Our front yard is rather large so to manage the landscaping of the whole yard I’ve broken it down into smaller areas that I plan to tackle one at a time. Unfortunately because of budget restraints I usually start a project then run out of money to buy everything I need, so a lot of landscaping/decorating/renovating projects are half done!

This is part 1 of the “Front Entrance Path” project, and is one of the smallest and easiest landscaping I’ll be doing.

This is how our front yard looked when we moved in, August 2008

As you can see from the image above, there is no clear path to the front steps or door, especially as the driveway and letterbox are way over to the right (out of frame), on our actual street. Our front door faces the other street on a corner block. There was a narrow pebble garden along the front of the house, taking up about a third of the area that leads up to the steps.

Before

I dug up the old garden, leveled the dirt, and marked out the area using the cement edging that was around the original garden bed. There were also some cement pavers leading up to the steps that were almost invisible, buried in grass and dirt. I cleaned these off and placed them evenly leading up to the steps, then filled the whole enclosed area with the whitest gravel available from Canberra Sand and Gravel (which as it turns out is not actually that white, especially when wet. It’s not too bad though).

Part 2 is yet to be completed, which involves painting the cement pavers, steps and landing a nice dark charcoal colour with paver paint, which will contrast nicely with the gravel and should actually make it look whiter.

After

You can see all of the process photos of this project on my flickr account.

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