This Spring Ben and I are fixing up the house and yard.  Since we’re trying to move closer to work (Eagle area), we’re planning on either selling or renting out this current house.  But there is a decent amount of maintenance that we’ve been opting-out of for the past few years.  If you haven’t already learned this lesson – it turns out that if you put off yard work for 3 years, it’s MUCH harder to get it back under control.  Especially when it involves rapidly spreading vines…

Here’s a photo from last year of the front of our house.  Notice the vines crawling up near the front door – they extend all the way around that nook on the side of the garage.

We cut out all of the vines, dug up an old tree stump, and painstakingly pulled all the vines off of the side of the house, sanded what they left behind, and painted.  We also painted the front door, put in an azalea plant and woodchips.  Here’s some photos:

We also added knobs and drawer handles in the kitchen:

And here’s a couple random photos – Ben planting peppers in the garden, and a praying mantis we found on our house: