Planning for a Lawn-Free Future

We expect to get the keys to our new house sometime this week and will immediately begin doing a lot of work to it.

With the money from our 203k loan we're getting a new roof, new exterior paint, a new water heater, a new electrical panel, and a new sewer line. This will all be done by contractors.

There's also a lot that we plan to do ourselves, and near the top of the list is replacing the front lawn with native plants.

Neither of us has a great deal of gardening experience or expertise. Having never owned our own home, we have, for the entirety of our adult lives, always been at the vegetative mercy of our landlords. One thing we've learned is that we both dislike lawns. Not only do we dislike the hassle and cost of lawn maintenance, but we also don't think they're very interesting to look at, and then you have the negative environmental impact.

It's hard not to notice all the interesting things homeowners and businesses around town do with their outdoor spaces, and since we moved here 7 years ago we've suffered from garden envy.

I started noticing eco roofs shortly after we arrived and then started seeing other eco-conscious gardens around. I remember reading an informational sign posted at a bioswale on SE Division about five years ago, I think the first one I ever encountered (of course now they're ubiquitous on the inner east side of Portland).

I've never done much research on the topic, but by virtue of living in this community, I have gleaned enough information over the years to know that native plants require less work and provide a better natural habitat for wildlife than a lawn or a garden of exotic species. On top of that they can be quite beautiful (and suit my taste much better than a manicured yard).

Wanting to get some ideas, Robert and I road our bikes over to Portland Nursery to poke around. We saw a lot of things we liked, but realized we have no real concept of how to get started, so today we got some books from the library.

I just started reading How to Get Your Lawn Off Grass by Carole Rubin, former director of the West Coast Environmental Law Association and former chairperson of the BC Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides and Canadian Environmental Network's Alternatives to Pesticides Caucus. Robert is rotating among a few other books about native plants and garden planning.

We hope to eventually get rid of the lawn in the back, too, but that's a lower priority at the moment. I do want to start on a vegetable garden right away, though.

It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm really looking forward to putting time and effort into something that we'll actually be able to appreciate for a long time.

The House Buying Saga Continues

Well, the house we were trying to buy didn't work out.

We had it inspected and learned that it needs serious foundation work, as well as a lot of electrical work and some plumbing. We had hoped to fix it up with a 203k loan, but that won't cover foundation work, and with all the problems the house has, we wouldn't have anything left for cosmetic work or appliances. On top of that, Citibank, which owns the house (a foreclosure) was fighting us every step of the way (asking for much more than the standard amount of earnest money, not giving us much time for inspections, etc.). We think they were hoping to sell to an investor who would pay cash and not have to deal with all the complications of people who need a loan and actually care about the place being livable in the long term. After a few weeks of alternating between stress and excitement we finally decided it was best to walk away.

We were really disappointed when we began to realize that fixing up this cute 1904 house on a corner lot was a pipe dream, but just as we were coming to a decision we found another house in the neighborhood for sale in our price range. It's a bit more expensive and on a less desirable lot, but it's in a better location (closer in and in easier walking distance of a lot of businesses). We made an offer the day we viewed it and it's been accepted! We're having it inspected this evening.

We know it will need some work, but nothing like what the last one needed. We'll probably use the 203k loan to get some new floors and windows and perhaps some more efficient appliances. Then we'll do some other work ourselves (interior painting, for example), but with the exception of a hole in the basement wall, which the owner has agreed to repair before closing, we expect it to be pretty much up to code.

In the long term we'd like to do more to it (maybe put an addition where the back deck is, so we can have a bigger kitchen and have basement access from inside the house; maybe eventually finish the attic), but with just some minor work it will be a very livable space for us.

We're hoping to close before the end of July and be moved in by the beginning of August.

I can't wait to start putting work into a place where I'll actually get to stay and enjoy the fruits of my labor. I'm very excited about finally getting to have a garden that we plan from start to finish. We plan on doing away with all or most of the lawn (such a waist of energy). We're hoping to attend the FoPo Garden Tour in a couple of weeks, which I'm sure will help us to get some ideas about where to start.

In the mean time, we're focusing our energy on living as cheaply as possible while we scrape together our down payment, and getting our belongings pared down and organized.