Hi blog friends.

Well, if you’ve kept up with my blog for a couple years, you know that we have been renovating our house in Austin for the last year or so.

The last project has been the landscape.

When we bought our house, a friend described it to me as a “taco shack”. I guess the bright aqua color will do that.

 

A lot has changed since this original picture. First off, we removed the weird spiky iron fence.

The tree unfortunately suffered a fungal infection and fell over in a wind storm one day.

We also replaced all the windows with more energy efficient glass. You can’t tell, but the small window behind the true was actually a half-window. We enlarged it to match the other and gain more symmetry.

 

 

The yard was a complete and utter mess. Obviously. The concrete walkway was broken, and uninviting.

There were weeds all around the front porch, and yard for that matter. (Do you see tiny Archie on the front porch?)

First, we decided that to get the modern, mid-century feel we were looking for, we’d have to paint the house. We chose white.   We left the aqua eaves as a nod to the history of the house, and hence was born the aquahaus.

 

We then moved on to the yard itself. After many failed attempts, we met an awesome landscape designer who really listened to our wants/ needs, and he came up with this.

 

It has all the elements we like: 1) rectilinear & minimal design 2) elements of concrete 3) contrasting gravel 4) structured but drought tolerant plants 4) warm wood elements 5) steel planter.

Then the demolition started. Weeds like this were ripped out.

 

The demo process was impressive.

 

They razed our front yard in a matter of days.

 

 

Then, they added the rainbow gravel up front and prepped the walkway for a new wooden ipe boardwalk.

 

No more ankle breaking, hazardous concrete pseudo-walkway. I am pretty sure our mailman is stoked.

Archie loves the new boardwalk.

 

Yucca and Mexican feathergrass were planted in the long concrete planter, and limestone pavers in black basalt were aligned in front.

 

 

Sometime later this week, I’ll have the full reveal pics.

Happy humpday.

xo

Celine