I had previously blogged about project ideas that I had for our home.  Today, I started one of them.  I had been wanting to do something with our front yard landscaping, so I decided to put edging stones along the walkway/foliage that leads to our front door.  Despite how much I dislike Jeff's truck, I drove the dang thing to Home Depot because I had no other means of transporting edging stones from the store to our home.  Below is a picture of the walkway prior to us moving in and the other is the newly enhanced edged walkway. 

Before

After

I'm not completely done with this project, as I plan on removing the current foliage and planting Japanese Boxwood bushes and placing some solar-lit laterns (below are examples of both).  I'll post pics when it is entirely complete.

Japanese Boxwood Hedges

 While working on this project, I've also been working on another.  We recently purchased a new entry door, but it is unfinished and it has to be stained or painted.  After much debate, we decided that painting the door would be the easiest to maintain over the years.  So, I have started painting the door and hope to have it completed by next week.  At this time,  we will purchase a pretty entry door lock.  Here's a glimpse of the door with one coat of interior paint (a couple more are needed). 

(the door is upside down)

There is a lot going on at the House of Cole as far as projects go.  Wish me luck, because this is a lot of hard labor!

Backyard Beauty

Today I decided to attempt some gardening! I know nothing about plants, flowers, or gardening for that matter, but because I would like a pretty back yard to look at it I tried!  Since we live in a townhome, we have the luxury of not having a front yard to maintain.  This is one of the many reasons why we chose a townhome, because we don't have the time to maintain a yard!  The HOA company of our subdivision hires landscapers to cut our grass and plant shurbs and flowers; they even assure that the shrubs are cut appropriately and place new mulch when the old mulch is drying out.  It's nice, except for the fact that I don't get to do much of what I want to do to the front yard or get to carry out all of the cool ideas I have for a front yard.  The only option I have, is to get creative with my back yard.  So here are some pics of my attempt at gardening!

Before

Poor sad tree in back yard $???,???

Flowers $10.49

Midnight Black mulch $4.86

After

Pretty tree in back yard pricele$$

I have plenty of ideas, but because all of those ideas require money, they'll all have to come in due time.  Next time I will be planting some cute shrubs near our bedroom windows and buying some stones to place around this tree and around the shrubs.  I will definitely post pics when this happens.  I would also like to place pavers and expand our covered patio.  Our next project, that will happen before anything else does, is purchasing a patio set for our covered patio and a grill, so that we can enjoy some BBQ's with friends and family....that's what life is all about!