Curb Appeal Part #2

The second installation of my favorites in Homewood!

Cute roofline!

A nice change with the stone

I always like porches

Two of the same house on Broadway near Oxmoor, possibly my favorite one with the windows and the old painted brick chimney

Can you see the storm door here?? I want one at my place just like this but I have some small windows at the top of my main door so I don't know if I can do it... another blogpost in the future

And now, a series of my favorite grey houses - several with great red doors!

The "hobbit house" per a yard sign that they put up around Halloween!

Save the best for last! The little home where Chappell was born!! (I think.... Holland correct me if wrong!) maybe she was just dreamed about here...

Houses of Homewood- Curb Appeal part#1

I love to walk and drive around to look at all the great houses in my neighborhood and the other neighborhoods in Birmingham. One day I felt especially voyeuristic and decided that I should take some photos of my favorites for future inspirations, if I ever design and build my dream house or something! A lot of these are on my daily walk route, and others are from my venture via automobile to the farther parts of Homewood. Jimmy thinks of me as a huge creep and likes to embarrass me in front of his friends... but it really is one of my favorite things to do!

**click on the pictures for larger images!!

I like the cottage feel

One of the few dark brick ones I love!

I like the windows and the HUGE trees in the front.

Ahhh how I love painted brick.

This yard is amazing. Can't appreciate it here but it wraps around to the right and back. About a whole other full lot, and well landscaped!

Have I mentioned I love neutrals and grey colors?? This one has grey trim inside the windows which are nice too.

Grey became the established British spelling in the 20th century, and it is but a minor variant in American English, according to dictionaries. Canadians tend to prefer grey. The non-cognate greyhound was never grayhound. Both Grey and Gray are found in proper names everywhere in the English-speaking world. Americans tend to use "gray" in reference to the color and "grey" as the adjective. - WIKIPEDIA

I want this one!

See the dog statue? I like this hidden side-yard.

Nice roofline.

Tucked in.

Sorry, this one ended up looking like a car ad...

One on my cute street!

I have a whole other round of favorites to come but thought this would, in and of itself, be sufficiently creepy of me!!

Espaliers!

I was in the backyard admiring the stunning azaleas (yes, I do this daily with Piper, don't judge :) ) and really found myself avoiding eye contact with the HUGE glaring eyesore that is the back wall of the house. This area is begging for some lovin'. I know just what to do!

Espaliers!!! Aunt Anne is an expert in the design, building, and maintenance of them. See on her website a little bit about them, Simply Gardens.

Espalier is the horticultural technique of training trees through pruning in order to create 2D patterns by the branches of the tree. The technique was popular in the Middle Ages in Europe to produce fruit inside the walls of a typical castle courtyard without interfering with the open space, and to decorate solid walls by such trees planted near them. - WIKIPEDIA!

I googled it too and found a paper by Kim Powell at NC State school of Horticulture, and she listed some good plants to use for espaliers.... of which I liked rebud tree, quince, forsythia, jasmine, and viburnum!! I must talk to Aunt Anne about what she recommends!

It is going to take a lot of work over the next few years, but I don't have any other long-term projects and I think the payoff will be worth it!

Handfuls of Surprises!

Obviously - I love the spring. I have been walking with my friend Sara lately - and she was asking about the beautiful white trees that are (were) blooming all over Birmingham... I noticed the, um, quite pungent smell, and thought it might be a Bradford Pear tree but just wasn't sure! My aunt mistakenly cut down a branch of it from her tree in her yard and put it in a vase... just to have her houseguest ask if Reba, the dog, had gotten into some rotten trash! So I did some leaf analysis - and for my own clarification distinguished between the Bradford Pear and the same-bloom-time white Cherry Blossom!!! Sadly - I don't have either in my new yard.

Bradford Pear - stinky Cherry Blossom - think DC!

I also do not have the amazing redbud tree in the new yard - but we do in Boligee!!! Here are some branches left over from Easter weekend there that I transferred to some vases in mi casa!

Another hot tree for me is the Snowball tree - viburnum opulus I think -here is one from my old neighborhood in Chapel Hill!

Things I do have:

4 pretty dogwoods,

camellias, Japanese Magnolias and Japanese Maple (which I don't always love, but it works in our front yard)

and tons and tons of azaleas!

Also have crepe myrtles, hydrangeas, phlox, ligustrum, etc...

My Christmas present from Cover was this planter - I promptly killed the main topiary-type thing in it this winter, and finally have gotten its replacement, this Dwarf boxwood, some sweet potato vine, and some million bells. Perfect right below our little songbird nest!!