Landscaping is a great way to make your new house feel like a home.
When Darin and his wife Jennifer moved to Calgary from Fort McMurray recently, they bought a house whose property needed a lot of work. But now that everything’s coming together, their space is starting to feel more like their own.
When the Zandees first moved in, the front yard was overgrown with an array of greenery that obscured the entrance to the front of the house. Not only that, there wasn’t a place to enjoy the late afternoon sun.
“Our Assiniboine Project Manager, Justin, is great to work with,” says Darin. He has worked on our yard a few years in a row now and we ask for him specifically because he takes the time to make a good plan with us.”“The first year they ripped up the whole front yard, except that big Blue Spruce tree,” adds Darin. “And we had a clean slate to work with for that front patio.”
The transformation in the front yard is spectacular. It’s not just the look that’s changed, the whole front of the house has a much more welcoming feel than it used to. And a space that was once overgrown is now the perfect spot to unwind at the end of the day. “The front yard is west facing so we get wonderful evening sun,” says Darin. “We spend the early evenings there enjoying the sunset and talking to neighbours.”
The patio is a natural extension of the pre-existing brickwork on the house, while the herring-bone pattern of the paving stones is contained within a fine line of edge brick. And the large decorative stone next to the Blue Spruce has the effect of anchoring everything together.“Justin helped a lot with the design and recommendations of materials,” says Darin. “And most importantly, he ensured high quality and precision.”
So what was once an unusable, almost uninviting, tangle of greenery and crumbling old bricks is now like an additional sun- filled room of the Zandees’ home.
“We share the space constantly with family and friends,” adds Darin.