Time to hang up the flag! Just in time for the 4th of July. Phil's job, naturally.
But what's this? Look a little closer...is he...injured?
To any unobservant onlooker, it might appear that he simply got smacked in the head with the power drill cord.
But he wants to make sure that everyone knows what really happened--he got this scar fighting for our flag.
Scraggy. Bleah.
We added many bags of fresh mulch and bordered the big sweet gum tree with rocks from all around the yard. Also the hydrangea bloomed and that helped a lot.
Added pebbles inside the bordered tree to keep it from looking untidy. I really like that a lot.
But the messiest part was actually right outside the fence. The sidewalks were busted up from the sweetgum's fat roots, there wasn't anything growing there and it just generally looked unkempt. So what did we decide to do? Pull it all out! Even though we have no idea what we're doing. I mean, why not, right?
My dad decided to pull out some of the offending sidewalk while he was at it.
And mom helped too! They love to help. It's what they do when they come to visit.
Here it is, post-parental help tornado.
The big sweetgum root really seemed like a nice feature to play with. After all, you can't take it out without compromising the stability of the tree, so we decided to copy what some of our neighbors up the street had done with their ginormous roots and just kind of work it in to the landscaping.
One side of the yard gets a lot more sun so we decided to plant it with heat loving, drought-resistant stuff.
Here's some cute little succulent-type plants we found at a really nice greenhouse in Charlotte, NC.
I'm especially fond of the hens-and-chicks. Sempervivum! I hope they propagate.
The other side is shady and has that big root, so it looks more like a woodland garden. Phil wants it to look jurassic--he found this neat mossy ground cover that will hopefully spread out...if we didn't already accidentally kill it with the heat the week before we had a chance to plant it :(
I think it's looking pretty cool though! There's a small hosta and a fern and then this burning hearts that I planted right in the root nook.
Again with some small pebbles throughout to try to tie it back to the sweetgum in the yard. And neighbor Amy gave us some creeping jenny that will hopefully take root as well. 
The little rock wall is mostly scavenged from neighbors yards (with permission!) but I think we need to build it higher so we're gonna need to get some more flat rocks. My young neighbor Ava informed me that as it stands right now any dog could just walk right into it. Then Billie Jean proved her point and walked right into it. So yes, it needs to be a bit higher.
Pretty cute for now though! Definitely a lot better looking than it was. We'll come back to it in a few weeks when everything's had a chance to settle and see how it's looking.
This is a very special episode of Phil Builds wherein an entire fence is constructed, painted and be-gated...and I did absolutely 100% nothing helpful. The mullet house did originally come with a picket fence, as you can see here:
But it was covered in jasmine (or something like it). Very pretty for about 2 weeks in April when it bursts into bloom with tiny yellow flowers...but kinda creepy for the rest of the year. We pulled it off, but the fence underneath didn't look much better yet.
That crooked gate made Phil insane with the OCD. I pointed out that it did what it was supposed to do pretty well, namely keep dogs in.
But that's not enough for our hero. He decided the fence was inadequate and needed massive repairs. First step: borrow a cool power tool from Rick and shape a whole lot of pointy pickets on the front porch.
Next he built a new gate for the front...
Meanwhile we were looking like this:
But not for long. Behold!
And it did the job! It kept dogs in!
But that's also not enough for Phil. We had a painting party with our fabulous neighbors and got the whole thing looking clean and tidy (note Amy's patented "one hand on beer, one hand on brush" painting technique).
And you'd think he would stop there. But no! He wanted to build MORE fence! MORE! Madman!
This is being constructed as sort of a double swinging gate for the left-hand side of the porch which would otherwise be open and represent a potential dog escape route. 
It looks great. "We" haven't gotten around to painting it yet but I'm quite sure it's on his agenda.
And anyway, you know what? It keeps dogs in really well.
They really needed it though. Two flights of stairs, originally painted a weird reddish color with gnarly white risers. Phil's mom sanded them all down, way back in January.
Here's how they looked after the first attempt--I had it in my head that we'd do a taupe-y light color on the risers and maybe a chocolate brown on the step. Not so much chocolate brown on the first go-round! More like an ashy grey-brown. 
So we kind of, um gave up. For, like, 2 months they stayed half-way done. And everybody who came over was like "oh, I see you are painting the stairs!" and we were like "yeahhhh. we sure are."
That blue tape just hung out for a long time. You can see the snow out the window there.
Finally Phil had enough and we went to get a new color mixed--turns out stair/porch paint just is sort of weird when it comes to deep tones. It's difficult to get that glossy espresso color that I had my heart set on simply because of how the chemical properties in oil-based, high-traffic paints work with tints. But they eventually figured it out and it still looks this slick, even now that it's dry.
Gorgeous. I love. And no more blue tape.
