Curb Appeal: One Shrub at a Time

Nothing says “dated” house like mature landscaping. Particularly when it is poorly maintained mature landscaping (I learned this term when house hunting—a realtor’s way to sugar coat old, overgrown, ugly shrubs). Since we won’t be painting our pretty pinkish brown house exterior anytime soon, I’ve decided to take a more economical approach to curb appeal: hacking down the old shrubs.

The listing picture of the house. LOTS of mature landscaping! 

It is amazing how rewarding and therapeutic it is to chop something down.  So far I’ve tackled three of them—one a week since that is all that I can cram into our yard waste bin. It is a surprisingly good workout, especially when I get to the part where I have to saw the trunk using a hand saw. Not only is it a good arm workout, but my heart gets pumping from it, too. And it doesn’t take that long. I’ve managed to cut down each one of them during naptime. Not bad, huh?

I posted these pictures in a recent post of the view both from our front porch and of the front of the house. Pretty overgrown and dark.

 

Here’s what it looks like now:

 

Here’s another view, plus a look at what I had to saw through!

Today’s shrub execution was the one just below the left window. The next shrub getting the axe is the one just to the left of the left window. It’s coming down next week, baby!

Once I finish ridding our flower beds of the overgrown shrubs, then I can start to think about what I want to put back in them. For right now, I’m fine having bare spots. In my opinion, getting rid of that stuff already adds curb appeal!