One Room Challenge: A Front Garden Makeover
It's that time of the year when the
One Room Challenge (ORC) rolls into town. And no one is as surprised as me to hear that, yes, we're
participating once again!
If you're new to Rambling Renovators, welcome! My name is Jennifer. I
help people create functional and beautiful homes, I help brands create digital content strategies, and I've been
writing this blog since 2007. I live with my husband and daughter in
Toronto, Canada in a centre-plan, colonial style house that we've infused
with the fresh traditional style we love. We DIY all our renovations and
have a fondness for architectural details, built-ins, and classic decor. See
our home renovations here.
One Room Challenge Projects
If you're unfamiliar with the ORC, it's a biannual event where 20 featured
designers and hundreds of guest participants are challenged to makeover a room
in just eight weeks. Follow along on the ORC blog to see all the projects. You're sure to be inspired to tackle a project in your own home!
You might be wondering why would anyone want to take on this task? Because, at the end of the ORC, you end up with a home you love just a little
bit more. I'm all for that and these days, I could use a change in the routine. Also - I'm a Capricorn and nothing motivates me more than a deadline, ha!
Our previous One Room Challenge rooms proved immensely challenging yet
ultimately successful. There was our
coastal basement renovation
where the countertop installation, tile backsplash grouting, floating shelf
install, wallpaper install, and styling and photography all happened in the
final 48 hours before the reveal...
Yet despite those setbacks and the demanding schedule, we're jumping back in.
I will be honest though and say this ORC won't be as dramatic or ambitious as
our previous projects. It will be something we've never done before so it will
be challenging in its own way!
And we're doing this during a pandemic with our city under lockdown (still) and even the Home Depot closed to everything except curb side pickup. An "easy" One Room Challenge project is just about all I can handle mentally and physically these days.
Suffice it to say, I'm not putting extra pressure on myself to get things done on schedule... I'm going to go with the flow, plan a little, play a little by ear, and hopefully have something worthwhile to show you at the end.
So what space will we be tackling this time?
A Front Garden Makeover
We're stepping out from behind our work-from-home desks and taking things
outside. Over the next eight weeks, we'll be updating our front garden.
We've been transforming the exterior of our home slowly since we moved here
five years ago. We started with replacing the garage door, repainting the
shutters and front door, and adding new lighting.
Then last summer we
recoated the porch concrete floor
and
relaid the walkway. We transplanted some hostas to the front for temporary landscaping and by the end of the summer, our
exterior was looking lovely.
You might think this was enough, but it's now spring time, before the hostas have
come out and the grass is looking terrible as it always does after the winter.
Are you ready to see what our front garden looks like today?
Admittedly, I'm showing you our garden at it's very worst. The last two weeks have been so gloomy and rainy, adding to the tragic look of our landscaping. Consider this One Room Challenge project the next phase in our exterior transformation and hopefully the one that brings all the changes we've done so far, together.
The boxwoods are
looking a little rough and if you saw
my Instagram stories, I shared that we have a boxwood leaf miner infestation. I only hope that
the insecticide spray I applied on the weekend is enough to save them!
We've also applied some dirt and grass seed to our lawn. With so many trees on our
property, it's difficult to get the grass to grow consistently and we're
constantly battling bald spots.
After we relaid the walkway, we left things as is as we knew we'd be dealing with things this spring. This large area of dirt is where we removed a high spot in our lawn last
summer. Our home sits above the street level and the mound that was here
blocked off some of the view. The long leaves you see are the start of a
cluster of alliums and the other green shoots are the hostas.
You can see that we've started to think about our garden plan. We used the string line and hose to visualize the size of the garden bed. So professional, I know ;)
I'm ready to tear everything out of this area and start from scratch. The
evergreen shrubs are spindly and the Soloman's Seal looks so lonesome beside
the tree.
Part of our hesitancy in addressing the garden is that we spend a lot of
time at our cottage in the summer. Maintaining a garden is not something we do well
at... I'd much rather be at the beach. But perhaps we can create
something that, once installed, will look beautiful and won't be too
cumbersome to upkeep.
Goodness, this looks like a construction photo! With most of our interior rooms finished, it's time to address our home's curb appeal. We'll be fumbling our way through the next eight weeks
I'm sure and make some rookie gardening mistakes, but things couldn't
look any worse!
This side of our front yard needs some attention as well. I'm not a
fan of the ivy, but it is easy to keep at bay and grows well beneath
the shady trees. We should really hide that air conditioner as well. It's not
a very attractive feature.
Come back next week where I share the plan for our front garden. And if you have any tips for this newbie gardener, I'm all ears.
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