New House! Just Kidding...

Did I trick you? I didn't think so...

While waiting for update posts on our office/craft room (I know you're waiting with bated breath -- you don't have to tell me), I'll fill the void with the story of a different redocoration: the great outdoors. There were many things we could have done when shopping for a new home. It was a buyer's market, so we could have purchased a large, new construction at a fraction of it's "worth." We could have jumped into a fixer-uper with lots of potential. We ended up in this house:

Forgive the strange photo. I took this one morning as I was pulling away for work. That's part of the car door you see in the upper left corner. Also, don't judge us for the weird landscaping. I'm not sure how that half circle tree thing happened. Was it an evolution of pruning? Was it planted that way on purpose? Who knows. Either way, it needs to change. One step at a time, people! What you can't see is the right side of the house. After buying the house, with the help of Rich's dad, we pulled a large (taller than the house) piney tree from the ground, (most of the) roots and all. We were also parents to a big ugly bush. We gave it up for adoption.

Anyway, we bought the house for many reasons. First, it was convenient. We first rented from friends of my sister's. It was a win-win for both parties. They got to move into the house of their dreams, we escaped apartment living. We spent two seperate chunks of time house hunting in the two years prior and settled on an apartment for several reasons. We fell into the opportunity to rent this home, and it just worked. We also love the neighborhood. It's an old (1970s) sub division. Many of the occupants are original owners. Those who aren't are upstanding citizens. With a few exceptions, families take pride in the places they call home. Finally, we were lucky. The previous owners did some great upgrades including a close to full kitchen renovation and a...wait for it...brand new garage. Sign us up.

While there was so much we loved about the house, there was one looming factor that I couldn't get over: all that ugly brown trim. I'll try to keep this from becoming the cliche of the century, but: Fast forward until...Easter-ish. I've been wanting to paint all the ugly brown trim for a century at least. I've already told you about my impatience, so you can imagine how I felt for the past 1.85 years. In a word: grossedout. Let's get to the good stuff. Here's what it looks like now:

I think my camera must have been on a weird setting because the roof looks red. That doesn't matter, though. Check out the trim and shutters! We went with the tone-on-tone look for the aluminum trim and a go-to shade of mine for the shutters: mossy khaki green. I don't have the exact names of the colors on hand right now. Let's just feel secure in saying that it looks 152% better than it did before. We still have the cement colored brick and dark brown roof to contend with, but when I focus just on the center third (ish) of the house, I smile.

Okay, now that it's May 14, and our house looks generally better, I'd like to share some landscaping pictures. No stories attached. I wish I had some befores. I don't. Get over it. Enjoy. I know I am.

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