Exterior Upgrades

Last week, the outside of our house got a serious upgrade.

With the upgrading/moving/exclusion of windows, and the existence of some really old aluminum siding, we decided it would be best to re-side our house during this phase of the renovation process.  But the biggest burning question was, what color?

Next to our home, there is a big beautiful farmhouse.  It is white. Our house is white.  So the big white house seemed to dwarf our little white house.  In my mind, choosing a non-white color for our home, was a non-negotiable decision that had to be made.  Luckily, Michael agreed wholeheartedly. 

I love a white house as much as the next gal, but we had to make our house not look like the big farmhouse's dog house. 

At first we were feeling the color grey.  Grey is a very trendy color right now where home design is concerned. Some grey cedar shakes with white trim and a red door.  Yeah.  I liked it!

We thought that would look great on our home! And it probably would have! However, the first thing that got nixed were the cedar shakes.  Have you seen them?  They are popping up on all the newly constructed homes.  And boy are they expensive!! When we got our first quote, vinyl cedar shakes were 3X more expensive than the traditional vinyl lap board siding.  So our original dream to side the entire house in shakes was brought to an abrupt halt.  One compromise we considered was just using them as an accent - on the gables or the dormers.  But ultimately, it was an all or nothing scenario for us.  A completely "shaked-out" house could have been really charming for our little cape cod but we felt that using them just as an accent could look dated someday when the vinyl shakes are not the "in" thing to do anymore. 

So next we looked at the available colors for the lap board siding (excuse the picture below for being in shakes... they were the best color pictures I could find).  We considered Flagstone (grey), Blue Ridge (blue-grey), and a wild card - Blue Bayou (dark blue). 

Its funny, the longer we waited to choose the siding color and the more we talked about it, the bluer our siding choice got.  Ultimately we chose the wild card - Blue Bayou 

I still can't believe Michael was on board.  One thing that helped was visiting my family's lake house on lake Wawasee on the 4th of July.  If you have ever driven around Lake Wawasee or any large lake, you may have experienced the same whiplash I always experience driving around the lake looking at all the beautiful homes.  Well this year, we saw blue everywhere! I think there is something about being on the water that makes a blue home just feel so right. 

And ladies and gentlemen, its starting to feel right....

We even got the old wrought iron viney contraption off our porch! Woo Hoo! I can't wait to get it painted!

We also still need to get the planks off the roof. But the back is looking pretty fine, if you ask me...

 We love love love it.  I love the way the blue looks with our front door.  We also chose the wider trim around the windows!

Also, I love the way the siding looks against the red brick on the chimney. 

 

Now, you may have noticed something a little funny...

Remember how we mentioned that we have other plans for our current garage and plans for a future larger garage?  Well why re-side our current garage if it is going to just get partially knocked down anyway?! Along with that, when we decide to add on the new garage, we will re-roof it so we thought we would wait until that happens to re-side and change out the window on the south gable. 

We also plan to put on a big wrap around porch to the front of the house. So, to plan for that, we have left space on the front of the house unsided where we will build up the deck for the porch.  The picture below is has the same feel for what we are going for.  Coming possibly as soon as next spring!

 

Oh yeah, I almost forgot! Our driveway got an exfoliation treatment! Meaning, we got a supply of recycled asphalt delivered at the end of last week to help smooth out our driveway.  It was extremely pot-hole-y before.  Michael called around to a couple of different places to get quotes and recommendations.  We expected to get limestone but found out that the recycled asphalt would be a great option for us.  It compacts really well and its about $100 cheaper for what we were quoted for limestone.  Score! Plus it's a great option for us since we would love to pour asphalt for our driveway in the future.  So we'll see!

So I think that our curb appeal factor has jumped about a thousand points despite the garage not following suit. I'll keep you guys updated if we ever start tackling our un-landscaped yard.  

We are certainly feeling the pressure of the move-out date coming our way soon! We'll see what happens...

Check out our updated to do list.  And check out the first batch of trim that got put up! Look good eh?

• Hang the new front door.................................................Done!
• New Siding on the house  ..............................................Done!
• Trim on the main floor.....................................................1st Round of Sanding and Priming Done!
• Paint all the trim .............................................................Yet to be done
• Install electrical outlets and lights .....................................Yet to be done
• Finally get rid of the smell from the basement ...................Done!
• Lay tile in the bathroom ...................................................In Process!
• Have the gravel for our drive delivered ............................Done!
• Get the kitchen countertop installed ..................................Done!
• Paint ............. .................................................................On Hold until trim is done
• Clean ducts and boot up our geothermal system ...............Yet to be done
• Get one last coat of sealer on the floor .............................Yet to be done
• Move in!! AHHHhhhh .....................................................We'll see!

I'd say that is some reasonably good progress.  Except we have to be out of our apartment in a little over two weeks.... so there's that.