Timberrrrrrrr

Last week I was so busy whining about my dying shutter that I forgot to mention one MAJOR improvement we recently made to our front facade...

WE CHOPPED THE CHRISTMAS TREE!!!!

You know the one....

It's no surprise I've had a serious love/hate relationship with this tree since day one. Sure the tree is big and beautiful, but it's a Christmas tree; and I'm sorry but a ginormous Christmas tree in your front yard only makes sense for about 1 month out of the year. 

We took full advantage last year and decorated the heck out of our tree. 

It did clean up nice, but even seeing it standing there in all of it's Christmas glory didn't soften our hearts and make us want to keep it for the long haul. The truth is, it was just too big and covered up half of our little house. It was out of scale and blocked the sun from shining down on part of our yard, causing plants and grass to die underneath it. 

So, a few weeks back, before Brent broke his hand, we got a wild hair and decided to chop her down. We did some quick research and were relieved to discover we wouldn't need a permit because our Christmas Tree, a pine, was less than 12" in diameter. Whew - full steam ahead! Brent sharpened his axe and went to chopping. I stood in front of the fence, yelling TIMBERRRRR for 10 minutes until finally.....

Down she went.....

VICTORY!!!

Once the tree was officially chopped we drug it in pieces into the woods behind our house. Besides getting sap all over our hands, it was pretty awesome because the tree literally swept our driveway! Next, Brent started digging up the root, which was pretty intense. The roots were much deeper than he had anticipated and every time he thought he had reached the end, another ugly root would rear it's ugly head. The whole process took a while, but he finally got it all out and we filled the hole back up with the dirt, covered the space with mulch and it was as if the tree had never been there. 

We've long talked about what we would put in place of the tree, should we ever decide to remove it. We were sure the front of our house would look weird with the giant tree gone, and would be begging for another large piece of greenery in its place; but surprisingly it doesn't. Our curb appeal improved immediately and the house and  yard feel more proportionate to each other. As of now, we plan to keep the plants in this front bed low, so as not to block the house. 

This is the part of the post I would typically show you a shiny "after" shot, but I'm going to wait until next week because THIS WEEKEND WE ARE PUTTING UP OUR NEW SHUTTERS! But for now, just know a de-Christmas-tree-afied yard is a happy yard!

All photos are my own.