Let's get this BLOG started!

And so we begin. 

My name is Kathleen McKelvey Rentfro, and I am married to Owen C. Rentfro.
We met in ARCHITECTURE School at the University of Arizona in 1977.  Owen finished architecture school , and I changed to interior design. So that's us, an architect and an interior designer, married for a bit more than 33 years.

That's the way he introduced himself to me 34 years ago, "HI, my name is Owen C. Rentfro, would you like to go to dinner?" We joke that he said "can you cook?" instead of go to dinner, but he was too polite for that. He didn't ask if I could cook until the second date. Of course I can, and, that is how our life together began. Things got off to a bit of a rocky start, I was expecting him THAT evening, FRIDAY, and he didn't show up until SATURDAY night.  But things have gone much smoother since then, and we've been happily married for 33 years, and are planning on at least another 33. We plan for those to be happy too! We worked hard to go to school and be a young married couple, but we managed, and even then we did plenty of PROJECTS wherever we lived. Our life together has pretty much been one big do-it-youself project after another.

This BLOG is going to follow us in our quest to finish all the projects in and around our current home. I'll also include projects form friends and clients.
We have a nice little MID-CENTURY MODERN red brick house. It started out at about 1600 SF and so far,..............we have added about 200 SF.  I have plans to add another 200 SF at least. I'm a big "planner", and we do most of the things I plan, but we often get side tracked on one project or 10 others.

Now that the weather is starting to cool off, and by cool off I mean days under 100 degrees, our plans are to get our yard shaped up. So far we have pretty much let whatever would grow, grow.  Owen spends lots of time pruning the WORLDS SPIKIEST MESQUITE TREE, and we water anything that pops up,but it is time to develop a real landscape plan and get to work. 

this is the area around our vintage 1950's round pool

with the MESQUITE tree in the background

There are three areas we plan to work on:

A. The area around and under the Mesquite tree.

B. The area east of the porch.

C. The front patio and driveway. 

Sounds like we have a big area to work with, but it isn't, not when you hear the list of things we want to include in our landscape plan.  None of these areas are particularly large, about 900 SF east of the porch, about the same under the MESQUITE tree, and about 1500 SF for the front patio and driveway, most of which is driveway.

THE LIST
a fire pit
a fountain
a giant SCRABBLE board
two seating areas
a barbeque area
wood storage for the inside fireplace
a patio wall creating a courtyard for the entry
brick paving

a small lawn

our raised bed garden

vines for the BIG trellis
and PLANTS, lots and lots of PLANTS, all flowering of course!

That's about all I have time to introduce you to right now, but there will be PLENTY more later!

NEXT TIME, photos of the "before" areas.

Kathleen