The Great Outdoors

One thing we tackled during our three day holiday weekend was the front "garden" (if you can call it that). If you remember, this is one of the things on my Baby Countdown To-Do List. We haven't done too much out back on our deck besides giving it a good cleaning and moving our table and chairs up from the basement. 

The front simply needed a good weeding and power wash along with a few potted plants to add a splash of color. Here is how it looked once we were finished. 

$6.99 planter on a $3.99 plate from Marshalls

$9.99 planter on a $3.99 plate from Marshalls.

There are still a few eyesores out front that we have yet to take on (or figure out how to fix).

We don't hang a flag, but this flag pole was screwed into our aluminum siding when we moved in. I'm afraid to take it off and see the mess underneath. I wish I could find a different way to use it, but nothing has come to mind, yet. Some day down the road we'd like to replace the aluminum siding and until we have the time and money, this will probably stay as is. 

Besides repainting the white wall underneath the siding/windows, I would like to find some way to cover up this mess of electrical boxes. They are necessary, but just not very pretty. 

Please note Jordan's snake killer aka shovel. There have been some snake sightings in our neighborhood the past two weeks (including one inside one of our neighbor's houses - in his bed). Jordan and snakes do not get along. Although I will say the snake sightings seemed to be declining since the appearance of the shovel.

A gift from my parents. Our own door knocker. They also gave up the new nickel door handle and kick plate (which I didn't think to take a picture of). Next we will replace the gold handled storm door with a matching nickel one. 

Like I mentioned, we haven't really done much with the back deck, yet. The front was more a priority since everyone sees it when the come over and we are anticipating a lot of guests in the next few weeks once Lucy is born.

Here is how the deck looked at the beginning of the summer. We (and by we I mean Jordan) have since given it a good power washing and brought the table up form the basement and set it up with the chairs. The cooler and random extension cord have since been removed. The icicle lights are leftover from our NYE party. Some people may find them tacky, but we actually like them and they add a nice light when we turn them on at night if people are over so we haven't wanted to take them down. 

Plans for the deck include adding some nice, colorful potted plants and getting rid of either the branches or the actual trees that hang over the deck. We don't get much sunlight because of these trees, they shed leaves all over our deck, and they are starting to reach so far over the deck the branches are butting up against the back of our house.

Here is how the deck currently looks:

Here is our view of the creek behind our house.

Pretty, right? So we'd like to get things spruced up so we can sit on our deck and enjoy this view.