Home remodeling . . . and being good neighbors . . .

My neighbor's garden . . . Ahh . . . With very little imagination you can hear the birds chirping . . . the water gurgling from her fountain . . . and you can envision butterflies fluttering amongst her flowers . . . I blogged about her garden last year in this post.  We are really lucky to enjoy such a view.  In a few years, the pine trees will fill in and we won't be able to see the flowers, but that's O.K.  The trees will provide a lovely green curtain and hopefully, bring more birds to our neighborhood . . .

And here is the view that my neighbor enjoys of our backyard . . .

Hmm . . . not as pretty, I'm afraid . . . That section of the fence was knocked down two years ago by a couple of teenage troublemakers that were trying to run away from the police by jumping fences.  The kids were caught, by the way, and the father made one of the kids come over the next day and attempt to make restitution.  Unfortunately, we already knew that the fence was in bad shape and it seemed petty to make him pay for it.  Instead, my husband made him pick up a gazillion apples from the apple trees in front that we have since cut.   I wrote about our apple trees here and here.

We knew we needed to do something, but I have to claim responsibility for dragging our feet.  I just had to overcome my basic antipathy to wooden fences.  By the time I made up my mind last fall, it was too late to move some of the boxwood we had planted previously, which would be in the way for the new fence installation, so we decided to wait until this spring . . .

Jeff Foxworthy would have felt right at home in our backyard last week.  Our old stove was put on the curb on Garbage Day and it was gone in less than a half hour!

The four boxwood bushes next to the garbage cans are the ones that will be transplanted elsewhere.  We are planning to add a garbage corral in that corner . . .

This piece of fencing will be removed.  The new fence will be installed closer to the garden shed that stands behind it, and then we'll plant some yews in front to create a hedge that will conceal part of the new wood fence.  I still haven't gotten over the wood fence thing.  Our only other choice for privacy was one of those PVC fences, and I dislike that look even more than the rustic wood fence.

Another view into our backyard from our driveway . . .

Here's a natural fence in the front of our property that provides privacy as well as beauty, but unfortunately Mother Nature takes her own sweet time, and we do need the privacy.  On top of that, last month we received an anonymous letter from a neighbor asking us to fix our fence so we don't bring down the property value in the neighborhood.  How mortifying!!!



But the installation of the new fence is in the works.  JULIE has already been here - Joint Utility Locating Information for Excavators - and left our backyward filled with little flags . . .

In the meantime, we enjoy the beautiful clematis growing next to our deck . . . and we hope our patient neighbor does as well . . .

And we wait for the new fence to be installed . . . as well as the new stove sitting in our garage . . .

The flooring contractors are coming tomorrow and we hope they'll wrap it up then.  I miss my kitchen . . .