Our White Picket Fence {Complete!}

How many weeks ago was it that I mentioned our new picket fence?  Too many to count.  Nonetheless, I finally got outside when the sun was right to steal some shots of our new fence.  All that blood, sweat, and tears...okay, maybe no tears, but there may have been a few cuts...was worth the work.  We are so happy with it and still weeks later are in awe of it.

Living on a corner has its pros and cons.  Con being needing to put up a fence to keep people off our yard.  Pro being that so many others get to enjoy looking at our home as often as we do.

I cannot even tell you how many people yell out their window, "looks great!" "nice job!" "love the fence!"  It pretty much makes my day.  One lady even got out of her car to tell us how thankful she was that we bought the house!  Bless her heart.

While we were at it, we also made some changes to the yard.  I finally painted the posts on our porch white and we changed up the landscaping of our garden.

We considered doing a cement border like we did in our backyard for the garden last year.  So I was thanking my lucky stars that I was patient enough to go with the plastic borders from Walmart.  Dodged a major potential husband wife moment there.  I should know myself better.  I don't like permanent anything.

You can see we "sauded" our own grass with the grass we dug up to change the garden to fill in where the existing garden border was.  It is surprisingly growing in pretty well after watering the heck out of it.

We plan on getting some bark to fill in the garden once our wallets can replenish the cost of the fence.

One of my favorite parts is how lush and big the garden is getting.  We picked up a few more plants and a Crape Myrtle tree.  

We also bought some hanging solar lanterns from Overstock.com {here is a link to the ones we bought in case you were interested, $65 for a set of 6}.  A few got knocked over while school was still in session so I ended up buying some different shepherd hooks from Home Depot that were a bit sturdier than the ones they came with. 

The hooks are much taller than I had wanted but they actually add just enough height to peek above the fence so that you can see the lights from the street.  I love when inconveniences end up being just the perfect fit.  Because really, this whole fence thing was due to an unhappy and stressful circumstance that ended up resulting in a big step closer to making our house our dream home.  For this I am thankful.

We dream of one day remodeling and putting on some additions to the house.  When we do that we hope to put in a whole wrap around porch.  We dream big dreams!

We love our neighborhood and our super awesome neighbors {no perfect dream house can guarantee that!}.  We love being walking distance from the school.  And we love our back and front yard layout.  So we may just be here for the long haul.

My mom was super helpful, as always, with the gardening.  She came over many mornings to dig even if one of us was watching the baby...

He even got into the digging a little bit!

And after all that, though I love driving up to our house, the view from the porch is definitely my favorite...

More porch posts still to be added.  Brent put up the ones in the front during our yard sale last year.  We were just sitting there so he thought he would put them up.  One of our yard sale customers also lended some helpful advice.  I love friendly people.

Working in the yard also has provided a lot of opportunities to visit with our neighbors.  We have been able to get to know a few more neighbors that we otherwise do not have the opportunity to talk to.

Not only do we work in our yard...but we spend time in it.  Takes me back to that idea of slowness.  By being and living in our home we reap the benefits of building community in our neighborhood.  I love that.

If only you all lived closer, we would sit and have some iced tea on the porch and then I might hand you a shovel.  Because that is the type of friend I am! {wink}