Last weekend we had a much needed garage sale.  We cleaned out closet, cabinets, under beds and the attic.  We found toys & clothes that out girls had outgrown.  We found items that we used in our last home, but haven't found need for them here.  We found items that were once treasures to us that we no longer have need for.

Marty asked me what I was going to spend the money on.  I toyed with a new dining room table or redoing the landscaping in the front yard.  Our dining table has suited us fine.  Besides, if I were to buy a new dining table, I should have sold the old one in the garage sale.  So the landscaping wins!

I am not a gardener.  I do NOT have a green thumb.  For this reason I knew that I needed to go low maintenance.  You will be able to see from the before pictures that I do a great job of killing things.  (In fairness we did just come out of a really harsh winter)  I chose to edge out the area with rounded bricks that match the house.  The mulch that I chose is recycled tires.  How cool is that!  This stuff is supposed to last a lifetime.  I am hoping that this will be a onetime deal.

So here's a shot of the before:

And an after:

A little close up of the shrubs.  You can see they were a little unruly and there are a ton of weeds coming up under them.

Now they are a little more cleaned up and no weeds to be found.  We laid a 20 year warranty weed barrier under the mulch so hopefully that will be the end of weeding for me.  (I'm sure I'll redo this again before 20 years, but the 20 year warranty was on sale for less than the 5 year warranty stuff)

This little area is what greeted our guests as they came to the house.  I'm amazed anyone would come visit us.  It's a scarier looking in the pictures than I remember it being.  Sorry to all my neighbors for having such an eye-sore of a yard.

Now everything is cleaned up and looks a lot cleaner.  I found this bench and just loved it.  I don't want to encourage my kids to play on it, but it looks so inviting to me.  The urn in the background will eventually get some greenery of some kind, but I just couldn't find anything that I really liked yesterday. 



I would say overall, this was money and time well spent.  It doesn't make me want to run and hide when I see my front entry.  Now if the grass will green up, we'll be in great shape!