An unexpected part of our extension has been the opportunity to completely redesign our front garden.

During the build we lost the top half of our driveway to house. We lost the whole lawn to rubble and dirt that wouldn’t fit in the skip.

During the actual works it was one of the few things that got me down, the very visible and constant mess at the front of our house. The first thing everyone saw and the hardship it caused actually accessing our home.

But then the build was finished. The skip was taken away. A grab lorry came and took away all the rubble and we could see our gorgeous new front door and we were left with a blank canvas.

Completely blank. Honestly. Not a blade of grass survived on the lawn. We just had three shrubs left that framed the front of our house. So we made the most of our builders and their mini digger.

We now have an extra parking space at the bottom of the drive. Not only does it make up for some of the space we lost to the extension but it means we can now park side by side and no longer have to do the car shuffle everyday. It’s something we had spoken about doing for years and now we have it.

We’ve added a path to the front door and husb has been busy laying down brick edging and making sure there is clear definition between drive, path and lawn. I love the new door, we spent ages deliberating about it, so it’s nice to now make a feature of it.

We have created a new mini bed for plants on one side of the path that I have been busy filling, not thinking it through I left that until after the path was completed, the path covered in spiky slate chips. Thank heavens for my gorgeous kneeler from Wrendale Designs. I’m not the biggest gardener but loved this because of the cute design and imagined it making the garden shed look a bit prettier. But it’s so comfy and really did save my knees!!

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All we have left to do is finish removing the hedge between our drive and the neighbours house and complete the fence. It’s what we both want as the hedge has been a lot of work for us both and now next door have a dog it’s not as secure as a fence could be. So we’ll work together on that. Then we want to build a bin store, just so we don’t have to see them.

I hadn’t seen this happening. I had been spending all my energy planning for the building work and how it would affect the internals of the property. Not giving a second thought to how it would allow us to change the outside as well.

Turns out the front garden is now one of the things I love the most!!

Disclosure – I was gifted my Garden Kneeler over the summer. All thoughts opinions and images are my own.