Broken hearted to see former house wrecked by new owners

[cberhomengarden]

I understand how you feel. I was saddened to see what was done to the house I grew up in, and vowed not to go back again.

My back neighbor passed away and her house was sold last year. The current owners have turned a cute storybook cottage looking house into a regular run of the mill home depot special. The previous owner was an avid gardener.

My biggest gripe with what they've done (& I have many) is that they ripped out a wall of pine trees that formed the boundary between their back yard & mine. They replaced it with a 6 foot tall gleaming white PVC fence. Previously, I could not see into their back yard or house, and vice versa. Now we can see pretty much everything, even with the fence as they are up an incline from us. Plus the white PVC has made it very bright in the back yard. Lol!
I'm toying with ideas of what to plant right in front of it to tone down the white. I don't have a huge garden budget, so I have to be choosy.

I walked the dog past the front of their house a few weeks ago and saw that the bulbs from her previous cottage garden are now growing smack in the middle of their new only lawn front yard. I imagined that the nice old owner was smiling in her grave knowing that plantings would continue to pop up here and there around the yard. Lol!

Our house was neglected a bit prior to us buying it and the backyard was left to turn into an urban jungle. We cut down the weedy trees and the next year, plants that were in the borders, but blocked from sun by the trees started to come up. I now have a really great peony bush next to the garage, and some cute crocuses every spring too.

[eclecticcottage]

Check your local county's soil and water conservation district. Most of them have a plant sale every spring, with mostly trees and shrubs. They are usually bare root and small, but pretty reasonable. I got lilacs for the Old House years ago, 10 for $10-12 (not each, for all 10 of them) and when I got the flyer this year it seemed the price hadn't changed much. It helps keep the budget in check and usually they have a decent selection of slow and fast growers.

[James]

Ripping out boxwoods, lol, now that could get some folks angry. They are kind of cultish down here. Some neighbors have HUGE ones that practically hide the house even when you are in the front yard. They must be ancient. There is a picture of that place on flickr that a friend of mine took. Need to figure out how to post that link. The anti boxwood people would go ballistic at that site. Not really a huge boxwood fan myself, but some folks down South do LOVE their boxwoods. I generally prefer something that blooms, but boxwoods do make a great hedge.

[Don M]

My parents had a beautiful 100 acre farm in upstate NY. When they sold it no one wanted the acerage so it sold with 10 acres. It was a early 1800s white clapboard Federal farmhouse that had a big farmer's porch across 2/3s of the front of the house. It had a beautiful front door with a fan light & side lites over & on either sid of the door. It had original 6 panel doors, fine chair rails, a cherry newel post, wide board floors & 4 fireplaces. I visited a few years after the parents sold it & the new owners had installed wall to wall carpet, paneled the dining room with pine paneling, installed hollow core doors in place of the originals . My sisters & I drove by the place a couple of years ago & they had torn off the nice front porch . The remaining property is overgrown, the big dairy barn is unused. The two car garage is gone as well as the outhouse & chicken house. The big open hay, corn & oat fields the original farmers had cleared with back breaking work & no one wanted have reverted of new growth forest. Mom always said she never wanted to go back to homes she & Dad had owned for all the reasons cited above.

[eclecticcottage]

My parents had a beautiful 100 acre farm in upstate NY. When they sold it no one wanted the acerage so it sold with 10 acres. It was a early 1800s white clapboard Federal farmhouse that had a big farmer's porch across 2/3s of the front of the house. It had a beautiful front door with a fan light & side lites over & on either sid of the door. It had original 6 panel doors, fine chair rails, a cherry newel post, wide board floors & 4 fireplaces. I visited a few years after the parents sold it & the new owners had installed wall to wall carpet, paneled the dining room with pine paneling, installed hollow core doors in place of the originals . My sisters & I drove by the place a couple of years ago & they had torn off the nice front porch . The remaining property is overgrown, the big dairy barn is unused. The two car garage is gone as well as the outhouse & chicken house. The big open hay, corn & oat fields the original farmers had cleared with back breaking work & no one wanted have reverted of new growth forest. Mom always said she never wanted to go back to homes she & Dad had owned for all the reasons cited above.

your parents sold the house I was originally looking for (farm with acreage). However people want a mint for acreage here, and taxes make it even more prohibitive. We looked at a 10 acre place with a newer built 2 bedroom ranch (no basement, no central heat) and a few pole barns, the taxes were almost $6k. We also looked at a cobblestone with 20 acres, all the out buildings were in disrepair (and so was the house, actually) and the taxes on that were nearly $10k. I'd be afraid of what the taxes must have been like on your parents place, unless it's in one of the more rural counties...I have to wonder if that wasn't the reason people were hesitiant to buy it will the 100 acres. Most large parcels here are owned by HUGE factory farms. Heck, two big farms probably own about 60-70% of the acreage in our town-they're the only ones that can afford the taxes, lol.

[housecrazy sarah]

Landscaping is one thing... I get that maybe there was a good reason behind removing a tree or a bush. But the condition of the actual house is going downhill fast. For example, chipping paint that needs to be fixed, roof needs repair, wood blinds I had custom made are now always closed and crooked - who knows why. And apparently the new owners are smokers! Also, I left them some flower planters and they just leave them sitting there with dead plants, rather than putting in some new flowers. My husband has me convinced they probably throw cigarette butts in the planters.

It makes my heart heavy because we put so much into that house and now it is just not loved.

The house I sold BEFORE that one has now had 3 different owners and they have all kept it up really well and done things to improve the house and yard. It makes me happy to see that house.

[eclecticcottage]

This is why I haven't gone back to see my grandparent's old house. I met the buyers and they seemed totally in love with it, even wanting to keep some features I probably wouldn't have (like the velvet wallpaper). But my grandpa built that house, and I'd be sad to see it in poor shape-they always kept it in tip top shape, and had a beautiful landscape (people would stop to take photos). I've checked Google but they don't have a street view of it yet. It's a few hours away so at least it's not too easy to get to...

[utopia13]

All of the PO's are long gone with my place. I do often *talk* to the Peeps (old owners) and mention that I hope they like what I'm doing to the place.

Those hedges...if they would have been planted around the perimeter I certainly would have kept them...but they planted them straight back off the back porch, then across the yard. It was like a big "plus" sign in the middle of the property with the house being in the middle. Just so oddly placed and every neighborhood kid would cut through the ones going across. There were big bald spots in the cut through areas. With no fence, I couldn't keep them from cutting through the yard, but I could try to salvage the little bit of grass I had!