FRONT PORCH CURB APPEAL

The before and after shot so that you know what I'm talking about when I said that the spirit/soul/feeling of my house had changed.

a large Privet tree was dug up from in front of the front of the porch and moved to the left side of the porch, which cleared that whole area in front for some bling.

I purchased the large planters for less than $10 a piece,

I thought that I had leveled the ground enough for the

patio stones that I put the planters on...

but nope LoL

the yellow park bench was in my backyard.

so ok...it's looking ok but still too nekkid!

(slang spelling for naked)

While clearing up this mess in my backyard...

YES! I like to multi task...

I had an A-HA moment!

I took some of those tree branches and painted them

to resemble Birch branches

'cause no waaay was I paying what they wanted for

real Birch branches!!

There we go...some substance to the vignette...

but those blasted patio stones still aren't level and

those pepto bismal pink concrete pillars looked horrible!

I've never worked with concrete on a vertical surface before so

this was a learning curve for me too.

I created a thick slurry with the concrete and trowelled it onto the columns.

I think I did this 3 times, letting the concrete set for 24 hours in between coats.

Is this blingy enough for you???

Yay..I got the ground all levelled out

and my garden filled in quite nicely

oh..I forgot to mention that I purchased 2 fake pre-lit

4' Christmas trees to put in the planters...my bad!

I got the pair of them at Home Depot for $35.00!

what a steal!!

The trees stay in the planters all year long

and all the lights

run on dusk-to-dawn timer.

The front of my house looks like this every night,

even in the summer!

FYI...I bought the string light from Dollarama...

every time I find outdoor string lights, I always buy a couple of sets,

just in case my lights burn out!

It's hard finding

outdoor Christmas lights in the middle of Summer LoL

and yup...I always vent my frustration to store managers

telling them that people decorate with string lights in the summer too

so why not carry the lights all year!

Dollarama listened to me!!