Home Improvement

We bought our house two years ago and it was a great deal....as all homeowners know by a great deal I mean it was a great deal of WORK!!!

I can't even count all of the things we have done to improve the house itself and unfortunately did not take pictures of the "before" but as a result we have steadily turned the house into somewhere that we love to be.

Other than several big jobs, new windows, bathroom and kitchen renovations, we are pretty much happy with the inside. We even went so far as to take the screen doors off the front and back and make them more a part of the house. The pretty red front door now opens into a mudroom not into a concrete floored closet.

However much we have done on the house we have done practically NOTHING to the yard....and by yard I mean 3/4 an acre of tumbleweeds. I feel really intimidated by the whole process so I've decided to start posting about it....asking for ideas. Here is the first problem. The house is surrounded by this vinyl white stockade fencing. In the front of the house it is even over the concrete driveway. Seriously.













Do you see it? I took these pictures in the street facing our house and I'm thinking that the taller fence is too much for the front. It makes it feel too closed in.













Plus the sand gets blown out from underneath it. And it leave us one big square of yard with the house right in the middle and a concrete driveway/carport that we can not use. See? In that picture E is backing out of the gravel driveway next to the concrete driveway. And the sand....don't even get me started on the sand. You can also if you look see just how well the lifetime guarentee fencing (bought by the previous homeowners) has stood up to the wind. It's open range behind us and they have cattle that graze there. My idea...and this is open to comment.....is to move the fence back halfway, about midway on the side of the house and put the small gate that is onver the walkway right now on the left side of the house, the larger drive through gate that is over the gravel driveway on the right side of the house. This would effectivley give us front and back yards and in my eyes make landscaping easier. Then I am thinking a shorter cinderblock fence with stucco over it in the front. No gates just a short fence that would help contain the yard.












Any advice? Opinions? Offers of help? ;-)