Here are some pictures of my house and yard.

my flowerbeds

Lovely! That porch looks perfect for sitting and stitching! I live in a trailer- Nothing pretty!

Beautiful gardens and house! Must spend a lot of time to keep it so pretty< but well worth it!

Wow! All that lovely GREEN!!! I love to see everyone's gardens & homes. I live in a mobile home too, and because of the drought here, rarely water - thus, my "tortured flower garden" LOL
Thanks for sharing with us!

Denise, I love your house, so different. Must show you my place sometime here in Spain. Your figurines in the garden are so pretty.

Elle

Your house is wonderful! Do you spend a lot of time on your porch? I LOVE a wrap around porch. Your yard is really pretty too. How big is your property? It looks huge.

We have almost an acre in our little town. We are on a corner lot, the place belonged to my husbands parents before we moved here 24 years ago. There were very few trees by the house and none out by the wishing well/pond area. We started with a small flower bed that turned into a pond. I had a shade perenial garden and when we did the house over we had to move the plants. We made a path with the plants and the next year, put in stepping stones and river rock. My 3 flower gardens are on another part of the yard and that is where the dirt went from digging out a new basement. instead of trying to get grass to grow again I planted perenials. My mom, sisters and I exchange plants so we don't spend as much. Most of my plants are from clearance and if they grew then they grew, I really didn't care too much because it is always fun to find more. We lifted the house and put a new basement in, one of the men that worked on the crew took some plants because he has plants from every place he has worked.

DA - your house is so "IOWA" - makes me think of the 15 years I lived there! Such lovely homes - neat and tidy and well loved and cared for. Hope you get out of the rain belt soon!!

Love it!! I wish I had the time to landscape... and I LOVE the porch!!

Wow a big house and lovely grounds. I think 4 of my house could fit in yours. Lovely grounds , I know how much work they can be. I love posts like this........... :D

It must be soooooooo nice to have a big house. I live in a apartment size house.....BUT just for me & hubby it's ok. I love your porch. I always wanted a wrap around porch

Beautiful! My favorite part? The detached 3-car garage! My husband would be in heaven!

How on earth do you LIFT a house to put in a new basement?.....I just can't imagine that.........do you not have really deep concrete foundations like we do over here?

Karen

Denise your house is beautiful...

They put hydrolic jacks on the basement floor to the floor beams of the first floor. once they had it jacked up a few feet then slid these huge beams under the house and jacked it up really high. Then they dug a deep sloped hole toward the house and used big equipment to bang the rocks out of the foundation. They dug out all around and below the house on beams. We had to enter the house by planks , very scary at first and then I decided I could join the circus.
The foundation we put in was pink styrofoam forms and cement in the middle. Really insulates well and we have tubes in the floor so hot water runs thru it. Very nice.

Don't you just love that radiant heat?? We have it in our basement floor as well as the first floor. I spend most of my time year round bare foot inside and warm floors in the middle of winter in Vermont are really nice. And no registers to collect dust!! When we built our house 10 years ago, that was my first priority. The second was warm and cold water mixed for the toilets. That way the tank doesn't sweat from the cold water.

Isn't that fun :wink: having your house up in the air! We did the same thing except we installed a 10 foot above-ground basement so the house was really high on its stilts. And, we bought all the stuff from Vermont to run heat through the floor. It's fabulous having warm floors in the winter. In the summer we can bring our cold water in through the floor so it cools the house. My house isn't nearly so fancy as yours, though, and the woods keep threatening to take over the yard. If we don't mow the grass, trees grow! Makes flower gardening a real accomplishment. I love your gardens.

b.zang - love your part of the world. We spent some time up there. ook took the Canadian rail from Toronto to Jasper and spent a week in Banff. Totally amazing area. Made extended stops in Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary. Another trip was to Hudson and North Bay and Ottawa. Most of our trips are North into Canada. Cooler weather, unspsoiled country. My mother was born in Canada but closer to the Ottawa area.

We have a log home in the woods and share the lanscape with the wild animals. We plant it, they eat it. Only far away neighbors - very peaceful and quiet.

Your house is just beautiful. :-) I always like houses with big porches.
I lived in a very small apartment but it is just me and hubby.
Maybe some time in the future, I'll have a house with a big porch :!:
Your garden is very nice too. :D
yoya in ohio

Oooooh, i just LOVE your front veranda!!! So nice and peaceful looking :)

Your house and yard look very inviting and homey. I hope the tornados didn't get to you.

Lovely - I also was wondering about the "lifting of the house to put in a basement"

Beautiful house and gardens. You must spend lots of time on your yard. It is so lush and green.

Whoa...what a gorgeous home and garden...how do you have time to quilt with all the yard work someone obviously spends hours on? Your place is quite lovely. Makes me want to throw rocks at mine but,I won't because I love our home and garden, too. I don't do yard work or play in the dirt. Thankfully, DH loves that so he does ours.

Just beautiful--what a wonderful place to come home to. The porch is my favorite! Or maybe the gardens. Or maybe sitting on the porch looking at the gardens. :D

Your home and grounds are beautiful. How are you doing with all the rain? I noticed standing water by the wishing well. Are you in a safe area? I feel so bad for everyone around the country and world that is having such horrid weather . Thanks for sharing and keep dry!
Chrissy

In 1980 I bought a huge Victorian house with a wide, covered porch across the front and side of the house. I loved that porch. The house was build in 1909 and was the showplace of our town when built. When I bought it it had been a rental for 30 years, had had an electrical fire in it and was 4 minutes from condemnation....we had to jack the house up to repair basement concrete walls and to level the house and porch/deck since it was built prior to alleys and 2 streets that paralleled the property so when they cut those streets and alleys, the road grader equipment must have bumped and drug 2 of the concrete piers holding up the 10 foot wide deck and roof section ...nothing was ever done to straighten these up or to shore them up so over the next 1/2 century the weight of the deck and roof pulled everything away from the house and caused all kinds of problems. When we jacked it up and leveled it I was in charge of watching the level inside the house in the living room/dining room. As they jacked the house creaked, cracked and groaned like nothing I'd ever heard or imagined...scary beyond belief but we did it and my condemned house eventually turned out beautiful but it took me 10 years and wages from 2 jobs to pay for the remodel, repairs, etc. I was single and my dad had a fit when I bought the place as before I bought it I hardly knew how to change a lightbulb but I learned...still have the well used (and abused, at times) How To books with 18 volumes giving minute details on how to do everything. I did all the work on it that I could do and hired out most of the rest of it. Good thing I was young! I couldn't do it again and wouldn't even THINK of doing it now. :lol: :roll:

Your home has a very "welcoming" look to it. I can tell you and your family enjoy and love it...it is so well cared for! I could sit on your porch for hours..thanks for sharing!