Painting, diy and more painting

With the great weather we have been having of late we have been doing some general maintenance outside, boring you might say but as the most expensive thing we own we need to look after our house and I do love DIY. 

So far we have re-flagged a small section at the front of the house (with some help), dug and planted a new border in front of the flags, painted the front door, the window surrounds, the window sills, resealed and painted the patio door frame, patched up the garage door frame (this is very rotten but as our carpentry skills are not up to making a new frame it has been filled and filled and glossed a lot, hopefully it will last a few more years), painted the garage door, fixed up fence panels (again quite a few of these are rotten and need replacing but we hope to get a few more years out of them), painted fences (still doing this as it takes ages), and heavily pruned some trees.  Think that is it outside so far.  We still want to cut back the greengage plum tree but will wait till the fruit is ready for picking.  

Sorry no before photos and these after shots were pretty hastily taken (excuse the hydrangea it looks parched I will remember to water it).

It looks a lot better and bonus we don't need to step over a trench to get out of the front door.

With all the work outside my knitting has taken a backseat.  I have just finished a baby cardigan (which I will try to photo soon) and have attempted to cast on several hats but haven't landed on the right pattern for the wool I am using (or for my skill level)