The Front Yard: Starting Over

After months of planning, pricing, and waiting, we finally ripped off the Band-Aid.

For months, it felt like we were constantly working on our house without actually doing anything to our house.

There were drawings and meetings. Quotes and decisions. Decisions about decisions. We were working with our architect on the addition and renovation, making selections, getting approvals, and slowly moving toward construction.

But almost all of it was happening behind the scenes.

At some point, we needed to rip off the Band-Aid. We needed to feel like we were actually making a move.

So after months of talking and planning and waiting, we started with the front yard.

We needed to see dirt moving.

What We Started With

One of the things I love most about living in an old house is that nothing starts as a blank slate.

Our house has been here for more than 100 years, and the front yard felt like it. There were enormous mature trees, established magnolias, ground cover, shrubs and evergreens, and layers of landscaping that had clearly accumulated over decades.

There was a lot that I loved about it.

There was also just... a lot.

The house itself was getting lost.

And when the house you’re trying to uncover is a 1920s Georgian—with beautiful brick, symmetry, and an entrance begging to be the focal point—letting it hide behind layers of overgrown greenery started to feel like a shame.

We didn’t want to make the property look new.

We wanted to be able to see the old.

The Plan

Our first step was working with a landscape architect to rethink the front of the property.

The goal wasn’t simply to pull out old plants and replace them with new ones. We wanted to open up the architecture, create more structure, and then soften everything again with landscaping that felt appropriate for the age of the house.

The plan centered around a new Indiana limestone retaining wall and a redesigned bluestone walkway, steps and porch.

We loved it.

And then we got the quote.

The Part Where We Got More Quotes

This has become something of a theme around here.

We can love a design and still decide that the price of executing it doesn’t make sense for us.

And while we loved the original landscape plan, we couldn’t reconcile spending what that company quoted us on the front yard—especially knowing the scale of the renovation still ahead of us.

So we got two more quotes.

Ultimately, we decided to work with the landscapers who already maintain our property. They knew the yard, understood what we were trying to accomplish, and found a way to preserve the overall vision at a price that worked better for us.

And then we did the slightly terrifying thing.

We told them to take almost everything out.

Oh God. What Have We Done?

There is something deeply unsettling about paying someone to make your house look significantly worse.

For days, every time I looked outside, there was less yard.

Ground cover disappeared. Shrubs disappeared. The lawn disappeared. Equipment moved in. Dirt took over.

And the more they removed, the more I had moments of:

Oh God. What have we done?

We preserved the two existing magnolias and the ground cover beneath them, but essentially everything else came out. Even the lawn was removed so we could eventually start again with fresh sod.

It was the blank slate we had asked for.

It just turns out blank slates are not particularly attractive while they’re blank.

But once everything was gone, we could finally see exactly why we had done it.

There You Are

For the first time since we bought it, we could really see the front of the house.

The brick. The windows. The symmetry. The front porch. The proportions of the Georgian façade.

Also, apparently we need window treatments immediately.

But the giant old trees were still there framing everything, and suddenly the architecture was the focal point instead of fighting to be seen through the landscaping.

That was exactly what we wanted.

The goal was never to remove everything old from the property. Quite the opposite.

We wanted to uncover what had been there all along.

And eventually, we want the landscaping to look like it has been there all along, too.

Finally, We’re Putting Something Back

For the first part of this project, nearly all of the progress involved taking things away.

And then, finally, we started putting something back.

The Indiana limestone wall started to go in.

I cannot adequately explain how exciting a few rows of limestone can feel after watching your front yard get progressively more destroyed.

But against the deep red brick, the limestone immediately made a difference.

Suddenly, there was structure again.

More let the house breathe.

Where We Are Now

As of today, the yard is still very much a construction site.

I guess that’s good practice for what’s coming when construction on the house begins.

It has also been nice practice for banging and construction noise during naptime.

Almost everything is out, the limestone wall is going in, and for the first time since we bought the house, we can see the entire front façade from the street.

There is still a long way to go.

The walkway isn’t in. There are no new plants. The beds are empty. There is dirt everywhere. Construction equipment has basically become part of our current landscape design.

From certain angles, our front yard looks objectively worse than it did when we started.

But after months of planning, it is incredibly satisfying to finally watch something take shape.

And more than anything, we can finally see the house we were trying to uncover all along.

I’ll share the finished yard when we get there.

For now, welcome to the messy, very muddy middle.