Front Walk Update - Before and After

Hi there friends!   Thanks for visiting here at Harmony Hills.   I thought I'd take a quick moment to share the change that we made to our front walk and front flower beds.   If you joined me on our Yard Tour in June, you already saw the "after" of this project, but I never did show the "before".  So here you go!

Before:

The sidewalk "before" was made of concrete.  You might wonder why we went to the trouble to update this long walk.  Well, it's not shown in these photos, but there was a bump in the sidewalk near the lamp post, where the level was off.   We'd already had one friend fall due to tripping (thankfully she wasn't hurt), and we sure didn't want anyone else to do that.    So that was one main reason we made the change.

The other main reason was for aesthetics.  The concrete was pretty ugly!   We had the concrete removed from the back yard last fall, replaced with antique-looking (but new) brick pavers.  The walk in the back yard turned out great, and really blended in nicely with the brick material on the side porch.  We loved it! We wanted the front walk to match.   We knew when we did the back yard that we were going to do the front too, but our checkbook told us it was a good idea to wait a while. :-)

The other big change we made during this front walk project was that we had these two crape myrtle trees taken out.  It was a really sad moment for me, because they were very healthy and strong trees. There wasn't anything wrong with them at all - except that the were totally planted in the wrong places!   They were too close to the house, and too close together.    When they were leafed out, they totally blocked the entire front of the house from view.  Visitors couldn't see our house numbers, and no one could see our beautiful house.   

We talked to our landscaper about possibly transplanting them, but because of the time of year (hot summer) and the large size of the root ball, it would have cost much more to have them dug out and transplanted than it would to just remove them and buy and install two new trees.  We made the difficult decision to have them removed.   I hated to see these healthy trees go, but it was the right decision in the end.

To do the work, we hired our favorite landscape company, who we have used for the last 13 years.  Their work is impeccable!   They are locally owned and specialize in hardscape, irrigation systems, and plant installations.  I've used them at our previous home to install our sprinkler system, install a retaining wall, put in a front walk and and put in a very large patio.  I highly recommend them - if you live in the Central Maryland area and are interested in contact information, just let me know!

Over the course of three days, the crew removed the concrete, laid the rock and sand substrate, and installed the bricks.   They did an excellent job dealing with the slope of our yard, and totally removed the tripping hazard area at the street end of the walk.     They spread the sand between the bricks, and planted grass along the edges of the walk.   

While they were there, they took out the crape myrtles for me for no extra charge - great long-term relationships yield great service!  

And here was the final result:

After:

The house is the star of the show now that the crape myrtles are gone.

There's a nice large landing spot just off the front porch.  

The field stones that they had laid last fall ended up being a couple inches lower than the finished height of the brick walk, so they went the extra mile and re-laid four of the large stones to raise them up to the correct level.

In place of the crape myrtles, they spread some new mulch for us so that the area would look nice.   Now we have some blank space for more planting decisions.

I couldn't be happier with the work, and the results!

Thanks so much for stopping by to see our project today.   I hope you'll come back soon to see more as we make Harmony Hills our home.

Did you see how we totally transformed our side yard and garden areas over the last few months?   This was the project that we've poured our heart and soul into so far this year.

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Linking To:

Metamorphosis Monday - Between Naps on the Porch

The Scoop - Stonegable

Make it Pretty Monday - The Dedicated House

Wow Us Wednesday - Savvy Southern Style