Sides of the House: Then & Now

Just for fun, and for the walk down memory lane, I'm documenting how far the outside landscaping has come in the past 7 years.

For several of these I went out and took new pictures, trying to capture the same angle and vantage point, just so you could really see the difference!

You can find the pictures from the front yard here.

West side of the house:

THEN

A narrow alley, steep slope, and 3 half-dead pine trees.

I do feel a little bit bad, as the previous owners said these trees were planted for each of their 3 kids.

They came down within the first year. Sorry kids!

IN PROGRESS

This one gets an in-progress picture, since this is what the west side slope looked like for upwards of 3 years. You see, it was the only way to get big equipment into the back yard.

Our neighbors were very patient with our projects!

NOW

Mostly grass and 2 cherry trees.

Kind of boring, I suppose, but quite functional for getting to the backyard!

Though I have to say, we waited until there would be absolutely no more driving up the hill before putting in the grass and trees!

Moving over to the other side of the house now.

Turning the Corner on the East-Side:

THEN

This is more of an in-progress picture, I guess, but I didn't have one specifically of this corner from the very beginning. More's the pity.

As you can see, we had already taken out the juniper layer, and levelled the ground for the walls.

NOW

No more junipers!

East-side Terraces:

THEN

View from the back fence, looking toward the street.

I remember having to tromp through junipers to even take this picture.

NOW

Wow, grass.

You can actually walk on this side of the house!

Back Yard, East Side:


THEN

When we bought the house, this side of the back yard was not even useable.
It was such a steep slope down to the fence, that the kids couldn't play over there at all.
They would tumble down the slope if they tried.
The plum tree there was the line. Past that it was too steep to walk down.
Also it was filled with thistles and poky weeds.


NOW

[This picture is from 2015.]

With the addition of the terraces, and the lawn levelled and re-graded, we gained at least 6 feet of backyard on this side, plus the planting areas in the terrace.

Looking back at these pictures, it's almost hard to remember how it used to be!