Stepping Up the Curb Appeal
When you move into a house that is a disgusting mess on the inside, the outside kind of gets forgotten. After all, you need a place where you can safely live on the inside, right? At least that was our primary concern when we moved into our house. The first summer the outside was primarily ignored, except for my husband's proud purchase of a tractor mower which actually gets a significant amount of use. You see, we have a HUGE front and backyard. It was a selling point, and still is when we think about all the space our kids have for playing, except neither of us are great at yard work. But that is for another blog and another time.
In addition to the interior of the house which has rather large things that bug me, the exterior has had several small things that bug me. While I was working diligently on the living room (Part 1 and Part 2), I decided to tackle some of those smaller projects. First came the front door, which had a faded, poorly painted green color that did not match the forest green of the outside shutters. Perhaps at one time it did match, but no more. My guess is that they didn't use exterior paint, but I also don't know how long ago that door was painted. The front flower box had the same issues.
I am inexplicably enamored with the idea of using red in living areas (I'm not a bold person and perhaps the use of red makes me feel more bold) and I wanted a nice deep red for the front door. So after my daughter's weekly gymnastics lesson at the daycare from where we are taking a summer hiatus, we headed to the home improvement store and I made the bold decision to buy paint. I started prepping that afternoon, was interrupted by the windows guy who was giving us an estimate on our new front and living room windows, and finally got a start on the front door. I painted the first coat while the kids played in the family room and then was bombarded by the request of a two and four-year-old to paint. I am a high school teacher. Early childhood creativity is low in my skillset, but as my children have gotten older, I have discovered an ability to occasionally come up with brilliant ideas. Armed with cups of water and cheap paint brushes, we headed outside so they could "paint" while I painted the flowerbox.
When my husband returned home, he found projects started but not completed. He hates that, but these were projects I knew I could complete quickly. I then mentioned the door to our family room, which is also in the front of the house. That door also looked horrible, but I had no idea what to do with it.
I was honestly concerned that it would look odd to have two front doors the same color, almost like they were two equally important entrances. My husband, however, suggested that it might be a good idea to paint it the same color for uniformity. He was right. I painted the second front door and it also looks spectacular.
The final front exterior project was painting the peeling, rusted railing in the front of the house leading to the main front door.
It looked awful, so with spray paint (and a few mistakes that will have to be erased by a power washer) it also looks significantly better.
While the inside is slowly shaping up, so is the outside. Our house does look a little like a Christmas house now with the green shutters and red doors, but eventually we will get those shutters down so that we can paint those as well. And I'm sure that our neighbors appreciate the front yard looking significantly better.
Now if I could only decide that I really love gardening, our backyard would also look fantastic, but as I said at the beginning, that is another blog post for another time.
In addition to the interior of the house which has rather large things that bug me, the exterior has had several small things that bug me. While I was working diligently on the living room (Part 1 and Part 2), I decided to tackle some of those smaller projects. First came the front door, which had a faded, poorly painted green color that did not match the forest green of the outside shutters. Perhaps at one time it did match, but no more. My guess is that they didn't use exterior paint, but I also don't know how long ago that door was painted. The front flower box had the same issues.
I am inexplicably enamored with the idea of using red in living areas (I'm not a bold person and perhaps the use of red makes me feel more bold) and I wanted a nice deep red for the front door. So after my daughter's weekly gymnastics lesson at the daycare from where we are taking a summer hiatus, we headed to the home improvement store and I made the bold decision to buy paint. I started prepping that afternoon, was interrupted by the windows guy who was giving us an estimate on our new front and living room windows, and finally got a start on the front door. I painted the first coat while the kids played in the family room and then was bombarded by the request of a two and four-year-old to paint. I am a high school teacher. Early childhood creativity is low in my skillset, but as my children have gotten older, I have discovered an ability to occasionally come up with brilliant ideas. Armed with cups of water and cheap paint brushes, we headed outside so they could "paint" while I painted the flowerbox.
When my husband returned home, he found projects started but not completed. He hates that, but these were projects I knew I could complete quickly. I then mentioned the door to our family room, which is also in the front of the house. That door also looked horrible, but I had no idea what to do with it.
I was honestly concerned that it would look odd to have two front doors the same color, almost like they were two equally important entrances. My husband, however, suggested that it might be a good idea to paint it the same color for uniformity. He was right. I painted the second front door and it also looks spectacular.
The final front exterior project was painting the peeling, rusted railing in the front of the house leading to the main front door.
It looked awful, so with spray paint (and a few mistakes that will have to be erased by a power washer) it also looks significantly better.
While the inside is slowly shaping up, so is the outside. Our house does look a little like a Christmas house now with the green shutters and red doors, but eventually we will get those shutters down so that we can paint those as well. And I'm sure that our neighbors appreciate the front yard looking significantly better.
Before
After
Now if I could only decide that I really love gardening, our backyard would also look fantastic, but as I said at the beginning, that is another blog post for another time.
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