Aesthetics vs. Environment: Tree Removal

I feel completely guilty about it, but I've LOATHED the two huge Junipers that obscured the front of my house since I bought it. I really appreciate how old and big they are, but I hate Junipers. They're ugly and cheap looking. I also have not-so-nice feelings about the cheap, purple plum tree in front of the house. And that's the one I SHOULD like because it's totally goth. But those purple trees just remind me of low-income landscaping. Not to mention the off-center placement in the yard.

This is how my house looked the day I bought it.

Anybody who talked to me when I first got the house knows I was always complaining about the ugly trees and talking about how eventually I'd get them taken out, despite feeling bad about removing old trees. The one good thing about Junipers is they don't wreck the pipes; I guess certain trees are notorious for the roots growing in to the pipes and the foundation. Juniper roots don't attack like that.

Well I remember this very vividly because it was my last day of work, September 16, 2009. I left work at 11am super stoked to be free of my job after 7 years and I went for a very uncrowded lunchtime surf at 11th Street in Del Mar. When I got out around 1:30 and got to my car, I noticed I had a voicemail from my friend Krista. She wanted to let me know not to be surprised the next morning when two guys with chainsaws showed up at my door. She was sending them over to cut down my trees!

What a friend, right? Well, she's actually a landscape designer (Krista Percival Landscape Design in Del Mar, CA) and we're doing a service swap. She gets a website, I get a front yard! And she decided the trees had to go (I would have talked about removing them for a year before I actually did it).

So Thursday morning two men and a big truck with a wood chipper showed up and went to work:

Part way through: the middle tree is gone and half of the Juniper on the left.

By the end of the day, it was done:

I admit it looks pretty pathetic now. The trees annoyed me because they hid it, but they also made it appear bigger because you couldn't see it. And now I notice the color more and it's horrible.

But I've put all my faith in Krista. I may be able to do graphic design, but I'm clueless about landscaping. I don't even have vision. But I know she'll make it look amazing because I've seen all the before and after pictures of the other properties she's done. And I'm pretty lucky - she works with really high end clients. I'm honored my little Rolando bungalo is getting her attention!

This week she sent me over a first draft of a rendering for my design. I told her I want a porch and no grass and that I'm probably going to paint my house yellow becuase I've always wanted a yellow house. She's come up with this neat Mediterainian inspired design:
How pretty will my house look in a few months?!?