OUR EXTERIOR (PHASE 1) REVEAL!

Wow, this summer was a whirlwind! Last March, Chris and I sat down and made a list of 10 projects we wanted to complete this summer. With things like “replace the shingles” and “fix the siding”, it became clear that the exterior was going to be our focus for the summer! And what a transformation it has been!

Shall we do a few dramatic before and afters??

Here’s how our house looked when we moved in –

And here’s how it looks today!

What a difference isn’t it?! New siding, cleaned up landscaping, new paint, a few new windows, and a lot of hard work!! (Imagine how beautiful it will be when the trees have leaves again!!?)

Let’s start with the siding. We originally planned on keeping the red metal siding and just replacing a few rows that were rusty, power washing the rest, and repainting it. But then we had a hail storm that damaged a good portion of our siding and we quickly realized that between the hail damage and the rust, this siding wasn’t worth saving.

So we decided to reside our house entirely and start from scratch. We landed on board and batten with a wood grain texture which felt like the perfect siding style for the “cabin tucked in the trees” vibe we were going for. But before we could do that, we had to rip off all the old siding first. There were two layers of siding actually…red metal siding on top and cedar wood lap siding underneath. Neither were in great shape so we pulled off everything until we reached the sheathing underneath. Seeing this house as a blank slate was actually super refreshing. We could finally see our vision coming to life!

We hired my brother who’s a general contractor in Minnesota to help us start installing the board and batten. Neither Chris or I had ever done this before and having someone with experience and a perfectionist mindset like me was the right move. We learned so much from him and he helped us install nearly half the house! We tackled the rest of the house on our own and surprisingly we finished it without any hiccups or emergency phones calls to my brother! Our siding is from LP SmartSide and we love it! I shared all the details about our siding in this post if you’d like to read more about it.

Painting our siding was an experience in of itself. In summary, we painted our house 3 times in 3 different colors because I couldn’t find the perfect color. It was an emotional rollercoaster that you’re welcome to read more about here if you dare! 😉 But apparently the third time’s the charm because we finally landed on this perfect muddy green color and we couldn’t love it more! It’s deep and moody and it compliments the grass, trees, and soon to come landscaping wonderfully. It’s called “Subterranean” from HGTV Home by Sherwin Williams! More details on how we painted our siding here.

NOTE: The color name has since changed and is now called “Muddled Basil” by Sherwin Williams.

Our passthrough got a transformation of its own with a new window and cedar shakes. I wanted to incorporate at least 2 siding materials to break up the monotony of board and batten and it quickly became our favorite part of the house. For now the cedar shakes are natural but I’m hoping they’ll age into a beautiful weathered gray patina. For a closer look at our passthrough and cedar shakes, read this post.

Simple things like pairing smooth fascia trim along the roof line with the textured siding is what reminds me that the little details matter. Or the trim around each window with a sill and a border that transform our standard windows into a moment. It’s those details that make an otherwise overlooked element turn into a beautifully intentional feature.

You may have noticed that the shingles are different too. Our roof was also damaged from the hail storm and we were very fortunate to replace the shingles at the same time as our siding. More on that here.

I titled this blog post “Phase 1 Reveal” because there’s still a lot to do…most of which won’t happen till next summer. Landscaping is at the top of our list and we cannot wait to rip out the existing layout and start fresh with with all new plants. A railing for our front porch, new stairs, new pathway, an extensive amount of work in the back yard including a deck, and potentially refinishing our front door are also on the list and I think we’ll need all winter to figure out what we want.

You can see a peek in the photo below that we left a portion of our siding with the original horizontal lap siding and simply painted it a warm white for the time being. That whole portion will get a new roof and cedar shakes next summer if all goes as planned!

Sometimes I think back and remember that we originally planned on simply repainting our old siding. Can you imagine how different our house would have looked?! I’m sure it would’ve been beautiful but now that we’ve truly uncovered the potential of this home’s exterior, I can’t imagine it any other way. There’s more to come, but for now we’re thoroughly enjoying what we have accomplished!