OUR SUMMER PROJECT LIST – WE’RE STARTING THE EXTERIOR!

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It’s been 4 years since we moved into our home and every time we pull into our driveway, we yearn to see a finished exterior. We’ve been putting off most all of our exterior projects because we felt we had more immediate projects to finish first. But we’ve come to a point where we can and desperately want to work on the exterior of our home! So we’re dedicating this summer to the exterior. Yay!

Here’s our summer project list and never before seen current pics!

1 // Repair the foundation

We knew when we bought this house that the foundation wasn’t in prime condition. It’s held up decently well and hasn’t budged much but it still needs repair…especially for resale! We found a company who will be repairing it in late July and as far as we understand, we won’t need to do any yard repair after they’re done! Thank goodness! We’re feeling very relieved that this project is finally going to get crossed off our list!

2 // Fix the back door

We made a dumb mistake! In the hustle and bustle of leveling out our floors, installing new engineered hardwoods, and converting a window into a door, we accidentally installed our back door too low! It still opened and closed but the bottom slid across the floor not leaving enough room for us to finish our flooring with a transition piece. Mistakes happen. We already started this project last week and if you were following along on Instagram you saw that project take place.

3 // Replace the siding

We have metal siding and there are a few portions that need to be replaced. We ripped off the siding on one portion of the house because we rearranged a couple windows. As a result the siding no longer fit and I’m embarrassed to admit that we’ve left it as Tyvek for over a year now. (Yikes!) Also, the bottom row of siding is rusting on about half of the house…long story. In addition to that, we had a hail storm several weeks back and we noticed some hail damage on the back side of the house. We’re in conversation with some companies currently about our options but most likely we’ll have that replaced as well through insurance. Fingers crossed we can get that sorted out!

4// Replace the shingles

Speaking of the hail storm, it also did damage to our roof, gutters, and downspouts so we will be replacing all that through insurance. We’ve never picked out shingles before so wish us luck!

5 // Fix and scrape the exterior trim

The trim on our house looks like it’s in pretty rough shape but when doing a closer inspection, it really just needs to be scraped and repainted. With the exception of a few spots around the garage, we should be able to save and repaint most of the trim around our windows and doors!

6 // Paint the siding

This is where the fun begins! We’re in the process of narrowing down some color combinations, but it’s become clear that this project will be done in 2 phases. This summer we will (fingers crossed) paint our siding and trim. As of now we’re leaning towards a dark color…but that’s changed 3 times in the last month so we’ll see. Phase 2 of this project will involve adding an accent siding material! We’re hoping to put a new roof over the bedroom and laundry room next summer (another long story that I’ll share later) and once that project happens, we’d like to reside those rooms to add a little more variety to the elevation of our home. Right now it’s all one material – horizontal metal siding – and I’ve realized that I’m much more drawn to homes that have 2-3 materials. But for now we’re focussing on just paint and making the siding work for phase 1 of this project.

7 // Porch Makeover

With the siding getting repainted, we felt it was just as necessary to redo our porch. Teddy (our dog) has done a marvelous job of pulling off the railings and crushing our down spouts. (Don’t get me started on the grass that he destroys too!) But truthfully it was in rough shape before Teddy did his work. We don’t have a solid game plan for this yet but we’re sure that we’ll be replacing the railings, stairs, skirting, and refinishing the cement pad.

The next 4 projects are “bonus” projects! We would love to tackle them this summer if time allows, but we’d be fine pushing them back until next summer if necessary.

8 // Landscape

Chris has been dreaming up ideas for landscape since we moved in and fresh plants paired with our fresh paint job would be wonderful! Most likely we’ll do the front and back in two phases because landscaping isn’t cheap! At least not the plants that we want…

9 // Replace the walkway

We’ll be replacing the walkway from our driveway to our front door and I have some really fun DIY ideas that I need to convince Chris of….think weathered white stone!

10 // Driveway edging

Believe it or not we have 3 driveways…3! One for our garage and 2 for our shed which is just outside of this picture. They’re all gravel and rocks tend to creep into our grass creating an uneven line. Chris has been doing some research on quality edging within our budget that will drastically help clean up the lines. Most likely we’ll do the same edging for our landscaping too!

11 // Build a deck

And last but not least – we want to build a deck in our backyard. Our back door (you know the one that we installed too low) leads to grass and we have a few plans in place on how to create a quaint seating area! This one might end up being a 2021 summer project but shhh don’t tell Chris!

Stay tuned for progress reports! I’ll be sharing them as they happen on both instagram and the blog!