Chapter 23 - Landscaping

I bought my first home, the smallest home (by square footage) in the neighborhood approx 18 years ago. Both of my children attended the elementary school across the street from this project house. And of course, I built my current home right behind our project house approx nine years ago. I tell you this so that maybe you can understand that I’ve been around this rundown home for a very, very long time…and like all of my neighbors we’ve had to endure the absolutely dead landscaping of this place…for a very, very long time! I always thought it too bad and what a shame that this home sitting on the corner, in the center of the neighborhood, was always so rundown. Honestly, I can’t remember anything but weeds growing in the yard.

As the house was being re-stucco’d, we both got very excited about the exterior because it started to look like an entirely new home. And just as soon as the scaffolding was down, we couldn’t wait to spray the house with a fresh coat of paint. The enthusiasm didn’t slow down from there, so I had the landscapers come right over and survey the yard. (The idea was that we could get the outside of the home completed before the cold of winter came.) The landscapers have been clients of mine for a long time, and they’re good friends too, so I had complete trust in them to take good care of me. I simply told them my budget figure and they took it from there.

Technically speaking, Las Vegas is a desert and water is a very precious commodity. Approximately 10 years ago the Water District placed a moratorium on planting grass in Vegas. All of the newer built homes have rocks, cactus and desert landscaping in their yards now. I grew up in Denver, Salt Lake City and Idaho Falls, all cities in the Rocky Mountains where grass and trees are very abundant. Accordingly, with this project house I knew that we had to breathe new life into it as much as we could…curb appeal was critical if we had any chance to sell this place when we were finished. Because the house was over 30 years old, the grass moratorium didn’t apply to us, and since grass was less expensive than rocks, I got a few more trees out of the budget.

Hopefully as you can see in the photos, the landscaping breathed new life into this old yard. Truly it’s now the garden in the center of the neighborhood. Both Mitzi and I have been stopped by so many of our neighbors in the past few weeks who’ve had nothing but great compliments for the home. Our stake president who lives nearby even stopped me to thank me for upgrading the area! Lol. And now with the exterior of the home finished I guess everyone thinks that we’re done with the house renovation because they all are asking to come see it. However, we’ve only got the walls recently put back on and the interior painted a few weeks ago. Guess we’ll have to speed the work up or everyone might lose interest? Ha ha.