Upon first glance, the yard looked like a little slice of heaven - fruit trees, chicken coop, pagoda, pool, raised garden beds, a great covered patio and lots of space. What we didn't realize is that what we thought was clover was actually a very nasty weed known as 'bindi' that turns into horrible, brown ground cover full of hard spiky balls, and what we thought was grass was predominantly weeds… We also discovered that 2 out of the 3 potted ficus trees around the pool were dying and/or infested with ants, that the chicken coop had been defunct for years and weeds had grown up thick and waist high, that every tree and vine desperately needed pruning.
View from the back door out to the shed/yard/pool.
Dying ficus tree, overgrown lemon tree and bougainvillea next to the chicken coop.
Dilapidated chicken coop, overgrown peach tree, crazy huge weeds, and volunteer tomato plants! (hidden under the weeds)
The bougainvillea attempting to eat the pagoda, and the 'lawn' that turned out to be nothing but weeds :( Our friend Brad decided to give me a heart attack by informing me that, 'one year of seeding leads to seven years of weeding'. Thanks Brad. Nice pool though!
The view of the front yard from the master bedroom - the garden bed erupted in weeds shortly after this photo was taken…
And the huge neglected grape vines in their bed of weeds.
Rob discovered that both the window sills and the baseboards were solid jarrah timber - Bonus! We decided to go with the bare wood look. Stripping back a few decades of paint = a WHOLE LOT of sanding and equal amounts of dust. But the end results were beautiful.
About one month ago, Rob and I became new home owners. Our new house is in a Perth suburb about 8 km from our work places. It's definitely a 'fixer-upper' but the location is ideal. The neighborhood seems nice and quiet even though we're fairly close to a major road. We're quite close to shops, bus lines and one of the major rivers that runs through Perth. I'm able to ride my bike to work along a network of bike paths that meander along our local creek and then the green belt along the river. It's a beautiful ride and I feel pretty lucky every day as I pedal along.
