This fall, there will be plenty of time to cruise the streets and check out reddening leaves and autumnal lawn displays. But you might just want to stop, roll down your windows, and take a closer look when you head by Tim Dymek’s home in the Aksarben neighborhood. 

Last fall, pumpkins and decorative gourds covetously took up the front garden bed, decorating the side of Dymek’s front walk. Yellow, pink, and orange chrysanthemums expertly played along. A fall wreath with a pop of bright orange gourds tied his small front porch to the rest of the display. More miniature gourds sprawled up and down Dymek’s steps, and gorgeous asters and mums hung lazily from oversized black pots. For Dymek, the goal of his front lawn is to provide something good to gander at. 

“When I drive around and I see somebody that has a really nice house…I’m always attracted to that,” Dymek says. “Things look much more inviting when you walk up to a house and it looks nice from the outside.”

With a change in temperature comes a change of mood. Each season, for the last decade or so, he mounts a new display. In winter, there might be evergreen and birch branches bedecking the facade. As the warmth of spring settles in, the flowers warm up too. Impatiens, begonias, and other colorful flowers all rise to greet the heat beginning in early May. 

Stroll around the back of Dymek’s home and there are more of the same eye-catching arrangements transforming his back deck into an inviting oasis. 

Tucked quietly back from the street, his partially hidden porch allows him to lounge, keep an eye on his 1-year-old German shepherd, Olga, and enjoy a cool drink with friends. White cloth patio chairs with brightly colored striped pillows intermingle with potted clusters of petunias and marigolds, arranged just the way Dymek likes it. He selects colorful items, things that will pop against the dark slate gray siding of his house. 

“I just want things to be comfortable,” he says.  

 Dymek has been making changes to his neat, tidy, eclectic home since he first purchased it more than 25 years ago. Before buying, he visited the house a few times as a party guest. When the owner decided to sell the 1940s home, she called Dymek personally to offer it to him. He bought it that same night. 

“I never looked at another house,” he says. 

When Dymek began work on the home, it was kind of a clean slate. He livened it up, giving it a cottage-like feel with cobblestone pathways and, of course, his signature lawn displays.

Dymek’s house serves as an outlet for his creativity. His background is in commercial art; it’s what he studied in college. His paintings cover the walls of his home. But within his creative lawn displays, there is also an air of fastidiousness. Colors coordinate, edges align, and everything always seems to be in just the right place. The playful but meticulous nature of his outdoor arrangements reflect the aesthetic of the rest of the home. 

“I like things to be tidy,” he says. “I guess I run kind of a tight ship.”

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This article was printed in the September/October 2018 edition of OmahaHome. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.