Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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How To Spray Paint A Mailbox

Remember when John met his frog friend (well, technically his toad friend) here?

Cypress Frog

Well, this time around we made a new neighborhood acquaintance…

Mailbox Snake

… a snaaaaaaake! And we were skeeeeered. But not to scared to take a picture. Thankfully he was just a harmless garter snake.

Why were we outside? Yard maintenance. We figure our exterior will need a whole lotta small phase projects if it’s going to ever-so-slowly transform like our last one did, which went from this…

Front Yard Unclipped

… to this (over the course of 4.5 years)…

Final Exterior After

So since that’s nothing we’ll ever be able to accomplish overnight – or even within a year – we’re all about breaking that humongous task down into much smaller bite sized pieces to tackle slowly over time. So here are a few little outdoor undertakings that we’ve recently checked off.

First on the list: spray the mailbox and our house numbers with ORB (oil-rubbed bronze spray paint) so they would look a little more refreshed.

Mailbox10

The most fun part of the process was when John brought it to me using rubber pot holder thingies because it was literally too hot to touch from sitting out in the sun out front:

Mailbox John With Potholder

Up close and personal, she definitely wasn’t looking so hot (even though she was literally quite hot):

Mailbox On Brick

Mailbox Gross Close Up

So I wiped down all the bird poo with a wet cloth (I live a glamorous life) and used my favorite ORB spray paint (hi my name is Sherry and I have an ORB problem) to apply a few thin and even coats (you can check out some spray painting tips here). I also sprayed the rusted tops of the screws for holding the mailbox in place and our brass house numbers.

Mailbox House Number Screws

Oh and for “drop cloths” I usually use an old fabric one (or cardboard from the recycling bin) but this time I decided to use the same few big black plastic bags that I’ve used for other ORB projects as of late (I just ball them up after they’re dry to be reused since I’m such a spray painting fool these days, and hate to toss them after one go).

Can’t show you all of our house numbers of course, but the mailbox is looking mighty shiny:

Mailbox Sprayed ORB

Oh and I did this on a Sunday so as not to confound the mailman. By the end of the day everything was dry and I was able to screw them back into place. And while I was up there I snapped a few shots of the flowers since we had some requests for updated pics to see how they’ve grown.

But first, here they are before, back when we planted them:

Mailbox10

And here they are now, paired with the freshly sprayed mailbox (we photoshopped out the newly painted house numbers on the post though):

Mailbox After2

Isn’t it amazing how much they’ve filled in? And it’s worth noting that we only watered them once (when we planted them) and it’s been scorchingly hot so I’m extreeeeeeeemely impressed. Wave petunias are the way to go, it seems.

Mailbox Flowers Close Up

Even Lord Squirrelio is enjoying the expanding flora:

Mailbox Hidden Squirrel

Oh and as for the mailbox post, we’ve considered painting it but kind of like how it blends into the landscape thanks to the old weathered wood. A landscape designer friend of ours has a theory that you should never bring attention to your mailbox or post itself, just keep it neat and let it be what it is (so it doesn’t stand out/detract from the yard around it). That natural wood post definitely does that. We still might paint it down the line, but for now we’re happy to leave it au naturale.

Mailbox After2

But I digress with all of the mailbox updating. Back to the title. Here’s why we’re those neighbors again. Remember when we admitted that we had a bit of a mailbox problem (before we weeded, laid down landscaping fabric, planted some flowers, mulched, and removed some extra signs on our mailbox post) which made us quite the embarrassed new family in town?

Mailbox 1

Well, we also have this insane side yard that doesn’t look like it’s ours, but it is. Yup, everything in this picture is our lot:

Mailbox Natural Area From R

Even the crazy shaggy stuff on the left.

See, it’s a whole lotta don’t-know-what-to-do-with-that-but-don’t-want-to-have-to-mow-or-weed-or-otherwise-maintain-it space to deal with, so we decided to see if we could naturalize it (the neighbors have some naturalized land on their lot next to ours so we thought it would “go together” nicely).

Oops. Total failure. It just ended up looking crazy and overgrown:

Mailbox Naturalized Cut

Not only wasn’t the overgrown grass doing it for us, a few well meaning neighbors actually mentioned that we might want to mow it before “we get reported to the neighborhood association.” Talk about embarrassing. We muttered something about trying to naturalize it like the lot to the left, admitted that it definitely wasn’t working out the way we hoped, and vowed to at least cut the grass in the front for less of an unkempt appearance from the curb.

But it meant that we had to attempt to mow that wayyyyy-too-looong-to-easily-mow grass. Thankfully big strong John got ‘er done! It didn’t take five minutes (more like about an hour of slow back and forth maneuvering and turning off the mower to get clumps of grass out every ten minutes or so)…

Mailbox Mowing On Slope

… but slowly but surely…

Mailbox John Mowing

… we went from that crazy overgrown embarrassment to a slightly more manicured-up-top look, thanks to just moving that front strip:

Mailbox Mowing After Straig

We like how it actually looks like it’s part of our lot now, even if it’s obviously the more naturalized portion of it:

Mailbox Mowing After Angle

Now it looks like the area down the hill is intentionally wild (hooray- no weeding or incline mowing necessary down there) but the area up top is a bit neater from the road. You know, as opposed to looking all sad slash abandoned.

In other small-things-we-tackle-in-the-hopes-that-in-five-years-we’ll-blink-our-eyes-and-love-our-exterior news, we also planted three more evergreens in the back area of our house to hopefully provide more future privacy from the back (and to pay the environment back for doing all this clothespin driving).

Mailbox Three Cyprus

We went with three more of the same fast growing evergreen trees that we planted on the side of our house (so you can check out more on how that all went down here).

Next we did a little weeding. Or should I say big weeding. We don’t know what the heck is in the soil here, but check out the size of some of the weeds springing up around the someday-we-hope-it’ll-look-naturalized-and-wooded side & back yard:

Mailbox John Giant Weed

Yeah, that’s a giant dandelion. And yes, it felt like we were suddenly on the set of Jurassic Park and would soon see a pterodactylfly by or something.

Sure we want some areas of our side and back yard to look woodsy and naturalized someday, but for now these big ol’ weeds were more that a little embarrassing. So we dug them out and marveled at their shrub-like proportions. Crazytown.

As for our outdoor checklist, it’s waay too long to share in its entirety, but we’ll jot down a few things that we did (just for the satisfaction of crossing them off) and list a few more objectives that we hope to tackle over time:

  • weed the side of the carport (done here with some mom help)
  • limb up the giant magnolia (done here)
  • build a side patio (done over the course of about four weeks here)
  • weed, mulch & plant the embarrassingly unkempt mailbox area (done here)
  • plant three fast growing evergreen trees on the side of our house for privacy (done here)
  • make some mini porch updates (done here)
  • upgrade the mailbox and our house numbers with some ORB
  • plant three more fast growing evergreen trees in the back of our house
  • weed the side and back yard areas, so they naturalize with trees (not giant dandelions)
  • avoid snakes (so far so good, but this is an ongoing initiative)
  • transplant the tree that’s planted ON our house (seen here)
  • remove/transplant a ton of bushes and shrubs that block our front walkway & our house in general (in multiple phases)
  • paint the front door
  • frame out the round country-ish columns on the porch
  • remove the also-country-ish scalloped header on the porch
  • build raised bed gardens in the back
  • add a wood compost bin in the back (right now we use this slightly less handsome compost method)

In short, we’d like to slowly tame the jungle that is this in a bunch of not-too-intimidating phases:

Can%27t See Porch

Because let’s be honest, you can’t even see the porch. Le sigh.

What about you guys? Do you completely “gut” your yard and rebuild it all at once, or are you one-project-at-a-time folks like us? Have you ever seen a sneaky little snake? Or a giant person-sized dandelion? Or been told to mow your lawn by the neighbors? Oh man, we’re still kind of blushing.

Comments

  1. Amanda @ Our Humble A{Bowe}d says

    Well, the mailbox looks fantastic. The yard though… Haha. Actually, before Ben and I got married, he didn’t even own a lawn mower. It wasn’t a huge deal because Montana doesn’t get a ton of rain, so the grass didn’t grow. It was about a foot tall after the summer and the city left a note that they would cut the grass if he didn’t… After that, he bought a mower and started watering the lawn. Haha.

    Reply

  2. Kristen @ Popcorn on the Stove says

    That snake would have freaked me out. We just moved into our new place (well, we’re in the midst of moving) and we found a pet frog inside (you can see him here. Thankfully we know the previous owners so we could return him but it was still startling since we didn’t expect him!

    Be careful about poison ivy while you’re doing weeding. It seems like every time my dad ever did yard work, he ended up having a terrible case of it.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha- hilarious to find that frog awaiting your arrival! And yes, poison ivy is the worst and I get it really bad (John is somehow magically immune) – but during these past few projects I’ve managed to avoid it!

      xo,
      s

  3. Kristin @ Ogo's Love Nest says

    Our mailbox is in a sad state too… and to make it worse it’s the plastic type and we can’t seem to find a replacement flag for it anywhere. So yeah, we have an old discolored mailbox with no flag. Sad sad sad.

    Maybe we’ll update to metal like yours. & The flowers filled in really nicely!

    Reply

  4. Blair says

    I am definitely a break in into small projects kind of gal. Like currently, I really want to build a bar, but I figure I need to have a few more tricks under my belt before i try! I haven’t even attempted anything in my back yard because a)its small and b) I inherited my mother’s brown thumb. Good luck with the rest!

    ~Blair

    Reply

  6. Meghan, UK says

    Yikes, did you find out what kind of snake that was? Do you have poisonous snakes in your area – that would freak me out!

    Your front garden is so large – best of luck with the future improvements, I’m excited to eventually see the porch transformed :)

    Reply

  7. Hannah says

    Landscaping is sooo time consuming. We moved into our first house last year, and so far we’ve removed 12 hedges, 2 trees, and a tall grass thing (that’s a technical term btw), and planted 5 shrubs, 8 hostas, 1 lilac bush, 4 daylilies, 1 hydrangea, 2 azaleas, and mulched 1000 sq. feet of flower beds. And a partridge in a pear tree. Oh, and we added that flower bed edging material to those flower beds also. I’m tired!

    Reply

  8. Crystal says

    I sure wish I could gut my yard (er, have someone else gut it) all at once and start from scratch. We’re slowly but surely kind of yard folks, much to our ‘yard of the month’ neighbor’s chagrin. We did recently remove some bushes, including one that was blocking our view of the sidewalk from the driveway (watch out neighborhood kids): http://theweekendhomemaker.com/danger-hidden-driveway.

    I’ve never seen a snake ‘in the wild’ and don’t know what I’d do if I did. What kind of snake was it? Did you let him go about his business or move him to another area?

    Reply

    • Mel V. says

      Snakes are generally more scared of you than you are of them. If you see one, just take a step back and let it scurry out of sight. (Or come back later if it’s sleeping.)

      Most poisonous critters live in desert or tropical climates. The great majority of snakes that you’d find in a temperate zone backyard in the US are less than a foot long and harmless. I don’t recommend letting your dog or kid try to grab one, but that’s about all. They’re great for keeping slugs, insects, frogs, and other small nuisances under control.

  10. Evia says

    Sherry, Sherry, Sherry – why aren’t you making John wear hearing protection for mowing the lawn? I bought my husband ear muffs a few years ago when we first had kids because I want to protect his hearing when he’s working with yard equipment so he can hear all those “I love you’s” from our boys later in life. John may have had ear plugs in but I didn’t see them in the picture.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks for the tip! We try to use our push-mower as often as possible (just needed to break out the big guns this time) but I’ll have to get him some muffs! He’ll look so cute rocking those. Haha.

      xo,
      s

  11. Allyn says

    I need to do this to our mailbox!
    When we moved into our house in May, we had a friend helping us. He had taken a ladder out to the back shed, and I was in the front yard getting some things out of the moving truck, when I heard him scream like a little girl. Our friend is known for his dramatic reactions to things, and we had a huge infestation of cicadas in TN at that time, so I figured one had just flown at him.
    Nope, he had put the ladder down on a shelf in our shed and a rather large garden snake had lunged at him.
    I’m not going to lie, I still laughed really hard.
    And then avoided the shed myself for a good month.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      So sorry Meg- nothing has changed on our end but we’ve learned that sometimes when pics go away someone’s anti-virus software can be randomly blocking them. Perhaps that’s it?

      xo,
      s

  14. Julia @ Chris loves Julia says

    We are TOTALLY guilty of being those neighbors too! In fact, we have been so busy working on the interior of our new home that we totally neglected weeding. My hubby stayed up on the lawn, but my weeding got way out of hand. ….like 5 ft. tall out of hand. We were on our way out of town and decided to pay the neighbor boy $40 to get it done. He lit up like Christmas.

    Reply

  15. Thomas says

    I once came home from work on a Sunday afternoon to find the Baptist minister who lived next door actually mowing my lawn for me!

    Reply

    • Jill says

      Our neighbors have done it for us too. I don’t think that it was getting THAT bad but just rather they knew we had a lot going on and their girls were looking to be generous that day! :) There is one particular neighbor in our hood that I think probably gets tired of seeing his immediate neighbors lawns and sometimes I’ll see him plugging along on his rider. It is normally that first house in the hood so he prob gets tired of it look like shanty town.

    • Pamela says

      Yeah, same thing happened to me…heard a lawn mower roaring outside one summer day…looked out my front window & next-door-neighbor guy was mowin’ my “slightly” overgrown grass like a big dog. I was sick (flu or something) at the time, so I was super grateful, but it was a touch embarrassing. Ha!!

  16. Giulia says

    Looking great. The mailbox was the first thing I replaced on our house, I find it makes a big difference.
    I have a couple of plants that are growing too crazy and I think I need to cut back and pull out to give some space to others, but I am no expert so it’s hard to tell what the right steps are. One thing at a time. But next year we’ll tackle the deck and patio in one go including cutting down some 10 foot cedar hedging!

    Reply

  18. Nancy says

    Our best (& most terrifying) snake story was from when we lived in Richmond (Midlo). We had a bird feeder nailed to a tree in our back yard and it had a nest inside with newly hatched baby birds. We were out on the deck and saw a snake spiraling up the tree. In a split second, it shot inside the birdhouse (his whole, long body!!) and we all freaked out! My hubby yelled for my son to go get a shovel (yeah, he stayed safely on the deck!) and my son went to whacking the birdhouse…trying to get the snake out but trying not to harm the little birdies inside. Meanwhile the mother bird was flying in circles above squawking like crazy. Creepiest snake experience ever!

    Reply

  20. Adriane Wacker says

    Wow…I complain about having to pick a few weeds, but you have quite the landscape! I actually love the foliage you have, there is something cozy about it…and P.S. I would love to be your neighbor…over grown plants or not, you are definitely good neighbors!

    Reply

  21. Megan says

    We do a little at a time due to money more than anything else. I worked on our front flower bed for awhile (until the nasty record breaking heat came in and killed some of my flowers!), and hubby worked on killing some of our giant bushes. Nothing major has happened with the bushes though as the root ball seems to be bigger than we both are! But it’s a start… so now our giant list of to dos will weight until the heat cools off and we can go outside without dying.

    Reply

  22. Jessica says

    Looks like a garden snake….which is what my lovely cat caught and brought to me while I was sitting on the front porch last week. She was very proud to bring me her catch. I was not as enthusiastic.

    As for mowing. I’m 31, and I have never used a lawn mower in my life. I’m not really complaining ;)

    Reply

  23. Kathryn says

    Looks great…why does spray paint have to work wonders like that? Your flowers look nice, too. I always buy petunias for that very reason. They withstand heat and always look so good doing it!

    Reply

  24. Stephanie Handy says

    Back when I lived with my parents we used to get snakes all the time because their property backs onto a rather massive set of undeveloped fields (they were right next to the trolley museum so the only thing running through were the rarely used tracks). Unfortunately they would actually come into the house (and my bedroom was in the basement, so they usually were right outside my door).

    Their snakes are crazy though. My mom often finds them literally CLIMBING UP THE WINDOWS AND BRICK WALLS of the house!!

    Reply

  25. Stephanie says

    We built our house and the first summer, we seeded the yard and laid sod in the front. The second summer, we did curbing around the house and garden areas. Then the third summer – I decided I should pull all the weeds out of the area INSIDE the curbing and actually get the rocks and plants done. I had 3 HUGE wheelbarrows full of weeds by the time I was done. I was sooo embarrassed. Looks good now though! :)

    And I freak out over frogs, I would run away screaming if I saw a snake, even a harmless one. We get garter snakes up here and I’m just too freaked out. UGH!

    Reply

  26. Cindi @ Rustique Art says

    One project at a time…BUT!!!! there’s always a but in my sentences *wink*
    We don’t always finish a project completely before we tackle another. Now you might be saying to yourself; “but that’s more than one project at a time”! Technically yes, but (there is is again) some of our projects are sooooo huge projects(like your yard) we do have to divide them into doable portions. So we get one part done on one huge project and then maybe get another part done on another project. Clear as mud?
    Your yard is divine! I would love to have that to look forward to tackling.

    Reply

  27. Leah says

    We haven’t been told by the neighbors, but we did spend 2 solid days pulling weeds, laying pine straw and doing general yard clean up on the house we just bought (that has been vacant for 2 years) and made HUGE improvements. As soon as the in-laws came for a visit they suggested we have our neighbors refer us to “Curb Appeal” to make our house look better as apparently it looks “really, really awful.” Sigh….back to weeding!!!

    Reply

  28. Kim S says

    It’s my daughter’s job to mow the lawn, she’s 15 and we figure driving a ride on mower is good practice for learning to drive a car next year (at least that’s what we tell her). Anyway, she is a counselor in training this week and last so I am hoping that it doesn’t rain too much so the grass won’t grow.

    Definitely, we try to keep up with the mowing and tackle yard jobs a bit at a time! Our front yard is too big and we have so much work to do, we want to plant something on our hill of weeds this fall.

    Reply

  29. Emily says

    Our house is in desperate need of a budget curb appeal makeover…do you guys have any favorite sources of inspiration for outdoor renovations? There are so many design blogs, but most focus on the inside. I’m in need of some ideas! Any suggestions?

    Reply

    • heather says

      There’s a bitterness to them for sure, but they are pretty tasty when sauteed with garlic and onion in oil (and a little crushed red pepper in my opinion). I had them once and have yet to have them again (for lack of dandelions and wanting to walk around harvesting greens my dogs might have pissed on), but it’s worth a try.

    • Katrina says

      They are better before they produce a flower. We spent most of the spring “harvesting” them out of the yard. It’s better for the yard to dig them up and they were a tasty treat. Except our two year old was all about blowing the seeds from the ones that we didn’t dig up in time…I guess she was technically planting next years crop!

  31. Janelle says

    Most of my front garden are perennials, but when I need to fill in, I always turn to petunias. I tried a few different things the first couple of years in my house, but I love petunias. They spread and fill in easily, a super low maintenance, have great variety of color and pattern, and are super cheerful.

    Reply

  32. Maggie S. says

    We totally have an out of control “natural area” in our back yard. I’m thinking we’re going to sod it because mowing it would be WAY easier than digging up the weeds. Super embarrassing for us was when our neighbor to the left asked if he could cut our bushes on his side of the yard. We thankfully accepted since they easily can get 10′ tall!

    Reply

  33. gia says

    Our backyard was treacherous when we bought our house a year and a half ago. Last summer, my husband starting removing all the terrible, cracked hardscape and the various weeds that have been growing. And this spring my FIL and husband put in a paver patio (similar to yours!) and leveled out the ground. So now we have a beautiful patio and a lovely dirt lawn. We can’t plant grass until the end of the summer, so we’ve just been dealing with the landscape as is. Although, its great to start from scratch, it would have been nice to have some greenery back there. I have to say that our neighbors are happy with our progress and have enjoyed watching the transformation as the property was neglected for so many years.

    Reply

  35. Becky Jo says

    Good thing that was just a harmless little gartersnake!

    I grew up in the desert in southern California, and every summer, we would find rattlesnakes all over the yard. I remember one incident when my dad was having a peaceful afternoon nap in his hammock up on the hill, when all of a sudden, he jumps out as far away from it as he can and comes running toward the house, ushering us all inside. Apparently, there was a massive king snake laying right underneath the hammock! Who knew how long it had been there! It’s not venomous, but it was still scary!

    Reply

  36. Lisa | Life in Green says

    Things are looking good!

    If you plan to do all landscaping at your home yourself…you have to do one project at a time. I don’t think many would be mentally or physically prepared for one giant overhaul. And definitely not with a yard that is your size.

    Reply

  37. Micha says

    I don’t know about you but I’m not too crazy about mowing stuff but I do love the neat after-look when you’re done :o) Makes it all worthwhile. Our little urban house doesn’t come with a whole lot of yard and thanks to its rental days it wasn’t much of a yard to speak of: a few crape myrtles, some loquats and a whole lot of short weeds. Turning it into a garden oasis is the feat we’re facing :o)

    Reply

  38. Allison says

    I’m definitely a one-project-at-a-time. The budget dictates how many plants/trees/shrubs I can buy at Lowe’s in any one visit! As for snakes, well, I live in the country so I’m used to their presence and choose to ignore them…unless they find their way into the house…which has happened on a few occassions…Love your blog!

    Reply

  39. Stephanie says

    We are those neighbors too…to the point that I was doing some work up around our mailbox clearing out weeks, and some neighbors walking by actually cheered to see the yard being worked on. We moved in after the lot had been vacant for 2 years (and owned by an elderly couple prior to that) so there is a lot of neglect to make up for.

    Reply

  40. Jessica at Lavender and Lilies says

    Yes unfortunately we have had snakes in our yard. I almost moved. Seriously. I hate snakes. Our backyard is a disaster zone. We are candidates for Yard Crashers seriously. We have decided this fall or at least once it’s not 101 in the shade we are just going to level it and then slowly build up from there. We also have to get a fence put in and we are getting estimates on that. We are definitely slow with the yard work mainly because we hate it so much. :)

    Reply

  42. Sabrina says

    Our front yard has 12 horrible yew bushes that are half dead and just house spiders that we need to rip out lol Our backyard they tried to make a paver/mulch/brick/river rock/white pebble patio. Seriously! All it does is house huge weeds that I can’t keep up with. Speaking of snakes… While weeding I heard a noise and felt something slither over my foot. Ahhha! Ran like hell lol And that is where are back yard stands right now. Half weeded. We also had a mini tornado that blew down a 100ft tree that we still haven’t cut up yet.

    Reply

  43. Laura says

    By the way, completely random question…do mailmen actually flip that thing on your mailbox up when you have mail? I always had a slot on my front door (that’s what she said?), so I never knew the answer to that.

    Reply

  44. Crystal says

    Definitely be careful of the snakes! We live in Virginia too and had a close friend loose their Chihuahua last summer because it got bit by a baby copperhead.

    Cutting that grass will to help minimize snakes around :)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Oh no, that’s so sad! We have a really cool neighborhood page where we can all post wildlife warnings (like “I saw a fox on blank street!”) so if we ever hear of a coppyhead I’l gonna be a crazy person (standing next to poor peeing Burger sounding an air horn to scare snakes, haha).

      xo,
      s

    • Jill says

      EEEEK!!! Snakes! I hate em! Kill em all!!! AAAACKK! There have been 4 copperhead sightings in our hood and my neighbor got bit by one at her boyfriend’s house and spent the night in the ER. We had some kind of one- it had lots of shiny designs on it- crawl into our garage. I freaked. Didn’t go in there for almost 2 weeks. We scattered moth balls all inside (it stunk to high heavens and don’t worry we did not let the pups in as those would be hazardous to their health) and I think he ran out (I just pictured the snake picking up its skirt and sprouting legs with tiny sneakers on his feet! Ha!). Supposedly black snakes like to eat copperheads SO we try to leave them alone but sometimes I freak out too much and unleash the shovel on it’s life. :/ Please don’t call PETA, they really scare me!!

  45. Betsy says

    Speaking of creepy outdoor vistors… our countertop guys moved our fridge OVER the water line coming up through the floor (snapping the tube thinging which fell through the floor into the crawl space!), and while my husband was in the crawl space trying to find it to fish it back up, he encountered hundreds of what he called “spider/grasshopper mutants” … turns out they were harmess (albeit huge and creepy) crickets. Haha, poor guy.

    Reply

    • gk says

      i bet these were spider crickets! my father in-law has TONS of these guys in an unfinished room in his basement (the broken window doesn’t help…) and my husband goes down occasionally and sprays the heck out of them. i’m normally okay with bugs and snakes and whatever…but spider crickets freak me out. they can jump like 4′ in the air. it’s too much!

  46. Sarah says

    Slow and steady, that works for us too!

    When we moved into our house six years ago, there wasn’t a bush or tree to be found. Heck, there was barely any grass! Thanksfully, many of our neighbors have beautiful, mature trees directly next to our yard providing beautiful views and a little shade.

    We have been ever-so-slowly landscaping the yard. To date, we’ve added 5 fruit trees, 40-50 shrubs/bushes and many, many annuals/perennials. It’s a slow process because trees and bushes can get VERY expensive, and some just don’t work out as well as others. I keep a progression chart of our house and it’s changes every year. It’s startling and rewarding to see the changes from year 1 to year 6!

    Reply

  47. Sarah says

    Great job! We also had a mailbox re-do and I agree with the post “wood”. We ended up staining our mailbox post so it still looks wood and blends nicely, but it also looks more finished as well. This might be a less drastic change than painting!

    Reply

  48. J.A. from Amsterdam says

    I have commented on it before with your background posts, but I would still so love to see you guys doing a post about planting indigenous (native) species of trees and shrubs in your backyard! Contact your local botanical garden etc. and get some advice… I think it would be really educational, you might find out some cool stuff that will work excellently in your backyard, AND you can teach everyone a little about environmentally friendly yard maintenance! (You talk about environmentally safe paints etc. all the time – I think it is logical to make that happen in your backyard also!)

    Love your blog!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We have a local garden store (called Great Big Greenhouse) where we go to get planting advice whenever we can! We got a super cute crepe myrtle there for our last house since we watched the shade and sun pattern and they do well in our area. We definitely would love to add more native species of trees and shrubs to those naturalizing areas as we go- and even around our porch, etc! Hope to share that info as we go!

      xo,
      s

  49. laura says

    Neighborhood Association? Haha…must be a big town thing. We have been at our acreage for a little over a year now…9.5 acres to be exact and we haven’t done a whole lot but I have lots of ideas in my head. The only thing that is stopping me is my empty pocket book! Which is why, like you guys, we will keep doing everything little by little!

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  50. Kate says

    I’m learning I should be a “slowly but surely” yard person. We bought a house last year which had an old inground pool in the backyard surrounded by one HUGE concrete patio. So this summer we decided to tackle it. Three weeks of a jackhammer rental, Two full size dumpsters and 47,000 pounds of concrete later, and we now have a giant hole in our backyard. There goes our august!

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