House Tour: The Great Outdoors

One of the reasons we chose this house over the other contender was the yard. Nearly all the houses we looked at had tiny lots (as is the norm here), but this one was double the size of any of the others we looked at and is flat in the front and back.

On the side of our driveway is our raised garden bed. We would prefer for it to be in the backyard, but, as you will see, it does not get adequate sunlight. We had already tore down the beans (?) which are the purple pile in the middle when this photo was taken, but it also contained carrots, basil, thai basil, dill, and other things that were either intentional or weeds.

The side yard has brick steps down to the backyard and about a million plants. It's hard to tell what was actually planted versus what are weeds though, so we hope to reduce a lot of the plants so it doesn't look so raggedy.

On the side of our house is our deck space. Since the deck sits partially on the side and partially on the back of the house, these lattice pieces were placed to provide a bit of privacy from street traffic. The archway has grapevines on it too...clearly we were meant to buy this house.

Our very large deck that has not been utilized whatsoever since we moved in, except to store the ugly carpet we ripped out from the inside of the house.

We can't wait to put a large outdoor dining set and grill out here so we can enjoy some alfresco dining.

Below our deck is not super exciting, it's a lot of pea gravel (and now leaves), but Brian can walk underneath it without hitting his head on anything, so it's perfect for that reason.

Brian's absolute favorite part of our house is through the white door in the above picture, his workshop! Most of Brian's tools are scattered throughout our parents' garages, but I hope we can get them in here soon so I can start placing some orders for home improvement projects.

The rest of our yard is full of trees, ivy, and a tiny bit of grass. The ivy was nearly a third of our entire backyard space (the third closest to the fence) until Brian mowed over it. This won't completely eradicate the  ivy (we have to tear out all the roots), but it already looks so much bigger and better with the ivy gone.

From the left

From the right

Below the ugly addition to our home is a small shed where we store our lawn mower and other outdoor essentials. Luckily we don't have very large items because I can't even fit in here without stooping down.

That is our entire house tour, inside and out! We have lots of plans for renovations large and small, but right now we've been focused on making necessary repairs and improvements. I plan to share a few of our changes in the very near future along with asking for some opinions as we go!

Was there a room in your home that sold your spouse on your house?