Our Bricked Courtyard Reveal!!

I'm excited to finally be typing that this here is the reveal of our bricked courtyard on the side of our house! AND a little reveal of some landscaping at the front of the house! (Is it called landscaping if it's potted plants?!) 

Here's my friend Chris pulling up a nice bit of brick on the sidewalk... we pulled up the bricks, weeded, leveled the ground and then re-laid the bricks. BIG project! The Hubs has been working a lot so I've been enlisting additional help for these annoying projects that Hubby likes to put off ;) 

And here's how the bricks look after we laid down some dry mortar/sand mixture and hosed it down. I love me some mortar/sand mixture!!! It fixes all those big gaps that were impossible to fix with this 100+ year old herringbone pattern!

I think we may have to do another run of it to get all the tiny cracks. I HATE weeds coming through!

Here's what the courtyard looked like in progress...

And here are some afters:

Below is a close up of a tricky part of the project - lining up the existing bricks from the sidewalk to our new bricks. Thank God for anal, perfectionist neighbors who like to help you brick! (Thanks Craig!)

Here's how the front of the house is shaping up:

We hated our little chain link fence, so a cheap and so much better looking idea was to buy some bamboo reed fencing and zip tie it to the existing fence!! I love the way it came out. We don't have the budget to build the fence we really want so even if this lasts just 2 years it's well worth it! 

We plan on running it all along the side of the house too. It adds a nice tropical/Caribbean vibe which definitely fits in our subtropic New Orleans! I'll feel like I'm on vacation sitting in the courtyard sippin' a pina colada! 

Best part is 80% of this big project was FREE!! My mom gave me the chairs and pots, the garden stool I had and just sprayed a navy blue and the bricks were from my mom as well. THANKS MOMMA! :)

Our cute little topiaries! I have to do the same for the other front door... maybe this weekend. I wanted to make sure I could keep these guys alive before investing in four.

Side note: if you're looking for simple, modern and large planters Lowe's has some nice options. The two above are a pretty slate grey and huge and like $30 each! 

So what do ya think!? Our little Creole Cottage is finally getting a little pretty! 

Now if only I had the time/money/energy to work on the other side!

Bleghhhh....