Who Knew Driveways Required So Much Thought

You may have noticed from last week's post that my driveway is in rough shape. You may have also noticed that my front yard is primarily concrete.

As our focus turned to the exterior appearance, it became obvious that we need a new driveway. We also need an irrigation system in order to grow grass instead of weeds. Efficiency dictates that we tackle both projects at once so that the irrigation crew has as little concrete to go under as possible. Here are a few inspiration pictures for my new driveway, keeping in mind that it will go from the street to the carport. Instead of having extra parking in front of the house, I am extending the driveway to the left (according to this picture) into the side yard so that we can have something more attractive than a parking lot for a front yard.

Houzz

Houzz

Curb Appeal, Stage 1

Now that we are relatively settled inside the house, I have turned my attentions outward. Here is the facade of my house, or at least it was until recently. Many of the old houses in my neighborhood have front porches that were closed in with awning windows a few decades after being built. I prefer a more original look, so J and I did a bit of demo.

Much better, right? There is still a lot of work that needs to be done, but I am saving that for my carpenter. I wasn't interested in watching J take a sledgehammer any closer to the columns than he already did. And in the pursuit of efficiency and good timing, we did all the work the day after Halloween. Why remove the Halloween construction paper bats when you can just yank out all the windows?

Halloween 2015

Here are a few pictures of my Halloween decorations this year. It was my first Halloween decorating my own house and I was super excited.  The branches were pilfered from the side of the road and the signs were made from old pallet wood behind my paint store. Side note: paint is typically delivered on pallets, so paint stores should have some should you ever need a pallet. The bats are just construction paper and I borrowed the monster from my mom.