The good, the bad and the fugly

There are not many good things about our yard, except it is a decent size. We have not spent much time in the backyard, so it has been neglected and our neighbors don't put much effort into their yards either.

I would like to improve our yard so that we have more living space to our house. And it would be nice to just be able to go out there and play, even though we are so close to Columbia Park.

So here is the good, bad and the fugly of our yard in photographic detail. Enjoy.

This is the deck that leads out of Joe's bedroom. Why the previous owners did not put a door off the kitchen I will never know, but its on our wishlist of things to do. and yes, our grill is bolted to the deck. Hey, its North Portland! I would unlock it if I knew where the key was. We had heard some bad things about NoPo when we moved in, but its totally fine.

Here is the overgrown hedge that used to block the view of those houses until our neighbors lopped about 4 feet off the top. Too bad they couldn't trim it on our side too.

To the right is our run down garage which will receive a bit of facelift. Actually more like a colon cleanse because aside from demoing some of the siding, the inside will see more of a transformation. The arborvitae along the back fence are not my favorite trees, but the previous owner planted them and they are staying. The crazy tree in the back corner of the yard is actually a sucker or something from the tree in the middle. We are planning on leaving it there, but taming it a bit because it blocks the view of a shed in the neighbors yard. and I promise one of these years I will start composting.

This is the east side of our yard. The garage is getting a new roof, but we are not planning on doing too much to this side. And yes, our neighbors have a trailer that someone lives in in their backyard. Obviously, we don't have an HOA. They are good people though.

This is the back of our house. It needs some lovin'.

So there you have the "before" pictures. It is already looking better from when I took these during a brief break in the our three weeks of rain. The weather is going to be sunny consistently now and so I hope to get a lot of work done.