Befores And Afters

I love before and after pictures that pop up on blogs and in magazines.  I have a few of my own to share in this post that have occurred this summer - some significant and one silly.  Be prepared for viewing many photos.  A couple weeks ago I scraped, primed and painted the little cottage I rent out on the Yellow House property.  I had painted it about 8 years prior but the paint had faded a lot over time and was peeling in places.  The interesting thing about the paint is that both the Yellow House and cottage were painted with an almost identical color but I used a cheaper brand of paint for the cottage - it was my first foray into exterior painting - and on the big Yellow House where I didn't dare mess around since this was quite an investment to paint it, I bought the best Benjamin Moore exterior paint and after 7 years it still looks fresh and bright.  I had used Behr exterior paint/primer-in-one on the cottage and it faded terribly.  This time I bought the good Benjamin Moore paint for the cottage and we will see what happens over time.
Here's a bit of before and after.

 Quite a few boards had to be replaced - the gray ones are the new ones.  I had to scrape a lot on this side - it had bubbled badly from a couple rough winters.

 All that white is the primer on the bad side.

 My tenant has some projects going on the deck so it looks pretty messy and disorderly.

Now the afters:  I use semi gloss for exterior because I love a bit of sheen and it cleans well.

 I finished around 7 pm with the final brush stroke so the lighting isn't ideal.  The pile of bricks is for a new patio for the barn apartment soon to be started.

 I still need to paint the chimneys - there were wasps flying around me on the roof from a nest I had destroyed so I didn't dare start right away.

Now for the new tree border at the Rye House.

Remember that we had planted two new trees here and then edged a new border and killed the grass?

The best part will be planning and designing during the winter months, all the shrubs and flowers that will go in this border next spring.  Here's another border that has changed dramatically this year over on the other side of the yard - it's about 100 feet long and we call it the sun border.

 This side of the yard when we bought the property was mostly grass but there were wild blackberries, beach roses and a couple bad shrubs stuck here and there.  We ripped everything out, I rototilled it, amended the soil a bit and after a preliminary design, started planting perennials, shrubs, bulbs and some filler annuals last year.  This year we doubled the width of the border near the front (which meant double the amount of new plants to put in :) ) and widened the whole length a bit more all the way down to the back.

 Dan cutting the new edge with his new tool.

Starting the planting.

 The new plantings coming along.  Next year should be fabulous!

Below is the border at the back in early spring and the pics after are what it looks like right now.

 The Japanese Maple Bloodgood is at the tail end of this border.

 Looking from the back all the way down to the front.

 Tagetes Marigold Lemon Gem is my favorite annual filler and it smells heavenly and you can eat it too

I adore this combo of dahlia with Helenium.

Under the kitchen windows here at the Rye House, the border used to look like this, planted by the previous owner.  Here's what it looks like now, a month ago.  The angles are different - the kitchen door is to the left of the windows, left of the house light you can just detect.

Remember the garden I removed from the Yellow House back yard?  All those roses and perennials?

 The deconstruction last fall.

And this is how it looks now!!

Pretty dramatic, huh?  If I lived here I would prefer the gardens as they were.  As a landlord, I am loving not having to prune, weed, and maintain that area.  Many of those roses and perennials have been planted at the Rye house so they live on.
And now for one final before and after.  We had company, family, here at our house for the whole month of July.  The candy jars in the den were totally decimated.  So we washed them all in the dishwasher and filled them anew after everyone finally left.

Here they are before company arrived.  And I didn't get the empty jars photographed because I was in San Diego last week when our company left and Dan washed the jars.  He waited for me to come home to fill them.

 Clean jars, a dusted shelf, all new candy, a couple new kinds in the mix.  And no orange tootsie pops this time - the grandkids eat only purple, red and brown and leave the orange so we got the message.