home Facelift !

I've felt for a long time like the outside of our house screamed "old people." Probably not a coincidence since the people in the home before we bought it were, in fact, old. It was kind of adorable, but also a bit dated (stodgy, heavy shrubbery; faux brick siding.) I just never felt connected at all to the aesthetic of the exterior of the house, never really felt like it was "ours."

Also, the steps were completely rotting and I was nervous to see what that might mean for structural concerns. So, like everything else we don't want to deal with, we put it off. For years. This summer we got a quote from a contractor and had finally saved up enough cash ($6,000) to take the stairs off and replace them. 

Usually, I'm the one who constantly wants to change things, and Dave could care less. So when he was the one who actually suggested, "Hey, we should take these shrubs out," I leapt on the opportunity. Of course it would have been faster and waaaaaayyy easier to have someone remove them, but instead, we spent HOURS of our weekends and SO much sweat equity to do it ourselves. Those things are intense. But we finally got them out!

Next to go was the door and the stairs. Like I mentioned, that was beyond our abilities to tackle; it needed the work of a contractor who made the floor structurally sound and designed how to make our vision of clean, modern, steps (WITHOUT RAILINGS) come true. It was a bit tricky, and required building up the ground so that the steps weren't too high, requiring a railing. 

The contractor was awesome and really worked with us to remain in our budget, since we didn't have any wiggle room. He suggested one way to save some money would be to do the work of raising up the ground ourselves, so.....of course we decided to go for it. (We had some nice strong 5 year old labor.) I also utilized the child labor to help me paint the brick a uniform color as the siding, which made a huge difference. It was finally starting to really show some potential. 

Once the house was painted all one color, I decided not to put the shutters back on, and painted all the window trims black, giving it a more modern look. From there it made sense to add the black on the door trim, which made that little window detail really stand out, where before I barely even noticed it.

I am NOT a gardener, but my mom and my brother in law are, so they gave me lots of direction around what to do in terms of planting. Plants are so expensive though, and our budget was definitely gone, so my mom graciously offered to have me come pick from her gardens and replant some in mine. (You can also see my mom and Alice checking out paint swatches for the front door.)

Our final product makes me SO happy to come home to! It finally feels like a true reflection of us, and I am proud that so many hands went into the work of creating it. Definitely the most pricey renovation project we've embarked on, but considerably less given all our sweat and energy. Now to see what the gardens look like when they come back in the spring....