Class is in session

With the house starting to really look like a house, we can't forget about the landscaping.

While we talked to a couple professional landscape architects recommended by our architect and contractor, their costs were just a little more than we were prepared to swallow right now especially after the sewer "surprise" and another unpleasant surprise on the cost of the stone veneer we selected (don't get me started on that one).

So, what have we done? Stalled. Well, not quite stalled. Gotten creative is more like it.

At the referral of Anne Farniok (who's been helping with LEED certification through our contractor), we have hooked up with Matt Brooks, a landscaping professor at Dakota County Technical College who is using our house as a class project for his second year landscaping course. It's a pretty cool arrangement. The students use our house as the subject for their class projects. At the end of the semester, we get ~20 different landscape design plans. All at no cost to us.

What's the catch? These are students, and we may not like any of the designs and be back at square one again.

For us, that's an acceptable risk. We figure that at a minimum, we'll get a few good ideas (or pieces of ideas) that we can pull into a plan this spring...either on our own or with the help of a professional.

So last Thursday morning the house was buzzing with a class of landscaping students poking around, taking measurements, asking questions. For Stu and I, it felt oddly like what I remember of "career day" back in elementary school. Standing in front of a group of "fresh and eager faces" answering questions when they raised their hands. Most interesting to me was how differently each student approached the opportunity to talk with us. Some were very eager, following us around, asking probing questions. Others didn't make a sound and didn't get within 20 feet of either one of us. Made me wonder if we scared them.

Anyway, just another adventure in this wild ride of home remodeling.