Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Curb Appeal? Yes, Please!

if you need to find us, we can be found standing on the curb smiling at our house!  we are so happy with the progress.. enjoy!

we've been busy workin on our house lately.. we want to get the siding done before it starts snowing again.. hopefully that won't be for a few months though!  below, you can get an idea of our previous curb appeal before the siding went up..
 but as i said, we've been busy and the front is almost done!  :)  here's brady framing in the bay window.  it used to be held up with two 2-by-4's and wasn't even insulated (which may have added a bit to our gas bill this winter)...
 i've been busy adding plants. 
 and making up flower pots.  my mother-in-law is the pro at making gorgeous pots.. so we went flower shopping and put these together a few months ago.  I looove them!  oh, and i couldn't resist the pink flamingo.  it was only $2.50 from target.  i'm pretty sure that it's already broken.  i guess you get what you pay for.  it reminds me of our honeymoon at the flamingo in las vegas... which was almost 1 year ago, by the way.  our 1 year anniversary is coming up this friday.  :)
 and here's how the siding was looking on sunday night
 then we decided to update our door with some paint.  i realllllly wanted to use auto paint to give it that extra gloss.. so the door had to come down for a few hours.  and we let a few zillion bugs fly into the house in that time.
 again, here's what our front door looked before.  it was still an upgrade from the old turquoise door that came on the house.. but still lacking personality.
 here's brady painting the door.  it took about 7 coats and 4 cans of high gloss black.  and then 2 coats and one can of clear coat.  plus a few hours to dry.
 we picked the paint up from o'reilly's auto parts store.   if you want a custom color you have to go to a specialty auto paint store to have the color mixed.  i was originally planning on an orange door but i settled on black just to get it done asap.  i think it is turned out pretty classy.
 annnnd we picked up a new mail box from ace hardware.  it cost less at home depot, but we didn't want to drive across town to save 5$.
 the optional tag was an ugly bronze color.. so we decided that needed to be painted with the same auto paint as the door.
 here's the old junky mail box. it looked like sh*t.  pardon my french, but i have strong feelings about this mailbox.
 here's a blurry and un-flattering pic of me excitedly throwing away the old clunker!
 and here is the new one!  it's kind of sad that this is the most exciting thing i've done all week.  i guess i'm getting old.  hehe
 oh, and the access is lockable!  not that we are worried about people taking our bills or anything.. but it's a nice option.
 another very exciting update is our new numbers!!!  they are modern, stylish and are very nice as far as quality goes compared to other house number options.  we had the option to have them recessed off the house.. we thought that sounded like a great idea and i love how it turned out.
 last but not least, we put up a new light fixture.  we used to have a bright white motion sensored light.  it had no style but was functional.  we went with this super cool stainless steel light from the home depot.  i love it.  however, home depot does not have best quality lights availible, so we actually had to use pliers to get the metal surround to fasten into the fixture.. we had the same problem with our old chandelier.  but they do look nice once you get them installed.
 enough blabbing.. here is the big reveal!!!  we are both so thrilled about the transformation.  it really gives us the motivation to continue onto siding the other 3 sides.  its going to be a lot of work, but oh so worth it!  more pix to come :). 
 what do ya think?
ps.  i have a few closing this week and intend to buy a new camera as a present to myself..:)..  good bye blurry, out of focus pix.  does anybody have a camera that you think is so awesome that you would recommend it to somebody else?  i need all the help i can in choosing because there are sooo many options available.

3 comments:

  1. It looks really great!! Nice choices. Love the house numbers especially. As for the camera, you absolutely can't go wrong with a Canon Rebel!

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  2. It all looks really nice, guys. I guess this proves for itself that hard work pays big dividends.

    Love,

    Mom Figarelle

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  3. The house looks great! I love the door. I can't wait to see it in person. Oh and our last two cameras have been Canon's and we've loved both of them.

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Hey guys.. be honest now !!