Home Improvement- outdoor edition

We scheduled a housewarming party for June 1st, and it was great motivation for us to get lots of house projects checked off our list!  I shared with you that our yard needed serious work when we moved in.  We finished the landscaping in the front and are really pleased with it.  The backyard was a bit more challenging, but we got it done and are enjoying it as well.  There were sections of the yard that needed to be leveled and have new sod put down.  The previous owners had put down winter rye in patches that was dying and looked terrible.  You wouldn't believe how much work shoveling dirt and hauling sod can be!  Whew!  It was worth it, but I hope we don't ever have to do this again. 

Now we are just watering the heck out of it everyday.  I'll be really glad when it takes root and is a little more durable!  I don't even want to know what our water bill will be this month...

The beds up against the house also needed some work.  We decided that with our two dogs we wanted to get rid of the dirt and to not plant things in the ground that they could rip up.  We ended up doing two rock beds with potted plants in them.  The small black rocks we chose were called Black Star gravel and then we went to a rock yard and handpicked a Chopped Blue Ozark stone for the border.  We are really pleased with the way it turned out!

The pictures really don't do it justice, but here are a couple of the final product.

We also had the trim and a few accents on the outside of our house painted.  We wanted to do black gutters, so decided to have the trim painted before we get those installed.  Here are the before and after photos.  The black really makes it pop and we are loving how sharp it looks!

Before:

After:

trim changed from white to black and white shutters changed to black

Before:

After:

trim changed from white to black and siding around back door and upstairs window box painted tan

The last project I had outside was planting some bulbs.  I love ranuculus and anemone flowers, and one day while I was shopping at Sam's Club I saw that they a box of bulbs for those two flowers.  I bought a couple and put over 100 bulbs in the ground a couple of weeks ago.  But, recently I've been finding little holes in my flower beds from what I suspect is a critter digging them up.  I'm really upset!  They are summer blooming flowers, so we'll see in the next couple of months if any of them make it.  I guess next time I'll have to plant in containers first and transplant when they start growing.  Weird looking bulbs, huh?

More on some of my inside projects later!