Exterior Before + After

This house was hands-down one of the ugliest ones in the neighborhood when we bought it. The yard was 100% lawn with huge divot paths where the previous owner’s dog ran along the fence, the exterior was the most blah color beige ever conceived, and it was so lacking in personality it was almost painful. To be fair, the before images were taken in September when the grass had turned brown from the late summer heat, and the after photos are taken in July so everything is still lush and green, so that does make things look nicer.

The front elevation needed something to make it feel cuter, so we put shingles in the gable, painted the whole house black (Behr color: Broadway), painted the trim white (Glidden color: Cappucino white), took off the ugly rusted screen door, and did a bit of landscaping.

Since the whole yard is lawn, I decided to take the entire west side of the house and turn it into a garden. I replaced the lawn with woodchips, built out some raised beds, and I’m still in the process of building out the front area with more raised bed and replacing the chain link fence with something prettier.

I’ve got some big plans for a deck off the back door where we can barbecue and have a nice big outdoor table. That’s definitely going to be a big project so I’ll probably happen next summer. In the meantime, we built a chicken coop and started a little flock of chickens this spring, which has been super fun.

It’s been a while since I looked at the before pictures and seeing them side by side with the current pics has me feeling pretty proud of what we’ve accomplished here thus far!