{"id":40001,"date":"2018-10-14T17:02:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-14T22:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=40001"},"modified":"2018-10-14T15:02:12","modified_gmt":"2018-10-14T20:02:12","slug":"a-peek-at-the-courtyard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=40001","title":{"rendered":"A Peek at the Courtyard"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are back today with another peek inside our new place.\u00a0 In case you don’t know this, it is a townhouse on a corner lot with a\u00a0 bricked in courtyard. We made getting the courtyard’s completion a priority over getting the front yard landscaped.\u00a0 We see the courtyard out our windows, walk past it on our way to the garage, and use it.\u00a0 And believe me, it was definitely looking bad during the construction process.\u00a0 Our front yard is still just dirt, but it will be getting a face lift in the next few weeks.\u00a0 We are glad that we overhauled the courtyard first.\u00a0 I took these iphone photos yesterday morning in the rain which explains why I didn’t sweep up the debris from our neighbor’s messy tree first.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Townhouse<\/p>\n

When we first bought our new house, the courtyard was\u00a0 sunken and brick and was lined in an array of plants that had not received any love in years.\u00a0 There were French doors leading out onto a brick patio that was level to the house, and there was one set of steps going into the sunken pit.\u00a0 The brick patio became part of the addition in our new kitchen.<\/p>\n

\"Townhouse<\/p>\n

During the construction, we decided that we did not want the courtyard to have a sunken portion.\u00a0 So, we were able to use brick and concrete debris as some of the filler to raise it. You can see that they left plenty of room for annuals and herbs in the summer.\u00a0 The only plants that we used were two varieties of boxwoods and minature gingko trees.\u00a0 The small boxwoods will grow but not too much.<\/p>\n

\"Townhouse<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for the men doing the work, the courtyard overhaul was scheduled during the hottest weeks of the summer.\u00a0 And if that wasn’t enough, they had to deal with the existing brick wall meaning that everything that went out or came into the courtyard\u00a0 had to be hauled over the wall.\u00a0 They set up a scaffold on both sides which made the task somewhat easier.\u00a0 However, they still had to haul out tons of soil and then bring in sand, gravel, pavers, plants, trees, and mulch.\u00a0 Whew!!!\u00a0 The slate ledge in the above shot will hold flowers and plants in the summer and can also be a serving area when we entertain outside.<\/p>\n

\"Townhouse<\/p>\n

Just to refresh your memory here are some before shots.\u00a0 This is what the courtyard looked like when we bought the house.\u00a0 It wasn’t terrible, but it suffered from years of neglect.\u00a0 When we built the addition, the courtyard was then off center and wonky looking.<\/p>\n

\"Townhouse<\/p>\n

Here it is during construction and after the wall of the addition had been built.<\/p>\n

\"Townhouse<\/p>\n

Here it is when we had just a concrete slab for the addition.\u00a0 The area that sticks out is now our fireplace.<\/p>\n

\"Townhouse<\/p>\n

And here it was yesterday.\u00a0 Many man hours of labor went into this project, and we really appreciate how it all turned out.\u00a0 I am excited to see what it will look like next summer with flowers and a water feature.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Take care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are back today with another peek inside our new place.\u00a0 In case you don’t know this, it is a townhouse on a corner lot with a\u00a0 bricked in courtyard. We made getting the courtyard’s completion a priority over getting the front yard landscaped.\u00a0 We see the courtyard out our windows, walk past it on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":40020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[13,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40001"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40001"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40026,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40001\/revisions\/40026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}