"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exup'ery

I included the "where we started picture" because Marc keeps trying to tell me that there's no way the big scraggly pine trees in the front yard could have grown 3 feet taller over the last year. I say they're tons taller and "gots to go".

That said, the actual news is: Marc (and Brandr) removed the fence from the front yard this past weekend.

On Thursday of last week I had a cold and stayed home sick. At some point during the day I mentioned to Marc that sometime this winter we'd have to remove the front fence. The fence was ugly and reminded me of prison bars.

He gaped at me in surprise and asked why we had to wait for winter (He's been wanting to tear the fence down since we moved in). I had no good reason so later on that afternoon he went out and started cutting down the fence. He got two of the sections removed on Thursday and finished the last of it up on Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon Brandr stopped by and helped to move the last of the clutter to the rubbish pile (thus assuring that we'd have to write down that he "helped" tear down the fence). We also added a trellis behind the Bougainvilla. I had really hoped the Bougainvilla would grow faster. For now the trellis will do well at balancing out that window.

The front yard now feels -HUGE-. It's amazing how much more spacious it looks just from removing the bars. The plan now is to remove the skraggley trees this winter (they'll make fantastic christmas trees) and to get rid of the skraggley hedge then too. Maybe also to eliminate the trees right next to the front steps. Heck all foliage planted by Mr. O has got to go. He just sucked as a landscaper... and as an electrician.. and as a general contractor.... massive suckage.

Love:
- The open look of the house
- The balancing done by the trellis.
- Lack of cactus
- New front door (yeah!) and screen door (double yeah!).
- Addition of daisies(which of course, you can't see in this picture)
- Addition of bungalow-esque lights along the walkway
- Surprisingly, the roses. I thought I'd hate them but they're actually very lovely (as long as I remember to dead-head them)

Still hate:
- The Scraggley pine trees just barely visable at the left side of the picture
- The red walkway (what's up with that?)
- The red that shows on the stairs where the tile fell off (!!) the front of the bottom step the first month we were in the house
- The tall green pine-y trees on either side of the front steps (at least they're no longer growing into the gutter)
- The bushy hedges right in front of the camera at this end of the walkway
- The yucca-gone-wild at the far left of the front of the house
- The -other- yucca-gone-wild barely visable at the far right of the picture along the fence separating us from our neighbor

Posted by Nibuca at October 9, 2006 | Permalink