Best Idea Ranch Houses with Stone Planter

I don't think there are many ranch houses built between 1950-1970 that didn't include a planter--often indoors as well as outdoors.  Ours certainly did, have an outdoor stone planter, I mean.  It is about 18" high and 23' long.  23' long??  Yes.  Can you see it below the window boxes and behind the bird's nest bushes?  There is another smaller one on the other side of the garage too.

We are currently taking it apart to prepare for our concrete driveway, patio, and porch.  As a fan of http://retrorenovation.com/ and a historic homes patron, I feel very strongly about keeping details such as the obligatory "ranch house flagstone wall".  BUT the concrete walkway behind the planter and the front door porch next to the planter are falling away from the house.  AND we need to pour concrete into the driveway anyway, since the 1970s clay brick driveway is crumbling and growing weeds.

cottagemagpie.com, "How to Tear Out Stone Indoor Planter 2"

We've been doing similar demo as Angela from cottagemagpie.com, only outdoors in the hot sun and pulling apart a LOT more stone!!  Jon and I are exhausted!  We talked to the neighbors next door here and there as we sweated and groaned and pounded.  We've stacked the stone in our nearby grass.  We are saving the stone to make one low wall in front of a new concrete patio that will be poured where the planter and flower bed are now:

One version of my landscape design for the front of the house. . .

This way, we will have privacy if we want to sip lemonade or store children's bikes on the patio.

Later tonight on a date with friends (shout out to the Braithwaites and the Vawdreys!), we visited a local garden called Gilgal Garden.  A unique Mormon installation of sculpture and masonry built by Thomas Child from 1945-1963.  Jon and had new respect for the stone walls--such craftmanship to build (and to remove I might add!):

Monument to the Trade

Joseph Smith Sphinx

We still have more stone to pull apart and some bricks to save out of the driveway for a walkway before the concrete work begins.