Treeless

I'm going to interrupt the wedding-palooza going on over here at I'm Loving Today with a post that has been a long time coming.

Way back when we were looking for houses to buy in the winter of 2011, we wanted to look at almost every home for sale in our current neighborhood within our price range. Except one. One little house did not impress me with its photos online, and when we finally gave in and pulled up to the house to give it a look, I still didn't want to give the house a chance. The reason? Its curb appeal was seriously lacking. Two gigantic spruce trees took over the entire front yard, leaving the front of the house looking sad, spooky and riddled with pine needles. In my quest to find the cutest little house we could, the exterior of this house has anything but cute.

I'm sure by now you've figured out that the interior of this house and its beautiful backyard are what sold us... and we bought it just a couple months later. But ever since that first walkthrough, I've hated those trees.

Sure, they are old and historic and offered our air-conditionless home some nice shade in the summer, but I longed for a lush front yard with bright green grass and pretty landscaping. What's more, one of the big trees was dying, and that was enough for us to pull the plug on both trees completely.

So in early April, actually while I was in Chicago for my bachelorette party, Eric hired a tree removal company to take them down. He'd meant to surprise me with it - so I'd come home from Chicago to an empty front yard, but his little surprise slipped out as I called him from the hotel one morning.

After the trees were taken down and the stumps ground up, we had to wait a bit for the ground to soften before removing the rocks from the front yard and raking and treating the soil underneath. Our house looked pretty sad with a dirt-filled, rocky front yard with no color. The next step was to lay sod, but our spring had been so chilly and so rainy it was difficult to find the right time to have it laid. But we were hard set on having the sod laid by the wedding.

So, literally the morning before the wedding, although it was raining pretty badly at the time, we finally had the sod laid. And what a difference it made! I can't believe how bright and cheerful our house looks now with those trees gone, and a grassy front yard. Just look at the difference!

Before:

After:

A world of difference, eh? Now we just need to focus on planting some pretty bushes or flowers around the foundation of the house. Before, we were confined to shade-loving plants around the front of the house, but now we can go crazy with any kind of flower/plant we want!

I think the removal of the trees and addition of the grass gives our house so much more curb appeal - it looks so much cuter on the outside now. Like a sweet little cottage. Obviously, from the picture above, Lieu Lieu is so much happier with her uninterrupted view of the passersby from her little perch in the small downstairs window.

Yes, there are big changes happening on the outside of our home, but just hold your horses for the next big reveal: Finally we'll be sharing the huge changes that have been happening inside. You won't want to miss this one!