landscape extravaganza... {unofficial} before & after

before i get to the great house reveal, i have to share a little project that took us nearly all weekend!  {side note, to all my friends in real life - if i told you i might see you this weekend and i didn't - this is why!}

we have a little plant bed by our entry way - and it was full of horrible, vine/bush/weed-like plants.  and, more importantly, full of bugs and other "critters."  also, most importantly, it was so.ugly.

{BEFORE}
{see?  see the ugly, overgrown bed right there to the right of the garage doors?}

so we decided to tear it all out.  this process involved all of the following {and then some}: shovels, axes, pitch forks, and crow bars...

we grabbed some drought-friendly decorative plants, and weed ground cloth, and decomposed granite {for soil mixing to improve drainage} and {bags and bags and bags} of river rocks at our local nursery, and 2 1/2 days later...

{AFTER}
{the finished product!  izzie approves...}

izzie was so exhausted after all the trips to the nursery and home depot {and flirting with all the other pups and people at those places}, and after barking at the squirrels in the yard while we worked, she had to take a little nap behind our new bonus side project...

in continuing with the landscaping theme this weekend, i also ripped up a 3 X 4 foot area of {somewhat already dead} grass by hand and dug out a flower bed in our backyard to try my hand at growing some dahlias from bulbs {we'll see, not overly optimistic about those little guys}. 

hope you had a good weekend... house remodel reveal begins tomorrow!