Inspiration. It is everywhere. And as of late we have been completey and utterly inspired by a home in our current neighborhood. The front of our mid-century modern home is dull. Yes, the garage is neat. The huge front window is lovely. And the front door is cool. But, look, it is bland and that’s the truth of it. And ultimately we are facing east/west, which means, we bake in the afternoon sun. Every front window, the front door handle, the whole shebang gets quite warm and a bit uncomfortable.

We have always known that we will need to add a little here and a lot there to make our front and back yard reflect who we are and look the way we would like them to look. It was twisting our noodle to come up with a front yard design that didn’t turn the yard into an ugly mess of too much, that didn’t completely change the mid-century modern feel and that didn’t look misplaced or halfway complete. As we were driving near our current home we spotted this front yard.

The treatment is incredible. Here’s are better image straight on.

It is our plan to build the cinder block wall in front of our main window, leaving enough room to have visibility, but reducing sun exposer and creating privacy. We will light the walk way seen in the original image of our home for a pathway guests can easily navigate and create ambiance and safety. We will add the trellises in front of the bedroom windows to provide extra privacy to our girls rooms and reduce direct heat in the afternoon. I love the vines growing on the wood, they add character and depth as well as providing greenery to an otherwise fairly clean landscape.

We already have large pavers and river rock creating a path to our front door, but we will be replacing the wood dividers with metal rusted railroad ties. Currently we have agave plants lining the walk way, but we much prefer those lining the sidewalk and instead would like to have feather grass along the walk way. Red Yucca plants would add a lovely color to the deserts cape already in place and we would love a desert specific tree in the yard, with low maintenance and limited thorns.

We will be taking inspiration from this yard and adding depth and visual appeal similar to that which they have created. Table Mesa rocks to line the sidewalk, agave plants to create a hedge, wire casing and added gravel/rock to add to the yard at large. The wooden trellises will be accented with hedges, shrubs or cacti to again, add depth and visual appeal.

And of course, without a doubt, there will be lighting. Beautiful accent lighting. We are now on the hunt for home numbers and a new mailbox too, because quite honestly, they need to be cooler than what they currently are.

I’ll keep you posted…