A Little Garden TLC

BEFORE: Backyard 

The gardens ( Backyard, Side Garden and Front Garden) in our new house needed a little TLC...and I needed A LOT OF BUG SPRAY!  Our town holds an Historic Home and Garden Tour every year.  Our neighborhood will be on the tour next year and was on it 5 years ago.  The Historical Society said there will be a lot of interest to see what we have done with the house since the last time it was on tour.  So...we have some work to get done in the next year!  I think we are well on our way!

AFTER: Backyard

We have planted a bunch of perennials and pulled and killed lots of weeds and cut down lots of little trees growing out of stumps back there.

We have also laid out the pathway that will be pea rock going to the front of the house.  Right now there is a broken down fence between the two which they have strapped to a tree.  That will be coming down soon to connect the two gardens and create a beautiful shade garden.


(Left) The pathway that will lead from the front garden to back garden.

The Front Garden is on a quiet street shaded with trees and squirrels running wild...including two albino squirrels.  It was consisting of lots of weeds and lily of the valley.  We thinned out the lily of the valley, pulled weeds and planted perennials.  Then laid down mulch to choke out the weeds.

We also found some landscape blocks and moved them to the right of the house making the entrance to where the pathway will come through.  We planted some ferns and lily of the valley in this area as well as one of my favorites, a bleeding heart bush. (Seen below)

The future pathway to the backyard

Now we go onto the side garden.  This is the most visible garden since it on a busy street and where the driveway is.  So most of our guests come to this entrance.  I'm including a porch picture as well, that we have recently painted!

After: Side Porch which is our main entrance

The side garden was filled with rock on top of rock!  We had to sift through all of it (almost a foot deep)  It was quite the challenge but worth it.  The dirt was great and ready for planting!  We just needed some warm weather here in Minnesota.  

Collecting larger river rock from around the yard, we had enough to do a border around the front of the garden.

We transplanted our hosta and day lily's from our old house and added some lavender, daisies and perennials as well as a few herbs.  It is filling in nicely!

Our yard was also not in great shape but we are happy to say the grass is now plush and filling in great.

Please find me on facebook:

Through My Creative Mind

to see the day to day progress on the house!

Our new adventure...An Historic House!

Hi Everyone...Wow it has been a very long time since I have posted and life has gotten so busy.

Here is a little history of the house..from what we have pieced together and found information on.

Our house has two different dates...1859 and 1892. The Historical Society can not prove that our house is the original house from 1859 but they do know a house was on this property in the same spot on the lot back then. There was a huge fire in 1884 which destroyed much of the downtown area

and I was told that the house is close enough that the house may very well have been damaged.

The Hanscom family moved in the late 1850's to Minnesota from Maine. They lived there until they died close to their 70's in the mid 1890's.

The house is about 2,300 sq ft plus a large laundry room and both a smaller side porch (mud room) and a large L-shaped 3 season front porch.

The house has had several owners through the 1900's and the most recent owner had huge dreams for the house but got transferred to another state a few years and never made it back.

We moved in May 2nd, 2014...a whole month ago!

Here are a few projects we have done around the house so far.

The Front Porch...One of my favorite rooms in the whole house!
It's a huge L-shaped porch along the front of the house and is full of windows. We had to paint it from top to bottom but what a difference it made!

Here are a few of the before pictures.  The ceiling and walls need a good painting.  

We had to finish painting it as it snowed outside in late April but it was worth it!

A panoramic view of the L-shaped porch finished

The previous owner said at one time the post light in the yard worked but just suddenly stopped working.  We figured out that the time had just run it's course and so we solved the electrical mystery.  We then got a new post light and put a light sensor on it as well. A beautiful new light!

Please follow our progress as we go forward with remodeling some of the other areas of the house on a budget!  You can also follow along with our day to day remodeling projects on my facebook page: Through My Creative Mind

Window Frost

One of the special treats we get to enjoy here in the frigid state of Minnesota is beautiful window frost.  Usually, this needs to be caught before the bright sun rays melt it away.  Here are a few photos I took a couple weeks ago.

My creative chalkboards

Happy new year everyone!  It has been a while since I've posted anything. It feels good to be back.  Here are a few of my chalkboards I have done recently.  Enjoy!