Can I tell you guys a secret? I’ve always, always, wanted to live in a Tudor cottage. A magical little storybook house, that all the neighborhood children know a witch lives in. But they also know she’s a Good Witch, so it’s okay.
Last March, we bought one! Well, a Tudor house circa 1981; one that has seen better days. The house isn’t falling apart, but it hasn’t been updated much in the 40-something years since it was built. A previous owner was a gardener, who expanded the existing garden beds, and built several more. Eventually it became too much for her to care for, and they sold the house (we later found out they also dug up & stole all the plants and bricks they could from the property). The next owners had financial problems, and let it all become overgrown. Here’s the listing photo from when we bought it.
Last spring we were still unpacking, so we weren’t able to much outside, beyond Jim mowing the lawn, and attempting to handle the dandelions. Once the summer came, the rest of his free time got taken up by pool care, and the weeds got worse. These last two months, Jim has been working so hard to fix up the front of the house.
He started by removing the multiple layers of river rocks and layers of weed barrier from under the dining room window. He weeded, then he regraded the soil, put down new weed barrier, and replaced the river rocks.
From images on Google Earth, we know the center planter was once 4-5 stones higher, but previous owners took those stones when they left. This level was embedded in concrete, so they couldn’t take it! After all that work, Jim planted some English lavender for me, and I added some solar disk lights we bought when staging our last house for sale.
On the far end of the house, under the master bathroom window, the bed was full of weeds and old mulch. We knew there had previously been a row of bricks between the grass and bed, so he dug down, and found them about 4" deep. Apparently people just kept dumping new dirt and mulch so long, that they got buried. Rather than dig up the grass, he created a channel in the dirt, down to the old bricks, then filled the channel with some of the extra river rocks from the dining room area. Then he put down cardboard as a biodegradable weed barrier, and fresh mulch.
Since we’re trying to do this on a budget, I started by shopping at home. I had a light green gazing ball that used to live on a plant stand on my old deck. I ordered a faux carved stone (resin) stand for it, and placed it on one side of the tree.
My mom sent me a garden flag with a beehive, because we call my daughter Ada Bee, so I picked up a flag holder for it.
I found a beautiful large green blown glass ball at Homegoods, that’s actually a solar light. (Seriously, it’s huge, about 14" in diameter.) Since we don’t really want to fill the bed with more plants to take care of, I picked it up to take the place of one.
Here’s what it looks like lit up at night. (The lights in the background are our neighbor’s, and border their driveway.)
As a nod to my Good Witch wishes, and because we have a little one who loves story time, I decided to go a bit whimsical. I found a few red and blue ceramic mushroom garden stakes at Joann’s on sale for 60% off, and bought a few more on Amazon, to create a fairy ring around the base of the tree. I was going for subtle, so I picked mostly woodland colors, with a few pops of red and blue.
I added a solar powered set of Moon wind chimes that my lovely MIL @Millykay got me for Christmas, to the tree. They look lovely lit up at night too.
The house has a long, narrow front porch, with a big bay window (into my studio). The color scheme is a traditional Tudor brown and off-white, and we’re trying to lean into that, by getting a fresh coat of paint this autumn. While I love the Tudor-ness of it, all the brown does make for a dark porch, so I wanted to help brighten it all up. Taking inspiration from my mom’s bee themed garden flag, I added some yellow morning glories in hanging pots. As I’m not willing to water plants hanging over my head, they are faux, purchased for 50% off from Joann’s.
I found some beautiful large green and yellow ceramic pots, from Spain, at Homegoods. They were a fraction of the price of the planters at Home Depot and Lowe’s, and they are so lovely! I loved that they weren’t the same sedate pots on every other house on the street. I filled them with real flowers in shades of yellow and white.
I took a wreath I already had, and removed all the pink & magenta flowers, but left a few white ones. Then I added in some large white peonies and golden ranunculus.
Not bad for a several year old wreath, and some flowers on clearance at Michael’s!
I wanted a little vignette at the end of the porch, opposite the front door, but nothing so big that it would block the bay window (which is incidentally, my studio, and I like my view!). I looked for a wicker chair, but everything new was so expensive, and usually came in a set. I ended up finding a lone chair someone had painted flat black, on Facebook Marketplace for $30 (which was probably too much to pay given the shape it was in). I gave it a good brushing, and two coats of Espresso brown satin spray paint.
The red cushion it came with was stained, burned, and reeked of gasoline, so it got tossed. I found a new one in yellow and white from Target. The beehive throw pillow cover is one mom sent me, and I filled with and entire bag of poly-fil, still in the plastic bag. (When did pillow forms get to be $20 each?!?!)
I found the small side table on Amazon for $30, and was thrilled with the quality of it. The little bumblebee planter on the table came from Walmart for $6. I just couldn’t resist adding it now that everything had come together so well.
After all that, here’s a final Before and After. The house when we bought it last March…
And today! It still needs new paint, but I think it looks a lot more welcoming and lived in now.
We’re not done. I think the bed beneath the bathroom window needs a bench in the empty space, so I’m the lookout for one on FB Marketplace. And Jim plans to take up the rocks around the tree at the end of our driveway, and redo the weed barrier again, then fix up another small bed beside our driveway. And I’m planning on repainting our lamp post black, cleaning all the outside light fixtures, and the brass numbers on our mailbox. I still want to put an armillary somewhere in the yard. Perhaps on top of our stone mail fortress? Ah, the life of a home owner… Or a home owning Good Witch in any case…
