curb appeal and personal style
curb appeal and personal style
on lowbrow landscaping and baby flies
In addendum to yesterday:
I love to find the worst house on the best street I can afford. Not only is there more room to add value to the property, but you typically can get away with a lot more with what you do with your yard.
Our current home was neglected before we purchased it. During our first renovation, I removed thirty four dead rats from the ceiling while performing an asbestos mitigation procedure.
The yard wasn’t much better.
The neighbours were happy that someone new would be taking care of the place as they believed we’d actually take care of the place.
Problems only arise when your version of ‘taking care of the place’ clashes with what they consider ‘taking care of the place’.
Either way works though.
With expectations set low by the fact that you’ve bought something deemed ‘ugly’ or neglected by the marketplace, doing ANYTHING is an improvement.
If the work you do it beautiful and people love it?
They’ll have something to talk about.
And if you do something with your yard that they don’t like?
The neighbours will have something to talk about too. People love complaining. By making something out of the ordinary, you’ve given them something to complain about.
You then get to live as you want and they get to feel indignant, entitled and insulted.
Who could ask for anything more?
Expectations turn us into excretions.
Or at least the place where the excrement comes out.
When do you feel like a crappy old house on an expensive street?
Do you try to blend in with the neighbourhood?
Or,
Are you creating your own special brand of curb appeal?
What is that convertible in your art? It looks like an ugly cross between an Edsel and an Alfa.
I'm approaching the 2nd year in this house. I'd be creating new landscaping if I were 30 years younger. My wife insisted we take down several trees right away. She likes a house visible from the curb. I love trees. I mourn the loss and miss the oxygen.
Blending in is a lot of effort with the reward of not having an impact.
A sad state of affairs.
Occasionally when I am doing my thing, someone will have a WTF look on their face. Most people are smiling but some people look horrified.
Those horrified people? Don't have a coffee with them. It's best for both of you.
I have never blended in and I crave change. So, the goal of being a happy, intriguing old crone is well on its way. I am so very thankful for my spouse. He has loved all the me's I have been since we met when I was 21. Once, many me's ago, he asked where was the girl he met, the kick ass finance whiz. I said she's still here under the new layers. I have been teaching for 30 years. I have become a gardener of young people, a far cry from the financial warrior wanna be. Other me's were quite a bit harder to accept, yet accept he did.
Rather than the new layers being heavy, they have been freeing. I have been hoarding accoutrement to support the next me. She feels like a pressure cooker wanting to get out.
Another me just woke up last Saturday and asked to be able to form the next layer. I find myself with two possible me's. Is it a mutually exclusive choice or a now this, then that?
Unsure is my current status. Sure is my default. No one will be more surprised than me as to what happens next.
I hope my WTF face comes with a smile.