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a facelift for our home {exterior remodel and curb appeal}

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Outside of giving birth to the kids & getting married, I think the biggest highlight for me as an adult was buying our first home.  I wrote about it here, how it was love at first sight, along with the good, bad & the ugly.   The characters & features of our home had me right when I entered the door.  It’s a small cottage home that was built in the 1920’s.  Soon after we bought our home, we found out it was a Sears Catalog Home & we realized we lived right in the heart of several streets full of Sears Catalog Homes.  It’s a wonderful area, full of charm, big trees, great yards & cottage homes with unique styles that you can never find nowadays.

But like all older homes our house needed some major work, especially on the exterior.  We had 3 kids in 2 & a half years.  Our focus has mainly been on the inside of the house.  Making room & remodeling especially when we found out we were expecting twins.  But thankfully back in the Fall our exterior started getting some much needed attention.

When we purchased our home, the previous owners had a love affair with hunter green & deep red.  I do believe they were stuck in the 1990’s & could never find their way out.  Bless their hearts.  So basically we lived with that color combo on our porch for almost seven years.  Day in & day out we would go in & out of our house experiencing that color combo chipping & peeling away for 7 years.  So here’s the before & afters.  A picture is worth 1000 words.  So I’ll let them do most of the talking.

Here’s where we are now.  A big facelift wouldn’t you say?

Back in the Fall, I shared this paint chip from Sherwin Williams.  It was my beginning point, so to speak.  My reference.  I loved the color combos & used this as a guide for some of my decisions.  Our front door is painted the brittlebush color.

The shake is a vinyl.  We originally thought we would just get the first eave of the house done in the shake, but thankfully the contractor recommended doing both.  The shake is what “makes” the house, I believe.  It gave us the most bang for our buck!  For both eaves, material & labor the total was $440.00.  We couldn’t believe it.   I  had always wanted to have shake up there when we first moved in.  Knowing now how it looks and the “pop” it gave our little white box house, we should have done this a long time ago for the money.  We were truly & pleasantly surprised.

We opted to have all the trim, windows, gutters & soffits redone as well.  Having the trim changed out to another color against the white gave the house more definition.  At first I wasn’t sure if we should spend the $ on the soffits (the vertical lines you’re seeing underneath the trim of the house) but again, I’m glad we did.  
You know, you fret & worry if you will make the right decisions, if you’re spending your money wisely, but to see it all come together is the best satisfaction you can get.  In the Fall we also had a metal roof installed.  It’s a very light color gray.  My husband wanted to get the lightest color of metal possible to make our older home more energy efficient.  Plus he & I both, love a gray metal roof.  It’s awesome when it rains.  But if you can picture a plain white box house with a light gray metal roof ~ there was nothing that gave it definition.  It was just a bland house on a pretty street.  But I knew it could shine out, if we just highlighted it’s features.
The front porch also got new shutters & of course the heavy trim around all the windows = LOVE!
The before is really so ugly!
But it’s amazing what paint can do.  Even when you’re house is close to 100 years old.
Here’s the red porch before & you can see our old roof in the photo below.
New roof, painted door & porch from the Fall.

And here it is now.  Such a wonderful feeling ~ I do happy dances very often on the porch.

It’s the story of the little white box house that could!
Where memories & our story is in the making.
I’ve always been a happy home owner, even with the bad & ugly parts of our home.  But I must say I’m a front porch sitting kind of gal.  Having this finished makes it all almost complete.
Next year, we’ll tackle our yard & hedges.  That is, if I don’t drive my husband crazy, before then.  😉
I’m social as can be!  Are you?  Follow along if you like.

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Comments

  4. Your makeover is gorgeous! What a bright fresh new look! (Love the pic of your sweet little girl enjoying the front porch…precious!)

  5. Wow! What an improvement! It makes a huge difference. I especially love how you pulled out the grey tones from the brick. It pulls it all together.

  7. Cool – this gives me some great ideas. My front area has that burgundy color, too – and I’m not overly fond of it. I feel like I can decorate indoors fairly easily, but have such a hard time with the outside – so, thanks again.

  10. Wow, wow, wow Kellie — this looks like an edition of Hidden Potential! seriously, oh my goodness it is amazing and I would be do a happy dance to! When do I get to come over and hang out on the porch?

  15. Beautiful! I love your colour pallet! and that yellow front door just makes it!!
    I especially love you cozy seating area there on the porch. simply amazing what a little paint can do.

  16. Everything looks gorgeous!!! I love your porch, Looks so cozy. I spent a whole day last week with mineral spirits and a wire brush scrubbing our concrete drive.. holy cow, I should have huge arms after that!
    Happy Thursday.

  21. What a wonderful transformation! Really do like the shake shingles and I never would have thought of painting the door that yellow color= really nice!
    WE are slowly working on the outside of our house too- I think at the rate we are going I should be able to do a big reveal in about 3 years !! LOL