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| Shot of our new home, with our Eldest basking in the sunshine of our new gigantic front yard. |
Last summer marked a milestone for my hubby and me: we bought our first home!
To be frank, both of us had passed the 40 mark, and were resigned to a life of renting. Buying a home didn't even seem to be within the realm of reality. It was only after a lot of advice from several trusted advisers that we dared to hope for home-ownership. Having the fire lit under our butts to go house hunting only helped push us along (the owner of our previous rental house needed to sell because his job was taking him out of town).
Moving and health issues ended up sidelining a ton of projects I had going on: that big awesome office chair is now sitting patiently, waiting for its moment to shine, in my new garage. But having this new place has introduced a myriad of other creative opportunities for me to express myself, experiment with various Pinterest inspirations and explore new exciting possibilities! I also now have the hope of my own personal work space to finish that chair and oodles of other crafty good stuff.
This house was, and is, nothing short of a miracle. It was built in early 2000, was rather well cared for and sold to us for a song. It did have some cosmetic love that needed to happen, though. And our first summer, we completed a few key exterior updates.
First off, we decided we wanted to add some 'pop' to our lovely lady's street presence. To do that, we needed to augment the monochromatic scheme that was going on.
As you can see, everything but the door and shutters was beige. Not that beige is bad! And I am SOOOO thankful for this home! But with no landscaping to speak of, the beige by itself was just, well, 'blah'.
Now, me and Hubby aren't rolling in dough. We are a one income family and, well hello, we'd just bought a house! We want each of our improvements to be exactly that: an improvement (rather than a DIY disaster). At the same time we are like the average joe: we don't have thousands of dollars laying around to buy all new siding or encase our house in a faux stone facade. My point being we are all about doing quality updates, but in ways that won't be breaking the bank.
The most obvious course of action for us involved an investment of a couple hundred dollars in some high quality paints and painting supplies, combined with a hefty amount of elbow grease and neuroses. My primary objective was to liven up the trim, especially there on that lovely little shaded front porch! I mean, for me it's just screaming to be noticed. After bouncing a few different ideas off of Hubby, we settled on using Sherwin William's Emerald line of exterior paints. The colour du jour: Ibis White in a gloss finish. You can learn more about the product here. (And, in case you're wondering: no, I'm not being paid to promote them. We just love their stuff and feel it's worth the extra $$$ for a durable, beautiful high-quality finish).
We haven't bothered with the rain gutters for the time being. The gutters are in good condition, painting them would be a monstrous pain and likely need twice the paint we'd purchased... it just wasn't worth it. Maybe this fall we'll go after them. But, for the time being we're satisfied with just the trim around the edges and the vents for the attic. It looks like a completely different home, doesn't it?!
Not wanting to be limited by a two-tone scheme (because I'm complicated like that), I opted to go with a third color for the porch handrail. Really, I went this route because I know I'm neurotic enough to be driven crazy by fingerprints all over my pristine white porch rail. Hubby concurred that Coffee Bean would be the perfect color for the job. It's rich, dark as the name implies and adds a richness to the overall appearance.
Those of you who are a bit more on the astute side will notice that the door color was also changed. That will be a post for another day!
In the meantime, particularly for any of my friends or followers who have been wondering how to update their exterior without going broke, I hope I've proven to provide some inspiration. Sometimes, something as small as a new coat of paint on just the trim and/or the door can breathe all kinds of new life into your home's exterior!
