april afternoon

 just came in after another spring day in my gardens. i am amazed by how much i love plants! after 29 years of no interest, gardening is quickly becoming an obsession. i love how i'm able to soften the feel of our blocky rambler with different textures and colors.

foundation garden - trying my hand at xeriscaping

foundation garden - finished planting for this year, now i just need to patrol daily for chameleon plant

 

can you find the chameleon plant leaves in this picture? i'm painstakingly dabbing each one with poison every day or so to keep them from taking over my newly planted foundation garden

dogwood tree starting to bloom

blue point juniper

bleeding hearts

cutting garden and camelia

cutting garden under kitchen window

hostas around bird bath

the toad lily made it through winter!

oakleaf hydrangea in shade garden

deutzia chardonnay pearls?

lovely plant in shade garden - not sure what it is

shade garden starting to fill out

tomatoes potted on deck

rose and herb garden

lilac bush by front gate

work in progress - evergreen grove to interrupt line of sight, needs edging and mulching

deck

so glad we made that rock wall last year!

rearranged the bedroom garden (that's dianthus in the middle)

carolina jessamine 'margarita'

azaleas from mom feeling fine around the crape myrtle

view from front door - green giant thuja tree in the far corner 

dusty miller in screen porch garden

screen porch garden (with lilac in background!)

screen porch garden - side view

finished edging the driveway gardens

day lilies to fill holes

the driveway garden featuring nandina's from mom's house, red twig dogwood,  baby blue spruce and daylilies

red twig dogwood leaves are so pretty

weeping cherry in bloom a few days ago

first dinner on the screen porch

spring planting

front gardens are underway! i am only planting things that will do ok with minimal watering once established. i love overhauling my landscape but i HATE watering. luckily i live in virginia, where there are plenty of beautiful things that don't need much help surviving.

spirea 'bridal wreath'

spring bouquet viburnum (evergreen)

allgold scotch broom

juniper 'wichita blue' 

dwarf buford holly

common boxwood

otto luyken english laurel (evergreen)

'feelin' blue' deodar cedar

'brakelights' red yucca

kinnickkinnick 'massachusetts' (evergreen groundcover)

candytuft evergreen groundcover

'gold lace' juniper

there is also a texas scarlet flowering quince, some flower carpet roses, forsythia and bog rosemary...more photos soon!

early spring updates

it has been one of the busiest weeks at chez dufresne since we moved in. sooo much to reveal! sit down with a cold one, this is going to be a monster post...

our laundry room now features a new side door to backyard, a life-changing upgrade both for letting the dogs out and for when philip uses the grill. i also put an MDF counter over W/D...yep just stuck some rubber pads on the bottom of a 3/4 inch board and painted it with chalk paint. it doesn't seem to move around when the appliances are running and it makes a nice folding station. the wall paint color is leftover urbane bronze (sherwin williams) from our den. i'm in love with how the dark color frames the outside and screen porch views!

MDF counter over W/D and new door backyard...

mud room doors...and pantry painted in 'french linen' annie sloan chalk paint 

exterior view of mud room door

most of our work this week was in the front yard. we had a long skinny driveway and two cars, so we decided to expand the driveway on the left and add a walkway to the screen porch. since funds are tight we did the manual labor ourselves and went with a cheap and useful material - #57 bluestone gravel! it packs down tight and is too big to get tracked around the yard or wedged in our tires.

6.5 tons of gravel

instead of trying to pull up all the sod we bought landscape fabric and edging stones from lowes that are about 5.5" high and 17 lbs each. they seemed strong enough to keep in the gravel in most places but i reinforced them with 12" steel stakes at key stress points. i also dug out a long trench about a foot wide next to the driveway so we could pour extra gravel where the asphalt and gravel meet, and it really helped with leveling.
all that prep worked happened over about a week. i lay out the stones, rearranged, and ordered the gravel...and then all in one long, exhausting day we spread it around and boom - no more muddy walk to the house and room for both cars in the driveway!

#57 gravel walkway - this area used to be a mud pit when it rains

view of gravel from backyard

entrance to screen porch (this is our favorite entrance to the house, because we can pop right into the mudroom and kitchen)

the edging stones were about $150 and the gravel (including delivery) was $270. but we also got a HUGE free workout out of the deal! ;)


now it just needs to get warm so we can enjoy the screen porch...i'm pretty much done decorating except for painting the floor this summer. this week we put a shelf on the brick wall, and i put timed LED lanterns on it for a warm glow to welcome us home each night. so cozy!

oh yeah and somehow between all the big projects this week i also found time to put textured wallpaper on the powder room ceiling....

...and phil installed a new light in the kitchen!

TIME TO RELAX!

Screen porch is here!

I don't even know what to say. It's perfect. I'm not done decorating but I couldn't wait to share...

screen porch...view from mudroom door

screen porch...view from daybed (ceiling color is sherwin williams "hazel")

screen porch with drop cloth curtains

And after a long day of yard work you can start to make out the plan for the driveway expansion and gravel walkway into the screen porch/mudroom...isn't that baby blue spruce to die for?! In several years we will have a little shade. In the meantime I am glad I made those curtains out of dropcloths - they keep the sun AND rain out!

path right outside screen porch door to driveway

view of planned gravel walk from street

baby blue spruce

screen porch decor...

our screen porch will get damp in the rain so we didn't want to shell out for a nice table and chairs. but our contractor is doing such a beautiful job on our outdoor room that we couldn't stand the thought of a regular patio set, either.

solution: buy cheap antiques and refurbish them!

off I went (again) to lucketts - my fav store there is on a whim. it was my lucky day. they had JUST unloaded the perfect table 10 minutes before I got there.

table - before

it was $169, sturdy and I actually liked the antique finish. a great starting place.
I decided that I wanted mismatched chairs and a table for a sense of texture, but in order for the set not to look messy, they would all be painted a beautiful eggshell black from martha stewart called silhouette.

on a whim also had 2 chairs I liked for $25 each.

cute wood dining chair - before

next stop was vienna antique store what-nots. there weren't any chairs in the shop that caught my eye so I told the owner what I was up to...sure enough, she had some very beat up dining chairs in the basement - 2 for $25!

antique chair - before

ok now the fun part. I had enough paint for the 4 chairs, but for the table I wanted something a bit tougher. I used black semi-gloss rust-oleum indoor/outdoor spray paint. a little glossier than I was expecting, but maybe that means extra protection!
then all I had to do was staple some new designer outdoor fabric on the seats and - voila!

table - AFTER!

chairs - AFTER!

more chairs - after!

the entire set cost me:

- a wonderful morning shopping, a delightful afternoon painting in the yard

- $244 total on antique table and two chairs

- $20 fabric

- around $20 paint and spray paint

you can't buy a target patio set for that. and now our set is unique and quirky! the mismatched chairs really give it the edge I wanted.

we'll be drinking cocktails in our screen porch in no time! here's today's status in the construction zone that is our carport: