Plans being realised :)

Long time no see... I've not felt like blogging for a while, even though lots have happened that have felt worth writing about. But here I go again and am making a new attempt of doing this at a more regulary basis :)

So, this is how it looked at the back of our house just a few months ago, lots of  Japanese angelica trees (Aralia elata) and just a sea of ferns that everyone said looked so cosy and inviting, and I just hated it. The ferns were just too many and the trees were growing out of control with lots of runners everywhere and the trees had horrible thorns. It's not a surprise that they are called the "devil's walking stick" when you see this image:

http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/imgs/512x768/0000_0000/1108/0959.jpeg

Not the friendliest tree there is and thay just looked like dead sticks in winter and I wanted nothing else than to get rid of them and do a peaceful garden there instead, still with japanese trees but with more peaceful maples. I had already gotten a atropurpureum earlier this year and I also got  a osakazuki, a beni schichihenge, a little princess and a emerald lace and I hope they will all make it and be very happy living in my garden :)

Everything is planted, the maples, the hostas, the grasses, the siberian bugloss, the lungwort and the oregano! The boyfriend and I moved the clematis I got from mum and put it next to the path to Buddha, and I made some stepstones and a japanese lantern from concrete. To top it all I got some big rocks from my aunt and uncle who has a farm and has a big pile of rocks that comes from the fields and have all been thrown there over the years and I could just pick any sizes and shapes that I wanted and the japanese garden has taken some form now. I also kept some of the ferns and planted some new ones in different colours and I can hardly wait to see how it will look next year when it all starts to grow again!

I got hold of an old mirror at a flea market with high edges and I used it to make this concrete tabletop wirh rhubarb leaves. Got the idea from a concrete group I'm in on facebook and all it needs is legs and then I need to decide weather to put some colours on the leaves or just leave them as they are. Should probably practice on something smaller before I go ahead with this one since I don't wanna ruin it. It turned out much better than I had hoped.

When we moved into our house we started parking our cars by this side of the house since it's close to the front door and it seemed like the most natural place to park, but since it's not that nice to park on grass when it's raining and lot's of work to cut the grass we decided to make it into a proper parking place! And we started with cutting down that big tree by the window and then we got some help from a friend with the digging and work with the dirt and rocks.

lots of big and intertwined roots! Probably from an old beech tree that once stood there.

the ground work is done...

and I made some work for myself by starting to get the grass off the tiles and getting the idea to raise them a few cm to be level witht he lawn instead of under it. So I took them all up and put out some stone dust that T had gotten for the parking place and also put some extra tiles to make a path to the cars so we won't have to walk across the lawn.

a days work

and here we are all done!!

When we bought the house the kitchen tiles were white with little pastell blue and pink dots and it was never an option to keep it like that, so i got some tile paint and painted it all black. It looked really nice but always too dark. It wasn't a very positive kitchen to be in :/ Then I saw a photo of a kitchen with turquoise tiles and I fell in love! Asked the boyfriend if he was ok with that colour and thankfully he said yes, so I got the paint and then operation kitchen makeover began!

Before...

the colour I wanted

during the makeover...

and the result!

Am so happy with it and it eally looks like a brand new kitchen :)