What a difference a professional can make

 Last April or so, Matt and I decided to fix the flower bed in the front of our house. We spent hours and hours and over a hundred bucks to make it look perfectly perfect. And it did. For about two months. Then, the weeds came and the motivation left. We didn't weed the beds, we didn't replace the flowers when they died after the season, we just didn't care. Then, in about August of 2012, our generous landlords (Matt's parents) mentioned that they were going to have the front yard landscaped. We were thrilled. From that point on, I didn't even look at the beds and consider weeding them or raking the leaves out or anything. I will admit that about the beginning of last month I started to feel ashamed of the awful state of our flower beds, but not quite up to doing anything about it. Then. About three weeks ago, the professionals were sent in. They fixed everything. Like, everything. I have pictures to prove it.

 First, well start with the brick steps. We live in a pier and beam house (like, up off the ground) so we have steps to get into the house. Ours were in awful condition. The bricks were crumbling and broken. The "wall" facing the street looked awful. Look, I'll show you:
See what I mean? Awful. See the area below the wall? Covered in leaves? That's the flower bed. I know, it's obvious. I didn't even need to tell you.

And now, it has been fixed. Behold!

Isn't that the prettiest wall you've ever seen? The dark grey parts at the top are just wet concrete. It is dry now and much lighter. You can tell that the bricks aren't all the same. The landscaper used some of the bricks that we had been using to line the flower bed. I have to say, the color variation really makes a difference.

Next up, the big picture. Okay, first, the front of the house BEFORE the landscaper came in: 

 I have to admit, the best part about this picture is the Tech flag. Ain't a whole lot of prettiness. With about three days of work. the landscaper crew (two incredibly hard workers and one supervisor), turned that unattractive mess up there into this:




























I know. You are wild with jealous. Wait until you see it after the rest of the repairs. We're going to repaint all the white trim on the exterior of the house AND deal with those leaves on the roof. By "we" I actually mean another professional. Well, Matt had better handle the leaves, but the painting will be done by a professional. And no, we're not paying for a thing! Again, thanks to the landlords...

Now I'm kind of sad to be leaving it...