Wednesday, July 29, 2009

I'm Blue Da Boo Dee Da Boo Die...

So we've been working on the house for a while now. We took about $10,000 from our savings to go all out on the exterior of the house. Here's the progress as of today:

This was after the new roof went on. I'll put up a better picture of the REAL before later with the finished product. It's a 1951 rancher, that was my grandparents. However, they grew old and didn't maintain it as well, and I bought it when it was literally being held up with duct tape. I mean our PLUMBING to the BATHROOM SINK was duct taped. The yard was covered in ivy, which is their style. We hated it. We're putting down grass, but that paint color was faded and so blah.

The shutters are coming in, as are the gutters and a new front door, but this is what it looks like currently. The contractor had a power washer guy come in and spray the house clean, which it needed. But OH MY GOODNESS look at that brick porch! My mom saw this and almost fell over at how it cleaned up. I hated that stoop, so I was ready to cover it in something nicer. Now I love it. The painters killed almost all my plants by means of suffocation and stomping on, so landscaping will come next year. Bigger and better! The windows are awesomeeee and the vinyl wrap is so dollhouse. It even makes that cheap awning look cute. I was going for a retro shade of blue, but I can't seem to capture the true shade in any picture. I. Love. This. House!



The side of the house. We're special because we're the only house in the neighb that has a window up there. It's really an attic, and we have a room up there. More specifically, my craft room. My grandfather made the room many decades ago, and there's even a checkerboard painted onto the floor that my mom and uncle used to play on. But that window was just awful. And the patchwork around it in the siding was worse.

Now look at that window!! It's not only a legitimate window, it's got a casing and they even covered up the awful patch job. I can't tell you how happy I am with these window people, really!


The back of the house. Absolutely dreadful. This picture explains exactly why my home owners insurance company dropped me after a house call they do on every 5 properties they insure "by random." The reasons? The chipping wood wrap around the windows, that tree in the back and the trees to the right are whats causing that moss to grow on the roof. Oh, and there's a little door to the crawl space under the house that you can't see here because it was covered in moss too. I was so upset they thought the house looked that bad, until I looked at proof on my screen. It really was worse in person, I just wouldn't admit it to myself.

There ain't any denying me, this house is completely insurable now! The trees are gone, the roof is new with fancy new plywood and leak proof stuff. No more repainting the wood since it's wrapped in vinyl and Drew made that fancy new door to the crawl space. The backyard is so much brighter... now all we need is grass! Also, my dad was upset everytime he tripped up those little people stairs, so he's offering to replace those for us, and we're going to have them slope out a different way as well.

It's really coming along. Now we need landscaping, complete with a white picket fence, and it will truly be a dream house. Who else can say that about their first place?

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