There are some things we’ve done here and there around the house this fall that haven’t been posted on the blog, so this is a brief update post.

I can’t pass spring or fall without going to my beloved Growers Outlet, so in late October we went for our semi-annual trip to Loganville to buy some plants. One of my visions was to make the landscape strip more attractive. After the sidewalks were re-done we tried the grass thing, but it didn’t look all that great. The earth sunk down too much and the grass was patchy.

Landscape garden strip before – boring!

I’ve always found landscape strip gardens intriguing, so this is our go at it. Closest to the mailbox is the annual winter section – kale, cabbage, pansies, etc. To each side of the red bud tree we planted more perennial plants – sage, dianthus, coral bells, daylilies, petunias, etc.

Landscape garden strip after – much better!

Another section we tackled was the left side foundation. We fell in love with the Southern Living plant collection’s “Purple Diamond Chinese Fringe Flower”; however, due to our purple-ish brick foundation we decided to separate the purple evergreen plants with the evergreen “Waxleaf Ligustrum”. On the left side are some elephant ears. The larger one is supposed to grow up to 6 feet! We’ll see next year…

The new foundation plants

And what else have we been up to? Well, with the colder weather we’ve focused our attention back on interior projects. Mainly stripping…

Paint stripping the bathroom built-in door

Paint stripping the kitchen door frame

…and more stripping. I don’t think we’ll ever finish that dining room!

Paint stripping the dining room door

Since we bought our house three years ago the back section of chain link fence has been a mess. Our guess is over the years the giant oak tree dropped large branches that crushed the fence. We have been debating if we want to get a privacy fence (and one day we’ll probably get around it), but for now we decided to spend a little money and fix what is already there.

Here is a photo of what we started with. See how bad it looked!

The rusty chain link fence

We had one post that had broken off near the ground, and all of the top rails needed to be replaced. The first step was to remove the top rails. It was pretty easy to do since they were all broken and rusty.

Removing the top rails

Once we got to this point we put the top rails through the old posts and realized we were going to have to first clean out all of the English ivy. The fence had been overthrown by vines, and we were not able to straighten it out without first clearing all of the plants and debris.

Steffi in jail!

Once we got the ivy cleaned out, which took a while, we dug the hole to set the new post.

The new chain link fence post

Even Buster wanted to lend a hand with the fence!

Buster helping with the fence

So after a day of hard work the fence is working again. It didn’t end up perfectly straight because the posts weren’t level to start with, but it is still a big improvement for a little money!

Final chain link fence