Animal_lover
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Re: landscape consultation

@Rainbowgardener: Just by reading through this thread I got a lot of useful information. Thank you for sharing details about your affording a house, going low cost with utilities and new plans ;) . You went 100% solar or you are still connected to the grid? The installation looks very clean and neat.

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rainbowgardener
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It is connected to the grid. In fact we are not powering our own house, we are just contributing power to the grid. (Officially we are now a green power provider.) I was a little disappointed when I realized this. Eventually we may change it. Our system can be retrofitted to something like a Tesla power wall (lithium battery power storage). In a few years, I expect that the price on them will have come down a whole lot. In the meantime, we've spent all the thousands of dollars we can for right now.

But we actually make more money from them this way. Connected to the grid, the utility company pays us for all the power we generate, even that which is in excess of what we use. With battery storage, we are essentially only benefiting from what we use.

It is very clean and neat and only visible from certain angles.

Again it depends on our usage and what happens to energy prices, but the guy from the utility company gave us an estimate of 7 year payback time, for when we will have made our money back from them. That is even less than we were expecting and the utility company is completely separate from the solar company, so he wasn't hyping a product.

Animal_lover
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Oh, 7 years payback time is wonderful! Lately, I read a lot about solar power and different schemes and options available. That's why I asked you about being connected to the grid.

So, you go with "Solar Renewable Energy Credits?" I liked how they are explained in the article from Greentumble on advantages of solar power (https://greentumble.com/solar-energy-pros-and-cons/). That is where I started to do my reading and then got more in depth.

But overall, I am very much convinced that modern solar panels are definitely worth it. And I am sure that efficient (and affordable) energy storage systems will be developed in the next decade, as more and more scientists and engineers set their focus on this task.

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rainbowgardener
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So here's the next step in our home improvement projects:
new steps.jpg
new steps 2.jpg
(literally the next steps! :D )

remember, this is what it looked like when we started:
chattanooga house.jpg
chattanooga house.jpg (28.27 KiB) Viewed 10529 times
for some reason, of all the pictures I have of my house and yard, I never took one straight on of the house front, before we started making all the changes.

So now we will make the paver paths to the driveway and then do some re-painting.

Yes, I know, I always tell people go big with foundation plantings, has to be in scale with the house. Now I have teeny-tiny little shrubs, all out of scale. But give them a couple years! With everything else we are doing, just didn't have the pocket book to buy mature shrubs.

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applestar
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The changes you made are really making a difference. I was going to say you could compensate with annuals to fill in while you wait for the shrubs to grow, but then thought maybe with the mild winters and longer growing season, they might grow faster than I (and maybe you, too) would expect.

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rainbowgardener
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In the spring I will plant flowers, perennials and annuals.

Here's one attempt at thinking about paint colors. I couldn't get a good paver color. The pavers will definitely not stand out in the landscape like that, basically some kind of brick/ terra cotta color:
house color.jpg
(I'm just learning to use the paint tools and I was going fast....

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rainbowgardener
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OR:
house colors 3.jpg

told2b
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New steps copy.jpg
.....

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rainbowgardener
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Wow, you are way better at the photo stuff than I am! I would have no idea how to put the bricks and flowers and everything in. I like the two tone door.

The one I did with the two extremely crudely indicated paver paths, the idea is the one closer to the house is where we park and the one farther back would be where guests park. The triangle in between would have a fountain or bird bath or something and a small shrub.

As I look at it in the picture and IRL, I think the yard is going to be a bit unbalanced with two paths going to the driveway and nothing the other way. There is no symmetry to the house anyway, but still... I'm thinking eventually we might need to add a path curving away from the driveway out to the street. It would be purely for cosmetics to balance the look better. There is no sidewalk and no one much walks on our little dead end street, except our neighbors walking dogs. Even the mail carrier drives up. Our guests would always be coming from the driveway.

I came here to post my latest attempt:
house colors 4.jpg
This has the garage doors painted the same color as the wood on the other side (below the barn roof) to blend them in better, so garage doors don't jump out at you so much

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rainbowgardener
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So I posted to my Facebook friends a poll, vote for the one that is my first Dec 1 post here with the blue shutters or the second Dec 1 post with the red shutters. I personally actually favor the blue (but with the darker garage doors as in the red-shutter picture), but every vote so far (five of them) has been for the red shutter version.

Anyone here want to register a vote? :D

told2b
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New steps copy2.jpg
...

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rainbowgardener
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beautiful! I love all the "plantings"! Hope mine looks something like that, some day.

thanrose
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I like the darker garage doors. Generally I think garages and driveways and cars are a necessary eyesore on a house and garden. Painting them darker mitigates that.

I like the blue shutters and taupe ex. walls. Dark red fades more quickly than any other paint I've seen. Also, blue on the door would be more visible than the dark red if you continue to use a screen door or glass storm door.

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rainbowgardener
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Yay!! A vote for blue! :D

Yes, I quite like the darker garage doors and will do that, no matter what color we paint the door and shutters (the shutters are still only hypothetical/ virtual). I also think in this case making the garage doors match the wood on the other side (below the barn roof), will add some balance to our entirely asymmetrical house.

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Taupe R copy2.jpg

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rainbowgardener
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Very nice! One of my off-line friends just suggested slate color ....

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rainbowgardener
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OK gardener friends. Help me think again.... Still just working on laying out pavers. Eventually it will be two of the 16x16" pavers wide with a row of the small multi colored bricks as edging down each side. As currently constituted, it comes basically straight out from the driveway much of the time and then curves around to the steps. My question is would it be more esthetic to keep the curve from the steps going more, so the path would be closer to a semi-circle and end up meeting the driveway a little closer to the house? (Following the curve of the plantings more... though the plantings can be added to/ re-arranged in the spring) The pavers aren't set in at all right now, while we figure out how we want them.

Image

Image

Image

(let me know if there's any trouble seeing the photos. I just copied the image address straight from Facebook, without downloading them to my computer first. I don't know if that will be a problem for people who don't use FB. )

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My thinking on this is that the full arc or quarter circle is a little more likely to be obeyed by delivery and visitors, whereas the smaller radius arc only at the right angle will sometimes be cut short, trampling stuff in your bed.

But, the full arc could leave you with an acute angle if you adhere to the geometry. So a bit of a straight path coming onto the lawn from the drive, then a more gradual arc (longer radius) to the base of the steps.

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rainbowgardener
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so.... spent the past four days painting our house. Not done yet, but mostly.

Here's what the house originally looked like:
Image

here's what the front looks like now:
Image

trim around the door and the stair treads are yet to be painted. Still to come: put shutters on the upper windows on right, paint door to match shutters in some accent color, maybe dark red, add window boxes to lower right windows. Somehow the pictures don't quite do it justice, but we have made major changes in the curb appeal of the house. We aren't planning to sell it any time soon, but it makes it nicer to come home to. I never liked how it looked before.

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applestar
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Wow what a difference already! You really have an eye for this. :D

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rainbowgardener
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So much more welcoming, right? In its original incarnation you couldn't even see where the front door was nor how to get to it. The only entrance was to walk all the way up the driveway in the narrow space next to where the cars are parked, to the hidden stairs next to the right hand garage door and then all the way across the narrow porch to the door on the opposite end.... Plus to me, the lighter color instead of the nearly black wood, seems friendlier, less glowering.

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rainbowgardener
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So I'm still trying to figure out what color we painted our house.

Valspar calls it Navajo Horizon, which is nice but not really a recognized color name. Looking at samples, taupe is too brown and mauve is too pink. There's something called "rose taupe" which is close, but doesn't seem exactly right. Suggestions?


Image

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applestar
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Hmm.. my daughter said “cocoa” ... I want to say “clay” but I don’t know if that’s right either.

I really like the natural tone of it.

imafan26
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It really brightens the entry. It isn't such a dark hole anymore. If the path is a functional path and not a decorative one, I would align it where traffic would naturally flow anyway. I think it looks ok. It depends on the landscaping you put in the inner circle to guide people to the front door.

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rainbowgardener
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Path will eventually be functional. Right now the pavers haven't been set in, just dropped where they are. Just trying to get the layout right, to know where to dig. And then we took time off to paint the house, which isn't quite finished yet.

We do at some point want the whole inner circle to be landscaped with a bird bath, some kind of small tree/shrub, some ground covers, etc. May take awhile. I'm not sure exactly how the landscape would guide to the door, which is now pretty obvious and will be even more so painted feng shui red.

We will probably scatter a few small (round?) stepping stones through there for getting to bird bath and hummingbird feeder.

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rainbowgardener
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Here's what it is looking like now:

Image

Image

The door hasn't been painted yet, or the trim around the door, which is still the old yellow. The window boxes just went up today, so don't have anything in them yet. And of course all the foundation plantings are tiny babies. By next year it should be starting to fill out more.

Scroll up in this thread to see what it used to look like!!

The house looks so much more finished now. It's like when they built it nearly fifty years ago, they quit without putting any of the finishing touches on.

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rainbowgardener
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here's a combined picture, old and new:
combined house pictures.jpg

imafan26
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It is a big improvement from the dark hole. I can even see the railing and you can definitely find the entry now that the stairs have been added and painted white. The new colors are so much better, you can see the features of the house better.

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rainbowgardener
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You couldn't see the railing before because it didn't exist! :shock: The porch had no railing, which was a bit of a hazard, because the only steps up to the porch were on the end, next to the garage doors on the left. Then you had to walk all the way across the narrow porch to the door which is on the opposite end of the porch. Strange design!

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rainbowgardener
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Thought I would up date how it is coming along:

Image

Image

Image

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applestar
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Wow just one season’s growths has started to fill in the space and you can easily visualize how the shrubs will feature against the big walls. I like the “echo symmetry” of the railing planters and the window boxes, too. Looking great!

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rainbowgardener
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Thanks for the kind words!

The house is completely not symmetrical, so I wasn't aiming for symmetry in the plantings either, but hopefully reasonably balanced. The American beautyberry on the right side of the stairs has grown amazingly. I had one in Cincinnati, so I know it can be a monster and will need regular cutting back. But mockingbirds (of whom we have many here) like those berries. Interestingly they are the only birds I have seen eating them.

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rainbowgardener
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Some of my photobucket pictures don't show any more

Here's a combined photo of what the house looked like when we bought it and then what it looked like last year after we repainted, added front steps and walkway, porch railings and shutters and baby foundation plantings.

Image

Here's what the foundation plantings look like now, although it is hard to get pictures that do it justice:

Image

Image

Image

imafan26
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It is a big difference. I think the front door should be painted in a color that makes it pop more. The white rail, steps, and walkway guide you to the door, but the door itself cannot be seen. The whole entry is dark. I do love the landscaping and the definition of the beds. As it matures it should be even better.

My faucets (2 came with the house) were attached to the house one on either side yard. I actually had new water lines extended and put faucets where I needed them against the perimeter walls in the back and one faucet was moved from the wooden wall of the house to the end of the patio that had the posts replaced with a concrete partial wall and pillars. It is on the end of the patio so I can go down the side yard or the back. I did make a mistake and put back to back faucets up against a wooden 4x4 fence post. It did last 20 years but it also contributed to the rot in the post and both faucets are too close so only one can be used at a time. I did have a hose minder, and it did keep the hose neater, but since it broke the hose is back to being just laid out wherever it is when I am done watering.

The front yard hoses are coiled, but they are vinyl and not rubber hoses so they become permanently kinked, curled, and eventually too stiff. They are able to be hidden from view by plants most of the time. I do have one on a staked hose minder with a butterfly motif that was hand made. It keeps the hose neater as long as it is put back on the planter and not left out all over the place. I will never have another hose minder attached to a wall. We had some damage on the walls of the house when we purchased it. It took a while to figure out it was from the hose reel.

I hand water now. If I ever get around to fixing all of my sprinkler manifolds, I would have a lot fewer hoses lying around.



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