Back Garden Update

We have started to put in a new back fence and have had to be a bit creative around the stone wall. I think it looks great. We still might stain it although are leaning towards a marine varnish to keep the natural colour of the wood.
We've also managed to build up the raised bed with the York stone that we had. When we moved in we found the stone in the garden, spread like a crude crazy paving beneath a carpet of weeds. It's well weathered and we are still finding more as we continue to dig! Great find as it's kept the costs right down.
Since building the beds we have put in a Ceoanthus and a Callicarpa. I am really excited about the latter as i have wanted one for ages. I saw one peeping over a fence one Christmas and it took ages to identify! It is deciduous but sports a profusion of tiny purple berries in the winter on long bare sticks. They look amazing!
The other two shrubs are inherited from the previous owners. There's a lovely purple Hydrangea and a large Rhubarb which we have been making crumbles from!

Back garden 1


Back garden 2


View from inside the house


Close up of the fence


Ceoanthus and Callicarpa in the new bed!

Back Garden

Here are some pics of the back garden. It's by no means finished, we have simply dug it over and pulled out most of the weeds. These were taken a few weeks ago so the stone that you can see in the rockery at the back is now the stone in the raised beds at the front. Boy were they heavy so i bought a Chillington wheelbarrow to help with the load :)We have started painting the exterior pipework and have started to strip the windows and replace the putty ready for painting them. It's been a hard job deciding what colour to paint the place but i think we have decided on black pipework, white window frames and a green front and back door. The next lot of pictures will show the new fence. We will be replacing the side fence and are planning on mounting a 2ft fence onto the back wall to make the space a bit more private. We also want to put some decking in around the back door and build a small cold frame.





My Clemitis Armandii.
I have always wanted to grow one of these.

Lounge

This is the front room. We haven't finished it yet but here it is floors sanded and with pale walls. We have almost finished stripping the slate fireplace of the drab caramel gloss that was spread throughout. It's much nicer black/grey.

Heres the before picture:



And here are the current ones:

We are stripping back the fireplace. It is slate underneath.


The newly sanded floorboards

New front garden!

This is our front garden after much hard work and cold spring weekends digging. It was full of weeds and rubble and we had to dig down deep to get out the dandelion roots. The road we live on is on a hill so the garden slopes. We decided to put in the raised beds out of reclaimed stone with a level lawn. We put in an old railway sleeper to raise the level of the soil by the path so it was easier to level it. The planting is sparse at the moment, we still need a few more shrubs but everything is coming back to life again now it's getting warmer.







And when we had finished..