From the Builder

Greetings!

The old saying “April showers bring May flowers” is true. Unless you live in Idaho, then it’s “March showers bring April flowers” and leave us longing for some sunshine and the ability to get outdoors and enjoy this wonderful part of the country that we live.

Living in Idaho, many of us really enjoy the outdoors, which is reflected in the latest homeowner trend of creating an enjoyable outdoor living space. Decks, patios, and pergolas are high on the list of home improvement projects and add a desirable and very marketable resale element to your home.

In this month’s e-newsletter, we have included articles on spring lawn maintenance, landscaping, and outdoor living spaces to lend inspiration to your home improvement projects this spring. We hope these ideas are useful to you and any home improvement plans you may be considering this spring.

Sincerely,

Jeff Hibbard
 

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Outdoor Living Space: An Extension of Your Home and Lifestyle

While many of us take a great deal of pride in our homes, taking time fixing, rearranging, and organizing various aspects of our home’s interior, we also know the importance of keeping up the outside of our home and maintaining the landscaping that enhances our home’s exterior qualities. Come early spring, when the weather is favorable, it's difficult to miss out on a nice day outside.

Turning a yard, patio, porch, or other type of outdoor area into a functional outdoor living space can add to the overall usable living space and enjoyment of your home. If you have the right setup, you can spend more time in the sunshine and fresh air. Hosting outdoor events like cookouts may even bring a steady flow of family, friends, and neighbors in and around your house.

Just because you're decorating for a space that's outside of your home's living room doesn't mean you have to forget the principles behind designing a social area. When most people set up a living room, they don't position all of the furniture against one wall -- they arrange the furniture to create an area where people can sit and talk.
 

For porches and patios, it's easy to forget this concept and simply push all of the furniture up against the house, so that everyone is facing away from the house when sitting down. If you add an extra couch or set of chairs that face the house, suddenly all of your guests have a chance to talk to each other, play cards, or enjoy dinner in an outdoor space that has the comfortable, intimate feeling of a living room.

To create an outdoor space that feels like it has purpose, sometimes it helps to establish a kind of enclosure or designated space. For example, a seating area in your backyard can be given its own floor that sets it apart from the lawn's grass. Laying down a design of brick or gravel as a foundation will clearly separate the living space from the rest of the outdoors. Low walls around the area can also provide a good sense of enclosure without making people feel like they're in another room of your house.

To read more, click here.

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Landscaping: Turning Your Property Into a Paradise

By Treasure Valley Lawn Service
26056 Lon Davis
Parma, ID 83660
208-722-9086

Do you wish your front yard welcomed you home? Do you want your backyard to be your favorite get-a-way? Now, more then ever, each of us can benefit from our own personal “Eden”. Whether you have a country estate, an average backyard, a patio or deck, our friends at Treasure Valley Lawn Service want to help you create your very own oasis.

Have you ever had a friend who got a new hairstyle and all of a sudden they looked 100% better maybe even younger? The shape of their face is more appealing. Maybe their eyes look brighter. Well, what happened is that, with the snip of the scissors their hair now relates much better to their face because certain principles of design were used that hadn’t been before.

Well, the situation with your property is similar to your friend’s new haircut. Overly mature or even a lack of landscaping can actually add age to your property. It can also diminish your home’s curb appeal.

Treasure Valley Lawn Service encourages homeowners to take into account their lifestyle and how they plan on using their landscaping designs to add enjoyment to their home. Here are some things to consider when you begin the planning process:

Can You Spruce Up What's Already There?
You need to start somewhere, so why not start with what you have? That patio and deck will look good as new again with a coat of stain or power wash. The overgrown shrubs can be shaped into a work of art with a trimmer. And the gardens will look much cleaner with many hands helping to clean them out.

Can you plant climbing vines to hide what you don't want to see or have you considered a living fence to retain your privacy? Fast growing evergreen shrubs planted close together will soon become a natural barrier to a less than desirable view. Also, they will dampen obtrusive sounds or excessive wind that would otherwise lessen the enjoyment of your outdoor living space.
 

To read more, click here.

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Spring Lawn Care

Neglecting your spring lawn care will only make for more yard work and headaches later on in the summer. In fact, most homeowners will only need to implement about half of the following tips for spring lawn care, depending upon your own unique circumstances. 

Spring Lawn Care Tip #1: Raking
Raking will be your first task of spring lawn care. You may have already raked leaves in the fall, but raking is for more than just removing leaves: it's for controlling thatch, too.

Thatch is a layer of living and dead organic matter that occurs between the green matter and the soil surface. Excessive thatch (over 1/2 inch thick) creates a favorable environment for pests and disease, an unfavorable growing environment for grass roots, and can interfere with some lawn care practices. A thatch build-up of more than 1/2 inch is considered excessive.

Thatch is the reason why it is recommended that, when you rake leaves in the fall, you make the effort to rake deeply. Don't just skim the surface, so as to remove the leaves, but a deep raking will remove thatch, too. Even if you followed this advice in fall, a spring raking is still advised as it will remove grass blades that died over the winter -- dead blades that are just waiting to become thatch!

As you are de-thatching your lawn this spring, be aware of any matted patches, in which the grass blades are all stuck together. A disease known as “snow mold” can cause this, and new grass may have difficulty penetrating these matted patches. But your raking and de-thatching efforts will be sufficient to solve this problem.

Spring Lawn Care Tip #2: Check for Compaction
If your lawn is subjected to high levels of traffic year after year, it may eventually start to show signs of decline. In such cases, your lawn is probably suffering from compaction. For instance, the presence of moss plants signals compaction (among other things).

The remedy for compaction is aeration. Lawn aerators can be rented at your local rental center. Experts recommend postponing lawn aeration until fall. But if, during your "spring lawn checkup," you become aware of compaction, at least you can plan on setting aside some time in the fall to take care of it. 

To read more, click here.
 

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Now That's a Deck!

                  BEFORE                                                     AFTER

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The photo on the left is an example of the building practice standard that was seen on numerous starter homes back in the heyday when the housing market was at its peak. These homes were cranked out in about 60 to 90 days and targeted the young first time home buyer. The new homeowner wanted an outdoor living area that would accommodate entertaining friends and family in the privacy of her back yard. A covered Trex® deck with can style lighting is constructed in place of the landing and stairs. By using Trex® materials for the deck and railing, the homeowner will have a virtually maintenance free covered area for those summer barbeques and family gatherings for years to come.