1006 Moore St. - The Front Yard

​​This house was a HUGE education for my husband and me. It was our primary residence and I LOVED this house. Looking back I can say with certainty that I overlooked many of its flaws (accidentally on purpose?) so that purchasing it at the negotiated price seemed like a good idea (it wasn’t.) After all is said and done, I still love this house. It was a great learning experience and it allowed us to “save” enough money that once we sold it, we were able to purchase a better rental property outright. Here’s what I learned from the front yard: (Click "Read More" to continue...)

IWhen I was preparing my renovation budget and scope of work prior to writing an offer, the front yard got about 0.01 seconds of my thought process. I thought, we’ll just clean it up a bit. Maybe $500? A couple of weekends worth of work? Boy did I underestimate both the scope and budget. After everything is tallied, I think the budget came in at about $3,000 and countless hours of sweat equity. Neither of which is bad if you plan on them (which I did not,) but when you have 10 other projects with that budget overage (or more), it really adds up quick.
 
There are still things I wish I would’ve done to the front, such as removing the bushes at the patio supports and between the bedroom windows, resurfacing the patio, trimming up the oak a bit more, and adding additional rock and tall, colorful grasses to the area beneath the bedroom windows. Painting the brick would have also made a huge difference (we never liked the orange but had to stop somewhere.) Isn’t there always another project?
 
I can tell you that I learned so much about budgeting time and money from just the front yard on this property. I’ll definitely have a much better understanding of what it will take on the next project we tackle. And I hope this helps a few of you avoid the mistakes I did when evaluating a property’s workload and monetary commitment. 

​Here is a snapshot of scope and budget after everything was said and done. It’s a far cry from $500 and “cleaning it up a bit.”

Initial Scope:

1. Replace front window with a larger one
2. Remove 4 huge bushes at the front, trim everything else back
3. Try to salvage as much of the greenery as possible
4. Remove security bars on front windows

Final Scope:

1. Replace front window with a larger one
2. Remove diseased Italian cypress, 4 huge bushes nearest the street, 50+ year-old ivy, and other overgrowth/diseased/dead plantings
3. Trim up the oak tree (it probably could’ve used a bit more, but in such a brown landscape it was hard for us to cut it back at all. Plus it did a great job of shading the front of the house from the El Paso sun.)
4. Add 6 new trees and other perennials along front and side yards
5. Remove security bars on front windows
6. Remove old tile on front patio slab (I still wish I’d had time to resurface it, sigh)
7. Fix rusted-out gate posts on both sides of house and replace chain link gates with wooden ones
8. Seal all holes, shrunken window caulk, and generally make the exterior impenetrable to water, sand and critters
9. Reconfigure sprinkler system for even water coverage
10. Add drip irrigation to front and side yards
11. Tuck point rock wall
12. Add rock to side yards (also wish I had included the front left side of the house, sigh)
13. Repair and repaint gutters
14. Repair and repaint garage door and add accent strips
15. Remove old front door lite and replace with a more modern one (instead of purchasing a new door)
16. Replace old front door hardware and replace with modern one and electronic deadbolt
17. Reconfigure storm door (I designed it and my husband & dad fabricated the new one)
18. Remove and replace rusted out support columns on front patio
19. Replace front porch light (my dad had a used one in his garage so it was FREE)
20. Add house numbers to porch
21. Add some solar lights to front walkway
22. Replace mailbox under front porch
23. Remove the dozens of large rocks the former owner had collected and "decorated" with
24. Probably some other stuff which I've blocked from my memory

Initial budget:
Misc. supplies and plants: $500
 
And here is a much more complete budget of what it actually cost:
Debris removal, labor included: $140 
New Trees: $169
Front perennials: $146
Front rock work, labor included: $680
Front wall tuck point, labor included: $150
Paint: $25
Front door lite insert kit: $127
Front door entry handle: $218
Electronic deadbolt: $93
New front window: $315
Garage door accent strips: $45
New Irrigation backflow, labor included: $325
I’m going to guess another $500 in misc. supplies and recycled materials we were able to obtain for free-fifty.
Note: Labor is NOT included unless specified
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Total Spent: $2,933