Lake House | Landscaping | Exterior Inspiration

But first, this is our house now…

I’m sure I’ve said this before, but one of the things that turned me off to the house we ended up buying, was the way it looked from the outside. It had zero curb appeal {see it before here}, and sort of felt like a big compound rather than a house. What we did love about it was that it was nestled at the end and in between two lanes and because of that, was on a rather large piece of flat land, something you don’t see too often in the mountains where everything is built into a hillside and looks like a cute & quaint tree house.

Coming from LA, where we all grew up in fenced in backyards and front yards too, I feel sort of vulnerable in a home without a fenced yard. You can see that there is an old wooden fence around part of the property, but it doesn’t give us any kind of privacy.

I’d really love to surround our entire property with a partial stone or brick/partial wrought iron type of fence, with a gate to pull our car in and out of and lush greenery interspersed throughout. I’m not sure if that is exactly what we are going to do, but it’s still high on my list of likes not only for the feeling of safety, and giving our dogs a place to actually play outside, it will also give our house a sense of feeling finished, and that’s what I’m mostly after. Because right now it’s a mix of mountain dirt, large random tree stumps, some concrete slabs, bricks, some other blocks, a rickety wood fence, and random stone planter area in the front. There is no cohesion. There is no flow… there is no, nothing.

When we moved in last year, we had the house painted and had the random 1950’s playground equipment removed and it helped a great deal. But I vowed that this spring I would start working on the landscaping and since our winter has been so dry, now is that time.

But as I have a list of things I’d like to do to the property, it’s too big of a project for me to feel comfortable doing it myself, or you know I would. I grew up in much smaller lots of land, so creating a cute patio or planting grass, trees, a little garden, etc., was much easier and I have no idea where to start here. So we’re bringing in the pros and we’ve got a few landscapers coming out to hopefully help us create a beautiful space and give our property a finished touch with a nice flow that we want to spend time in but that is also environmentally friendly.

Below are a few {or a lot} of my favorite exterior spaces I’m using as inspiration… Since we have an old red brick chimney, I’d like to incorporate more brick into our landscape to tie in the classic look with the black/white and red as well as some slate or concrete slabs. We’d like an area for a hot tub, adding a few more decks off the back, a safe place for the dogs to play and hang out, lush greenery that stays green year-round without watering, possibly some artificial turf in between rocks and pavers, a fire pit and fun gathering area may, and really just a finishing touch.

Photos pulled from my Pinterest: Lake House & Backyard Patio Garden boards

I chose this photo because it has a similar feel to our house… white with black trim and an old brick chimney {we don’t have an outdoor fireplace, but it may be nice by the hot tub ;}

 

Love the washed gray deck and the gray slate as well…

A fire pit may be essential…

But maybe with a step down seating circle like this tree circle…

 

I love the brick stairs with the greenery peeking through…

And the herringbone brick layout here is pretty…

Is this too much brick? It’s so pretty though…

And I like the option of more decks leading down to the main area… since we won’t be planting real grass {because the seasons will kill it AND I don’t want anything where I have to use unnecessary watering} the more decks, the merrier {maybe?}

And maybe in a mix of wood and stone? This stone patio is so clean…

But I just love the romantic feeling of these slate/stone steps with all this greenery… it’s so dreamy.

When we do finally begin the process, I’ll be excited to share all the before and afters for all the specific areas. My hope is to get a large drawing and scope of the what the final project will look like and spend the next year or so slowly knocking out one area at a time. But I’m excited 😉