinet

Behind this very beautiful built-in cabinet lies a deep dark secret. One I have kept hidden for almost two years now. One that has finally made me reach my breaking point. The critical moment came this week when I was trying to find a band-aid. A band-Aid!!

It took much longer than it should have, and the end result was me getting completely stressed out. That was it. It was time. Beyond time. To get this cabinet organized.

Like, Pinterest worthy organized, people!!!

You might say “Dawn, it really can’t be that bad”…But keep in mind, there are only two of us in this house 90% of the time. So yes my friends, it IS bad!

DON’T LOOK!!!!

Oh, wait, that’s why you are here! To look!!!

OH EM GEE!!!!!

How bad was it? Well, I found FOUR bottles of unopened body wash that belong to my dear husband. I think he buys them thinking he is out, but he has plenty!

More importantly, I threw out an ENTIRE shopping bag of expired medication!!! OH MY!!!!

So, I ran out to Big Lots (Formerly Odd Lots, and frankly, I STILL call them that!) and I bought myself some of these:

SO CHEAP! And they have handles!

Seriously, I bought 9 of these. 6 small ones and 3 larger ones. They were $2.50 and $3.50 respectfully, a piece! If I had gone to Bed Bath And Beyond I would have been out 100 bucks. But not this cheap gal! So for less than 30 bucks, I was able to do this:

LOVE the handles, they were perfect for my labels!

It took about an hour but at the end I went from this:

To this:

I am ridiculously excited about this! Next up will be some closets and some under the sink dirty secrets!!!

  “Out of chaos, comes order” ~Nietzsche

My “Dream not yet realized” Kitchen

And the planning of Kitchen Reno Phase TWO. WOO HOO!

You might remember about this time last year we did Phase One: http://pinkformica.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/did-someone-order-a-new-kitchen/

We did walls, lighting and cabinets using Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations. I wrote a pretty in-depth review on that blog, but I will be sharing some additional thoughts here as well. Its been about a year and I have some more to say!

Anyway, this phase will be flooring, counter tops and back splash. Possibly a sink.

Final Phase, THREE, will be ALL appliances! OY VEY!!!!

Anyway…To jog your memory, this is what we started with:

Ummm, How handsome is that boy right there?? But lets focus on the cabinets…

And this is where we are currently:

You gotta love my 1970′s dishwasher…LOL

Anyway,  I will say this. I DO have some remorse about painting my cupboards. I do. I kind of wish I had just stripped them and re-varnished them. Not because I don’t like the result because over all I do. But mostly because I feel guilty for changing the look of my kitchen. I know. I know. I am an odd girl…But, what is done is done, and maybe someday I will be motivated to do just that. But for now, I will work with my error.

Overall, I am still happy with the Rustoleum Cabinet product but I HATE HATE HATE the protective top coat. So while I am doing phase two, I plan on attempting a fix for that. I will lightly sand my cupboard doors, and then put another coat of paint on top to see if I can get rid of the lumpy sheen that appears on some of the doors. I will let you know in a follow-up blog if it worked.

So we have a TON of counter space (LOVE IT!!!) and overall, I truly don’t have an issue with laminate. I am not a “OH MY GOD I GOTTA HAVE GRANITE” kind of gal. Actually, I am hopeful the granite craze will peter out soon.

My DREAM counter top would be recycled glass. But they are PRICEY. So that will be something done at a later date.

Anyway, after 50 years of service, my counter tops are dingy, stained and scratched. So I want to replace them.

Ignore the beer…But notice the large burn in the background? Cigarette perhaps?

I love the gold and silver flecks!!!

So after months of research I have decided to try THIS product. It is an actual STONE coating you can put right on top of your counters:

I plan on keeping it pretty light, so I am going with the IVORY kit. I did research the Rustoleum Counter Top Refinishing kit, but to be honest, it is not getting good reviews and based on my previous experience with them, I wanted to try something else. From what I understand this kit is an actual stone coating. NOT PAINT. So we will see.

So while we do that, we will do the back splash too. Currently we have white tile. It’s okay. It’s held up well. But I wipe it down a lot. VERY hard to keep white clean in a kitchen.

So we are keeping with our RETRO theme and leaning towards STAINLESS!!! So we have two options we are discussing. Sheets of metal or tiles. Feel free to let us know your favorites because we truly can’t decide yet which we like best!

This one???

OR

Or this one????

For reference, imagine either of those options here. I mean, WHAT a wow factor we will have!!!!

As she is now…

And lastly, we will finally attempt to fix our poor, sad floor.

UGH. What color is it anyway???

I truly don’t know what color this floor is supposed to be. I suspect pink. But now with grime and dirt and wear, it has a bland, tannish, baby puke base. However, if you look closely you can see specks of blue and yellow. Which inspired my butter yellow wall color.

= Egads!

Sure. I could strip it, clean it, and maybe bring SOME life back into it. But let’s be real. it’s cracked and nails are popping up in spots. No amount of cleanser can fix that. I SUSPECT there could be some asbestos in this floor though so for that reason, we will NOT rip it up at this point. We will eventually floor over it. SOMEDAY, and I do mean SOMEDAY, I will have REAL slate, done in the 1960′s style put in my kitchen and in my den. (There is fake slate vinyl in that room now and I love it). Something like this will be done:

LOVE IT

But let me tell you. Slate is pricey! And I need two rooms of it. So for now we are going for a temporary fix. I am going to do something SHOCKING and CONTROVERSIAL. LOL. Okay, maybe not. I am going to PAINT my kitchen floor!!!!! Oh yeah!!! I am going to paint it in a way that it mimics 1950′s style tile!

To achieve this look and brighten up my kitchen a bit, I will use a good floor and porch paint:

And then I will use these lovely paint chips! (Same thing we used in our car port)

I will finish the entire thing with several layers of Polyurethane. I have absolutely no idea if it will work, but if it does, I will be out a mere 100 bucks for flooring materials. That’s a budget I can get down with!

So that is our plan for now. We will probably start in March. We want the weather to warm up a bit so we can open windows a bit. And I have no idea how well the floor thing will work with two dogs and a cat in the house. Our kitchen is in the heart of our home and it will be near impossible to work around it while the flooring dries, but we will give it a go!

This entire process will probably set us back about $500 dollars. We are doing this in an effort to save for our biggest show piece to date. THIS BAD BOY!!!!

Our dream!!!!!

 

The collection…

Or The Dining Room Part Deaux!

Drunken Scotchman!

Long before I bought this house I started a collection of  vintage bar ware. I don’t know where the love of that glassware came from but I do remember the exact moment it happened. My ex husband and I were at a senior center indoor yard sale in Lancaster Ohio. I found a set of four “Rocks” glasses, clear, with a diamond etched in to them. I don’t know why, but I loved them and had to have them. I think I paid $4 for them. That was it. I was hooked. My first intro to Mid Century something. I spent the next decade looking for fun and unique martini glasses, shakers, etc. I  focused very hard on the martini ware of the 50′s and 60′s.

My most favorite grouping in my collection!

Well, the problem with collecting anything is you eventually run out of room. And I hate hate hate collections that serve no purpose or can’t be seen. So through three different houses MOST of my collection stayed wrapped up. Until this house. One of our favorite features of this home was the built-in hutch in the dining room.

Our beautiful built in hutch

It’s beautiful. Sadly, in just two years, we have out grown that hutch. So I put a moratorium on new glassware. Which is harder than you might think. Because I may have failed to mention that I married a glass collector. Pint glasses? Yeah, we got ‘em. About 1000 of them. You put two collectors together and what do you get? Yeah. Hoarders in the making! Hah!

So our solution of course was another cabinet, hutch, something to display our glassware. The caveat for us though, it had to “Fit” the house and the dining room. So a search of area stores, craigslist, yard sales, was on. We got lucky and just a year ago found this gem on craiglist:

American Stanley Mid Century Hutch

It had a little damage on the bottom edges, but was otherwise VERY well made. I mean, seriously, they made stuff SO well back then! It was listed for $100, we offered $75, they not only took it, but delivered it for us for free!

So that has served us well for the last year, but then, we out grew that hutch too. Okay. Okay. I know what you’re thinking. We MAY have a problem. We MAY need an intervention.

But in my defense, not only do I have my stuff, his stuff, but suddenly my mother has started giving me HER stuff!

So early this year we decided that as much as we love our dining room, it is basically USELESS to us. In the almost two years we have lived here, we have used it exactly two times. Seriously. It is wasted space that we walk through to other rooms. So we decided to turn it more into a total display area for our collections of old things.

I admit it. I like old. Heck, I don’t hate new either. But there is something about buying something that has a history. I enjoy it. Brian enjoys it. And we like hunting for things. We know antiques aren’t for everyone. We get that. But we truly think if done, and done well, you can totally blend old world with new world and live in harmony.

So now I had a solid collection of things I loved, things he loved, and things my mother has given me that are true family heirlooms. I needed another hutch. BUT, I didn’t want to overwhelm my dining room with “Junk”. Even though we don’t use the room, you can see it from three other rooms, so I wanted it to look nice.

So just last week, on a complete whim, Brian and I stopped at Heritage Square Antique Mall in Columbus Ohio over my lunch break. One hour power shop. We found a mid-century hutch that was originally marked at $200 marked down to$50. FIFTY BUCKS. It was almost too good to pass up. But. It was kind of ugly!!!!

I wasn’t sold honestly. I did NOT love it. But 50 bucks is hard to pass up. I figured we could paint it or use it elsewhere in the house if need be. So we bought it. It’s an American of Martinsville hutch. Makers of fine American furniture!

I am no expert with dating (and if YOU are please email me!!!) but by style alone I would say it’s probably mid to late 60′s???? It is SOLID wood, one piece, dovetail drawer inside. No particle board here! And it had lights!!!! Total bonus!!!!

I REALLY hated the color of the wood in the store. Maybe its maple? I don’t really know, so I was thinking I might stain or paint it. But now that it’s here, I think I will leave it be.

I promptly cleaned it and put my stuff in it. And I LOVE IT. I mean, I really love it!

Not as ugly as I thought

It looks like it belongs here. Then we decided to bring up an old table we had in the basement. It belonged to Brian’s grandparents. A great solid Ethan Allen table from the mid 60′s, but we never really had a spot for it. Now we do! We added a few more accessories, family heirlooms and things we had collected, and VOILA! We now have a true mid-century dining room to display all or our collection:

This is what the dining room looked like before. Like WAY before!

Original light fixture, carpet and drapes.

And as it looks today:

Another angle:

So here are some more highlights of my collection for anyone interested. Call this glass porn if you will!!!! (Sorry mom!)

Musical decanters flank a gold plated anniversary plate of my grandparents. 1983.

1977. My father was heavily involved with the Jerry Lewis MD Association.

Vintage ice bucket flanked by two rocks glasses that belonged to my grandfather. Etched with R A B. LOVE them.

No. You are not drunk! The glass is leaning. My grandpa Wilson worked at Anchor Hocking. This is one of their “Rejects” he brought home. I love this drunken little glass!

Everything here came from my Grandma Wilson. The apron was crotchet by my great grandma Mac.

One of our newest sets. Brian and I LOVED the color on these!

Very unique find for us. We have never seen these out again on our scouting adventures so I am glad we bought them.

They look like light bulbs!

While neither of us are smokers we just had to buy this mid century ashtray when we saw it!

These were also my Grandpa Bininger’s. One of my favorite memories is alllll the great parties they hosted!

I can’t remember where we got the ice bucket, but the glasses, which I actually use, came from a resale shop. I think they were 5 bucks!! And I love them!

I hope you all enjoy your collections as we are now enjoying ours!!!! And happy thrifting. You just never know when you will find your next bargain!!!

~All my treasures~

A 50′s Style Affair

You might ask yourself what a wedding post is doing on what is primarily a home improvement blog? Well…That IS a good question. I suppose the answer lies in the fact that this home that I love so much has kind of helped define the rest of my life in many ways.

I have always felt like an old soul in a modern world. Living here ensconced in my paneled walls surrounded by my pinkness and vintage things I now have an excuse to walk between the two worlds. Past and present.

So it was a very natural progression when Brian and I started planning our wedding that we veered to a vintage style. We started off discussing craft beer, because that’s how we met. But as we went along the planning process things changed and realigned.

This was a second wedding for us both. We wanted small and intimate. We wanted to be surrounded by drama free people who truly have supported us and our unique relationship. Brian and I are very non traditional. From how we met, to the fact that I proposed to HIM at the foot of the Rocky statue in Philadelphia. NOTHING we do is traditional. Additionally, even though we now had the money to plan a fairly nice to do, as we started looking at venues, talking to bands and photographers, etc, we found we were much less prepared to part with our hard-earned money. So having something here at home started making a lot of sense to us.

I had been following www.theoffbeatbride.com for quite some time. One day they posted this story: http://offbeatbride.com/2012/05/seattle-1940s-wedding

That was it. That was the wedding I wanted. Just a decade later.

I didn’t need or want a fancy affair. This was a second wedding for us. We had lived together already for 4 years! We had obtained a pretty quiet, laid back, drama free life over the years and we wanted our wedding to reflect that. An elopement of sorts was JUST the answer for us. So the idea formed of a small courthouse wedding followed several weeks later by a casual back yard BBQ here at our home for our friends and family.

I wanted to post about this primarily to give the shout outs to the venders I used because when it was all said and done I do not think we would have changed a thing. Our wedding and reception ended up being a perfect reflection of “Us”. And I could not have done it without the many wonderful resources on the web and locally. So this post is a celebration of our wedding and a Thank You to all that helped us get there.

We were married in July at the Franklin County Courthouse in Columbus Ohio.

Standing in line for our license.

We were surrounded by my mother and stepfather, my niece and her fiance. Our photographer backed out at the last minute and my niece and her fiance stepped in to take some pics for us. They did a phenomenal job and I really couldn’t be happier with how everything worked out.

I took this picture the morning of. I got this idea from http://www.pinterest.com. THANK GOD for pinterest! My wedding idea board was a lifesaver. I am so glad I got this pic.

Brian’s ring we got online from www.metalmasters.com. We found them through http://www.amazon.com. He works in a home improvement store and needed something sturdy. This is his second tungsten ring. WE LOVE THEM and he gets a ton of compliments on it.

My engagement ring came from http://www.dunkinsdiamonds.com in Lancaster Ohio. I wanted something NON traditional. Finding a band to fit was more challenging but eventually, Amazon came through again and I found this delightful little band: http://www.amazon.com/White-Gold-Blue-Sapphire-Ring/dp/B00126FH8G/ref=cm_cr-mr-title. We spent very little money on our rings because that was not an important thing for us.

This picture inspired my look I was going for:

I am a plus size gal and Marilyn is the epitome of curvacious beauty.

Well, I am no Marilyn, but it will have to do. Did I mention it happened to be a very HOT and HUMID day?? Which means the second I stepped outside I lost my lovely pin curls. Oh well. No need to stress, right???

My shoes also came from Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Funtasma-Pleaser-Womens-Contessa-06-Black-White/dp/B0018N7LE6/ref=sr_1_5?s=shoes&ie=UTF8&qid=1358101364&sr=1-5&keywords=funtasma+by+pleaser+contessa. I loved them.

Okay. Complete listing of clothing. My dress and hair piece came from http://www.uniquevintage.com. Brian’s shirts were from http://www.daddyos.com and http://www.lucky13apparel.com. My mom’s custom shirt came from http://www.customizedbowlingshirts.com. I got my crinoline on http://www.amazon.com.

See. NO MORE CURLS. Dang it!!! Stupid Mother Nature!

After the courthouse ceremony we went to a nearby park for some photos. Then we headed to Tommy’s Diner, a Columbus institution for some lunch!

We custom designed our invites using http://www.zazzle.com. I LOVE THEM. We used them for custom stamps as well as address labels. Excellent customer service!

I made up the poem!

So a about 5 weeks after our ceremony, we had our backyard BBQ. I had a very cute bowling dress picked out for this day but the day was SOOOOOO hot and humid and we were under the threat of rain, that I ditched it at the last-minute and went with capris and an apron. Going with the flow!

Me and Brian the day of our party.

Me and my beautiful niece!

Everything else was rather casual. We had a large two car detached garage that we weren’t using. It wasn’t pretty but it served well due to the pending rain. (It never did rain, but we were prepared none the less!) I did my best to spruce it up. We offered sidewalk chalk to our guests to sign the walls.

Food was catered by a local eatery called City BBQ. http://www.citybbq.com/. We love supporting local business!

This was the kids table:

The dessert table:

Used vintage map hearts from http://www.etsy.com (Because when we met we had a long distance relationship). Tables and walls were filled with black and white pictures from our 5 years together. I also used vintage buttons and of course mason jars!

We rented the table and chairs. Best decision we made!!!!

And the favors. Glasses ordered from http://www.favorfavor.com and were filled with retro style candy.

The signing of the walls:

Well, all in all, we are pretty pleased with how it all went down. We have been married for 6 months now and really couldn’t be happier. If you have any questions about the vendors I used please drop me a line.

Thank you so much for stopping by and may you go out and have your own off beat life!

**ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF: Jared Bowling, Whitley Hanna and Dawn Bininger. 2012. Do not use without permission. Thank you.

A window to my soul

I have been sitting on this blog for several months now as I processed my newest renovation. To be honest, I am STILL not  sure yet how I feel about the biggest renovation we have done to date. Heck, in my entire life I guess! So since I was not exactly inspired it became very hard to write about it. Yet, for the love of my home, I decided it was time to share.

WINDOWS. Ugh! Lots and lots of windows!

If you have never ever had to replace yours you are extremely lucky. If you, like me, have, then you feel my pain. We have 21 windows in our house. Twenty One! So we knew going in that it was gonna set us back some cash…And LOTS of it.

To date, we had tried to remain a cash only renovation operation. Well, it just wasn’t feasible with this project.

So after months of trying to get financing (I was about to sell my lung on the black market!) when we were FINALLY approved. Geesh.

YAY! Time for new windows! But what kind? And from who? And who would make sure that the windows I bought would “Fit” my house? And I don’t mean fit but I mean they had to look good architecturally.

You see, my house was full of 21 Jalousie windows. I had no idea what a Jalousie window was a year and a half ago. I had seen them. Did not know they had an “Official” name. I just called them louvered windows.

Spending the last year and a half with them I now know alllllllll about them. I know their pros. And I know their cons. I know that they are GREAT in warmer climates. I know they are GREAT for sun porches. I know they are GREAT at circulating air flow (A must for us since we do NOT have central air). I know they actually look nice on the house. And I know when they work, they are very easy to open and close.

I also know that they fit my house perfectly and I LOVED the way they looked.

But…I also know that they are NOT energy-efficient. I know that they should never have been placed in Central Ohio where our winters can get rough. I know that over time they stop working, the handles fall off and the gears seize. I know that EVERY spring you take down storm windows and EVERY winter you go around and put on storm windows. And I know that even after you do that, you get constant air flow coming through the aluminum.

So I knew they had to go. They were 53 years old and they had  a very good run. But replacing them was not an easy decision AT ALL. I even reached out to Pam over at www.retrorenovation.com to see if this subject had ever come up.

Sure, I read lots of articles talking about replacing regular windows. But where were all the Jalousie people? Surely my house was not alone. Of course it wasn’t. My neighbor, an original home owner, also has them. But I guess Jalousie windows have become a thing of the past. So I had no choice but to find entirely new windows.

I guess for most folks they just replace them with the latest and greatest and move on. As a matter of fact, if you walk around my neighborhood you see a bevy of window options. Many, in my opinion, no longer fit the house.

I did NOT want to be one of those people. So after many hours of research we decided to go with a local company that makes their own custom windows. Rosati Windows. We liked everything about them. They have a great reputation. They are local. And they cut out the middle man by also being the manufacturer. (Their link if interested http://www.rosatiwindows.com/) I can not say enough nice things about the folks at Rosati. I am more than happy with them. We found them through http://www.angieslist.com.

I knew for certain I did NOT want double hung. That did NOT feel like it fit my house at all, so after much thinking and debating, we went with Casement Windows. Yep. We still get a crank! Luckily, this one is guaranteed for life. We needed maximum airflow, again, due to NO central air. We felt the look of these windows fit our house the best AND offered us maximum air flow. We went with simple sliders in the back due to the very small window openings.

Casement windows crank out and can open up allowing for complete airflow!

I don’t know folks. Four months later and my heart STILL hurts about having to ditch the Jalousie windows. I have not yet noticed a huge drop in my energy bills either which I thought I might. But who knows, maybe over time. I do like that I no longer have to spend HOURS putting up and taking down storm windows!

Here are the many many pics!

The old Windows:

Front picture window. In ROUGH shape. BEFORE

Front window DURING. That is one big giant hole!!! EGADS!

Front window AFTER. It’s so very shiny!!!!!!

Favorite room of the house. BEFORE.

Same window DURING.

And AFTER!

Back of house BEFOREBack of house AFTER:

And finally…The entire front BEFORE:

And what it looks like now:

Thank you for stopping by!

Landscaping One Stone At a Time…

Landscaping. One of my favorite things to do. And one of the most expensive.

In my perfect world with a limitless paycheck my landscaping would look something like this:

Or maybe this:

Unfortunately, I have neither a bottomless checkbook, or the time it has taken for these kinds of landscapes to establish themselves.

I have only been here one year. Time. I need time.

I have always been a fan of simple, modern architecture and mid-century landscaping. My research has shown it contained a lot of stone, gravel, minimal and well cropped grass, and lots of native, but well maintained greenery. Simple.

But landscaping takes time. Time to plan, then time for the plants and grasses to grow into the vision you wish them to be.

While my home is not necessarily “Modern”, like Frank Lloyd Wright modern, it does have some of those elements and lines of a modern ranch. So I definitely feel like in time modern landscaping will work here. As long as I continue to blend the house with her surrounding landscape.

Someday I would love to add some decorative concrete block kind of like this:

Or this:

But that is way down the road for us.

When we bought the house a year ago the front looked like this:

Those bushes which SCREAM of the landscaping of their time were overgrown and very much dying. You could barely see or enter the front door due to the large bush.

To the left of the front door sits two dining room windows which you can just barely see because of that bush. I HATED them. Not so much the look, as they do fit the house, but they were way over grown. And they were not healthy. My dining room got no light due to them.

I have a two foot overhang going completely around my house. This provides almost constant shade. I believe these bushes suffered from lack of sun, lack of nutrition, and overall old age. They were 55 years old of course!

So one of the first things we did last year was to remove the large bushes across the front. I know. I know. I can hear a collective gasp amongst you all. I was very heart-sick when I did it. I NEVER feel good ripping out living things. But truly, its hard to see in the pics because they are nicely rounded, but all the branches underneath were dead.

My hope was by removing the larger bushes, perhaps the smaller ones would get more light and then flourish. Ummm. No. That did not really happen.

So then we went to this:

This was not too bad, but the smaller bushes did not really do much better plus that patch of grass was hard to mow, and became very “Weedy”. It looked awful.

(You can see in the pic how sparse the branches are underneath)

So we decided to rip them out this year and lay gravel.

I am not going to lie. I hated it at first. It was so. BARE.

But its been a week and it is slowly growing on me. What I have had to realize is landscaping takes time. Many years. Many layers. Every year goes another layer, until five years pass and you have a lovely well-grown, well suited landscape.

It may be hard for you to see my vision right now because my vision isn’t fully realized.

The red planters will someday match the door which I plan on painting red. The bright red door will look great when I paint the house a different color. When the hostas grow and become larger I will transplant them directly into the ground. I plan to add a few tall skinny trees or bushes as well. Time. Time is all I need. And a bit of cash too!

So until my vision is realized, this is what we have done so far:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I have a lot of work left to do. Especially over there to the right in front of the giant picture window. I am still brain storming that area. We are getting new windows installed here in the next few months and then I will tackle that side of the house. But until then, this works for me…

BEFORE:

AFTER:

AFTER:

AFTER:

(By the way, I got those park benches on sale at Home Depot end of season clearance for 34 bucks! I will paint them someday!)