Our Humble Abode... Before and After

The front porch last summer and now... as you can see, still need to paint the blue beam along the ceiling of the porch. Hubby finished caulking the foundation under the porch the other day; I need to get Kilz primer on it, then paint it. Note the new front porch light; we bought the same light for the back porch but still need to install it. The previous owners had just bare bulbs as their porch lights... nice, eh?


Another view of the front porch. We still need to replace the screen door; it will be the same as the back screen door that we replaced last autumn. (Just wait until you see the pic of the old BACK screen door further down in my post!!) We also want to get some roll-up blinds for the front porch. It would be lovely to sit on that bench in the evening, but alas, the setting sun is directly in front of our porch. It's not only blinding, it's freaking hot!


The back side of the house; you may notice a small patch of gray near the eaves (see pic below). There was a bird's nest there, and upon closer inspection we believed there could be babies, so we painted around them for the time being. The other day, the nest was laying on the ground with several broken eggs. The nest was an old barn swallow nest from last year and sparrows had decided it would make a nice home; obviously they did not do a home inspection first and so that was a flawed decision on their part, as the old barn swallow nest probably needed some shoring up. Oh well. I guess we can paint that area now. We still need to paint the entire eaves on this side of the house too.

The other side of the house last summer. Ehw.

And now this summer... much better, I think.

The back door, last summer.
That chair protected Ringo's dog food from rain, just in case you were wondering...
click here to see post about salvaged chairs.


The new back screen door.

We removed the awning, which was beat to heck in a hailstorm last year; not sure if we will get a new awning? Still have to put up the new porch light. Need to replace (or paint) the board along the roof line. Moved Ringo's doghouse off the porch and eventually we want to build a bigger back deck.

So you can see how busy we have been... all this house work in addition to all the fence repairs we have been doing, and tons of outside property maintenance. I'm hoping we can get our vegetable garden started NEXT year, and get more bushes and flowers planted around the house.

Baby steps, right?! :-) But I think we've come a long way since last summer already. A big thank you to my mom, who hatched up the plan to paint the house while she was here a few weeks ago. How many moms do you know that would suggest something that insane when they come to visit you?!

(I haven't even posted the before and afters of the kitchen,
only because it's not done yet...)