Adventures in Remuddling

After putting in the fence in our front yard, I’ve been coveting an arbor to frame the entrance, and Tig has been looking for a structure for the hardy kiwi he bought this spring. We found this simple arbor design from Better Homes and Garden.

The BHG website even comes with plans on how to make it.

Continue reading “Arbor Plans” »

After picking up the custom cedar fence pieces, Tig primed and stained them in the basement; the last coat went on after the little one went to sleep. On a Saturday morning, the 5th fence panel went in.

The existing posts on each side of the walkway had to be replaced with taller posts for the arbor (if we had more foresight, we would have designed everything from the get-go).

Continue reading “Long Arbor Post, Part 1″ »

We’ve posted before about hiring a landscape designer to put together a master plan for us. I was talking to a work colleague one day and she said, “the landscape design is the framework upon which you drape your own idiosyncracies”.

That summed it up perfectly for us, because we did not follow the plan to the letter. For example, we put up a fence instead of planting new hedges in front, and opted to narrow the front walkway instead of replacing it with nicer pavers. Over time, we may diverge even more from the plan as we try out new things and experiment.

After reading books and browsing other people’s websites, I found it hard to keep up with the constant stream of ideas. I stumbled on Muddy Clog’s (Now Hip Chick Dig’s) post about her food forest design - it was brilliant and I borrowed the idea. She did her plan in Adobe PhotoShop. I’m not any good with Adobe products and opted to use PowerPoint instead (graphic designers cringe when I say this).

Continue reading “Master Landscape Plan is Evolving” »