The Roby Family

The front of our house continues its metamorphosis. From day one we’ve been eager to rip out all of the old landscaping and begin anew. Most of the old landscaping has been removed for several months. Since its removal we’ve been debating what type of edging to use for the new landscaping.

We were confident we wanted more than a basic metal or composite edging:

We used this at our first house and we felt something with more heft was the appropriate choice.

We moved on to considering a pre-cast concrete block for the an edge in areas and a near retaining wall in others:

With the slope of our yard this presented some neat opportunities but also a great installation challenge. We were gifted about 20% of the block we would need for the project, but in the end we felt this would be too much work.

After much debate and driving around peaking at people’s yards we decided to use weathered limestone boulders to edge our front landscape beds. The entire project isn’t done so we’ll save pictures of the entire edge for later. However, here are a few pictures of our larger and/or more interesting rocks:

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We roughed out the beds with the gifted (thanks Whites!) blocks to give us an idea of the shape we wanted. That was great except when it came to removing them. That was just the beginning of our heavy lifting. Here are the weight totals of all the work we did this weekend:

2,400 lbs – Concrete block removal

2,400 lbs – Loading and unloading 30 bags of top-soil for shaping

460 lbs – Loading more limestone boulders at stone yard because the 3,830 lbs they delivered wasn’t enough

4,290 lbs – Installing limestone boulders

9,550 lbs – total lifting, hauling, rolling, grunting done this weekend

In case you are math challenged like me Google says that is 4.775 tons of material! Josh moved the mass majority of the weight. One of our neighbors helped him move the largest stone, which clocked in at about 500 lbs. The rest was Josh showing off his new found “old man strength.”

Now that the edging is done we will prep the bed and be ready for planting this fall!

It took us a little longer than expected but we finally have a new roof!  Our old roof was nearly 50 years old but was in great working condition.  However, it wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world and our insurance company was gigging us pretty good due to its age.  You can see pictures of the old roof at Christmas time by clicking here.

We wanted to go with a darker color with some variations.  We chose “Black Walnut” by TAMKO.

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It is hard to capture the different colors that are in the shingles so you’ll have to come visit to see it in person.

Painters arrived last week to begin painting the living room and guest room.  The hope was to be finished today but with Sno-kla-poca-lizza-geddon’s arrival on Monday evening we are in a holding pattern.  In addition to painting the walls and trim the job includes patching all the various nail holes and cracks in the plaster and trim.  It is quite a job but the rooms are going to look great when they are finished.

All of the trim will be Sherwin Williams’ “Antique White”:

The guest room walls will be Sherwin Williams’ “Versatile Gray”:

The guest bath walls will be Sherwin Williams’ “Cloak Gray”:

After much debate and multiple samples painted on the wall the living room walls will be Sherwin Williams’ “Nuthatch”:

This year we booked it home from Thanksgiving because we wanted to ensure plenty of time to deck our walls.  See, we moved into our new house just after Christmas last year, so, decorating ideas have been stewing around inside Jenny’s head for a solid twelve months.  When I say stewing I mean a folder chock full of magazine and catalog clippings illustrating wonderful ideas for both inside and out.  Needless to say she had a grand plan that, unfortunately, I chickened out on executing.

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We had a great time hanging lights and putting up the wreaths.  My dad came up for Thanksgiving weekend to help us and make sure I didn’t take a tumble off the ladder.  To hang the wreaths I hung out the second story windows, inserted a hook in the window jamb then slipped the wreath frame onto the hook.  I wouldn’t consider that really safe, but dad had left by that point so I got away with it.

As you saw I squelched my inner Clark Griswold this year, but don’t worry I’ve got a few ideas that in time I know will cause air traffic concerns.

PS:  It’s just darn hard to get a good picture of Christmas lights.  I need Santa to bring me one of them fancy cameras that will make those night shots look better.

PSS:  We’ll get shots of the inside decor sometime soon.

PSSS:  Jenny, don’t get any ideas about that camera.  I can assure you it’s not in the budget.

Now that we’ve removed a lot of overgrown bushes and trees it is time to start putting some plants back in place.  The first plant to find a new home is a shumard oak.  We planted the tree just north of the driveway where a massive grouping of crepe mrytles once stood.

Here is what we hope the oak will look like once mature:

Thankfully it won’t be accompanied by that hideous green gradient edging once mature.  The fall foliage will be red and orange.

Here are a few pictures showing before and after.

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It might take 15-20 years before we are ready for a gathering under this old oak tree but we look forward to watching it grow.

PS: We’ve started on a few other planting beds, but none are ready for unveiling.

If you’ve been following along at home you know our old house is flanked by many a bush and many a tree.  From day one we’ve wanted to complete a major tree and bush removal.

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First priority?  Remove the giant mass of crepe myrtles that had set up residence adjacent to the driveway.  They were overgrown and made backing out of the driveway quite the task.  As of last Friday that giant green blob of stems and leaves is history.

Another easy choice for removal was an overgrown mass of juniper, mimosa and Rose of Sharon bush that sat along the north retaining wall.  The choice that took much more debate was the removal of the cedar trees that guarded the wings of the house.  At roughly 40 feet tall they were stately and gorgeous.  Well, that was fall 2007 prior to a giant ice storm that removed their tops and approximately 10-15 feet of growth.  We never saw them in that state and can only imagine how great they looked.  After a rough fungal covered summer and review by several arborists we made the tough decision to remove them.  At the feet of the cedar lay decades old juniper bushes.  We had a real love/hate relationship with these guys.  Some days they looked overgrown and hideous.  Other days they were layered and stately.  The week before the cedar trees were to be removed we made the decision to keep them for a trial period of twelve months.  If after twelve months we didn’t like them, they’d get the ax.  Well, the company we hired to do the hacking had a different action plan.  After removing everything listed on the work order and trimming up the large hackberry trees on the street the crew leader had a major brain fart.  I ran inside for FIVE minutes, as I walk out the front door I see him hacking into the southern most bushes with his chainsaw.  I screamed like a twelve-year old girl.  The chainsaw stopped immediately.  Lucky for him the owner of the company had just stopped by.  I’ve become a pretty mellow fella in my thirties but I about lost it on this guy.  He may have been a good 6″ taller and outweighed me by a couple hundred lb’s but I was letting him have it.  Since one can’t glue a giant bush back together we made the tough decision to remove all the junipers.  To the company’s credit they made some very nice concessions on the bill and did a bit more work for free.

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Lucky for them we were already on the fence about removing them and Jenny already had a landscape plan drawn up sans junipers.  Otherwise, I may be in jail.  The house looks pretty bare without all that vegetation.  However, it looks a lot bigger and more open.  We have a grand plan for the front but that needs time and money.  We just happen to be allocating those resources elsewhere right now, but stay tuned.

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It took a little more work than anticipated but the awnings are down.  It’s not a full blown face lift but more like a brow lift.  I love the look of it and so happy to be able to have clear sight lines out of the house.  The living, dining and guest rooms are much brighter!

Before picture:

After pictures:

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As an aside, one of the great things about living in an emerging neighborhood is that stuff you put on the curb doesn’t last long.  With two awnings down and Josh working on the third a family showed up asking if they could have them.  Before they could return with their truck another gentleman asked for them.

The first floor windows on the front of our home are “decorated” with metal awnings.  Since the day we saw the house we’ve wanted to rip them off.  Well, the day has arrived!  The awnings go down today!

If all goes well we’ll have a follow up post showing the difference later this weekend.

When we become homeowners for the first time one of the first things we did was buy a flag bracket and flag pole.  We like to display flags for our favorite sports teams (really just the Sooners & Yankees) and of course an American flag when appropriate.  Our first house had an obvious place to hang the flag, the new one not so much.  After eight months of thinking about we are finally hanging the bracket and flag pole tonight.  BUT, we still don’t where it should permanently attached.  Help?!?

After ten days of scratching, clawing and digging in the dirt, followed by lifting, placing, leveling and pounding on wall blocks and finally planting and mulching plants the first gardening project of our home is complete.  In spite of lots of sweat, blood and tears what was a ratty and eroding area is now a clean and level planting bed.  The amount of roots, concrete shards, old toys, rubber washers, balls and tools buried in the dirt was a bit overwhelming but we worked through it and are quite proud of the finished product.

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The centerpiece of the bed is an existing Japanese Maple.  The tree is huge and we are hopeful we didn’t damage the roots, too much, so it will live much longer.  We planted an Autumn Ruby Azalea in the back corner of the bed.  It should grow to about three feet over time and we hope will make a great backdrop for the hostas in front of the tree.

Autumn Ruby Azalea

On the sides of the bed we planted Autumn Ferns.  We had many of these at our former home and loved them.  They have a great bronze color in the spring.  We picked up the piece of driftwood in the middle of the bed on a lake trip with our LifeGroup several years ago.  It adds a nice touch and distracts from the guest room crawlspace cover.  We couldn’t do anything about the PVC plumbing cleanout but are hopeful the ferns will camoflouge it over time.  This fall or next spring we will plant another hosta or two and will also plant some groundcover plants to act as a natural mulch.

We’ll most likely add some annual flowers along the wall each spring to add some color to the area.

This was a very tiring project, to say the least.  The ten days we worked on it just so happened to be the ten hottest of the year.  With the slope of our lot we have several other places we’d like to put in walls like this one.  After this project we’ll have a better idea how to prepare and know to only do them in early spring or late fall.