Amsterdam, that's a good looking building

Thank you to R.S. for sending a picture of the Het Scheepvaartmuseum (National Maritime Museum) in Holland.  Constructed 1656 as a naval warehouse.  A handsome mansard, for sure.  

Hardscaping & Landscaping

I've been spending a lot of time at Kirkwood Material and noticed this great little mansard.  Kirkwood Material is a magical place.  All the stone, blocks, walls and bricks you could ever imagine.   And of course, I buy all of our plants and flowers come from Sherwood Forest.

It's been an 18 month backyard repair project and we're about finished.  We had thought we were going to build a carport, but learned we'd have to take out our only remaining big tree so we passed for fear we'd burn up in the summer.  It took a long time to get to this point.  We moved into our house 15 years ago.  We planted some stuff in the backyard and a lot of it became overgrown and had to be ripped out.  The brick patio seemed to sink and the beds around it spilled onto the brick.  The grass died.  The fence and porch railing needed repair and paint.

My husband and I did almost all the work ourselves, except as noted below.    We did put in good trees back then - 3 Japanese maples and a red maple.

what we did:
ripped out Viburnum
repaired fence
repaired porches
painted fence (paid a guy to do this)
put down sod
kept Lion's Head maple, 2 ornamental Japanese Maples, large red maple
neighbor repaired and painted the white garage
repaired and relaid the brick patio
relaid the brick in the gangway
built retaining wall in gangway
put down limestone blocks/built retaining wall on patio
added two new flower beds with a fish pond
dug a curvy path to improve drainage
edged and filled path with gravel (paid a guy to do this)
got some proper furniture

before.

before

after

after

Fairest of them All

Two mansards from Fairoyal Subdivision in Des Peres.  There was a third but the neighbors were starting to wonder why I was driving so slowly in my crappy old van and taking pictures of houses.  Love this neighborhood off Barrett Station Road.  It's hilly and cute and full of nice families.