Trees.
I hope we all still remember what real-life trees look like.
I’ve mentioned many times before that our house was a fixer-upper and we had to do a lot of work before actually moving in. Of course now it’s been a few years since then so there aren’t any major changes and fixes we have to do. But we’ve been adding new elements to our home like new plants and crops, or benches and seating areas around the outdoor area of our house. I think our house has changed very drastically since these three stages:
Renovation
Moving In
After Moving In
There are a variety of things that can make a place feel like home to you.
Maybe it’s the decor, or the people who live there with you. Or maybe it’s the location that makes you feel relaxed and at ease. Many people have different preferences when it comes to making themselves a/o their families comfortable. And it can be a few or a lot, but whatever it is, in the end if it makes you happy then that’s okay. For me, home is where I can curl up in pajamas all day, hair in a messy bun, and cuddle with my family and hang out together no matter what time of day.
Like I mentioned before, you can get homey feels from objects that make you feel happy and at peace too. Which can be plants, pillows, paintings, anything really. But in order to make our living space into a home, we had to make some changes to our house as well.
Obviously, it didn’t all happen at once, thus the different stages that I listed a few paragraphs before. Everything that was done for the house was done gradually and at the time when it felt like the right time. Nonetheless, my parents both underwent a lot of hard work to progressively make our house into more of a home. And there were definitely a lot of difficult things to do with each new addition or movement that was done around the house. Like moving our planter boxes, which are extremely heavy built.
This house has undergone many beautiful changes, interior and exterior. But I think the most gorgeous parts are in our front and backyard, where we have a copious amount of plants.
Many of the plants that we have, were grown from seeds or bought when they were still young, and there are also very old trees around our property that have been here for a number of years, quite possibly a couple decades. But of course, my dad being the big lumberjack he is(I’m kidding, he’s not a lumberjack), decided to go out and buy a bunch of trees!
I know what you’re thinking,
“Kanmani, they’re just wee little baby trees, what’s the fuss?”
NO THEY WERE NOT “WEE LITTLE BABY TREES.”
As you can see from the font size, this triggered me quite a lot.
My dad had spent four days. FOUR. Getting various different types of trees and planting them in our side yard. And they weren’t full-grown adult trees, but they were about 6 or 7 feet when my dad had brought them home. One of them being a maple tree. Either way, those tree’s were way bigger than I expected them to be. And i was okay with that part obviously.
However, what I wasn’t expecting how arduous it would actually be to plant these awfully heavy trees. So I assumed my dad would call someone, or maybe a professional, to help us put the tree safely and properly into the ground. Seeing as that was much more logical and harmless.
But my dad being the person he is goes with the complete opposite and decided to do the whole thing by himself. Which made both my mom and I go absolutely bonkers. While my dad is a very hard worker, and is always stubborn to do things by himself. He also has this incredibly constant knack to end up hurting himself physically in the process.
There have been countless instances where my dad would waddle into the house like a guilty child who ate a forbidden sweet in the kitchen, while cradling his hand, finger, or ankle with a scratch or cut. While he would receive an earful of scolding from my mother and me while my dad listened to us sheepishly.
Anyway, the reason my mom and I always go ballistic when my dad does another major project without any other person’s guidance, is because my dad will end up getting hurt. But it’s not like my dad listens to us anyway. No. He just barrels forward with whatever he had his heart set on doing
And this time was no different.
So there he was, paint splattered jeans, working gloves, and a massive shovel reading to disembowel the ground and burying the roots of a tree into it. Which is very laborious work mind you.
And if you think that’s hard, before my dad could even start planting them, he had to get them out of the car. Which was also super complicated and difficult. I mean, imagine taking a tree nearly the size of a basketball player out of your car while it’s laying down. Your gonna get slapped by some branches and get scritchy scratchies all over your arms and legs. But did that stop my dad?
Apparently not!
My dad spent four days planting four different trees in our front yard by himself, with little to no assistance. And each day he would have to transfer the tree out of the car before going over to the front yard to get it ready for planting.
After that, my dad would start digging subaqeuous holes in the spots where he wanted to plant the trees and let them grow. The dirt in our front yard isn’t, by any means, soft either. It’s good but it’s very hard to just scoop out in once go. So my dad had to go through like a bulldozer through that dirt because of how hard it was. While in the sweltering Californian sun.
But in the end, with all that hard work my dad had to do, we ended up with our front yard looking really gorgeous and fresh. And I think we’re all happy with the results.
I really wanted to do a post that was more focused on the natural aspects of home design before I start going into interior design strategies. And I hope this also helps to give you ideas on things you can do around your house or if you wanna try something new.
Stay safe, stay happy, and keep your plants(and yourself)happy!
Love you!