When we bought our new house the only box it checked off was the location. After searching for two years we realized that if we wanted to stay in the town we both loved and grew up in some things had to give. So out went all of my must-haves for our new home. I knew that with our touch we could make any house look charming and classic. We have are almost done with our renovation and this fall we finally had some time to start thinking about the front of the house. This entire time we were so busy with the inside and taking everything down to the studs that the front of the house just became an afterthought. I couldn’t take it anymore! We envision eventually getting new siding and adding a front porch to the house, but we realized there were some easy ways to add curb appeal to the front of the house right away by updating the exterior!

FROM SOLD TO HOME: EXTERIOR UPDATE ON OUR HOME RENOVATION

First up: CLEAN IT UP!

This sounds like a given, but it’s easier said than done. I don’t mean just cleaning up the landscaping. We had this awful staining of the roof and it drove me crazy every time I saw it. I couldn’t figure out if it was a smoke stain or some sort of staining from the trees. The roof was actually in good shape so taking money out of the budget to replace it when it was in perfect shape seemed crazy. I did a ton of research and was even toying with painting the roof at some point. I contacted a bunch of painters that specialized in exteriors and one of them mentioned getting it cleaned. At first, I shrugged it off because we had already bought a cleaner at Home Depot and sprayed it down ourselves and nothing happened. I’m not one to give up so I did more research and found a company that professionally cleaned roofs. I sent him photos of the house and he immediately knew it was algae and he knew that he could get rid of it! Would I need to get it re-cleaned in 5 years? Probably, but he was certain it would come off!

BEFORE PHOTO:

We hated it. Who thinks to put a brown roof on a brown brick house. Jon and I always described it as a turd. The roof staining was killing me slowly. Squeaky Clean LI was awesome to work with. You give them your address and they use google earth to check out the size of your roof and within mins I had a quote! It was $400 to get the roof professionally cleaned and it was money well spent!

AFTER PHOTO: Look at that roof! You could finally see it’s true color and it gave us more of a contrast with the front of the house. We also took out a bunch of the landscaping.

Once that was done I was excited to do more! I knew we had a lot going on inside taking up our time, but the weather was so nice. Not too hot, not too cold. Perfect time to get some painting done. So, we decided to go forward and paint the brick! Eventually, we will swap out the siding, but for now, it’s staying and I needed to freshen up the brick! There was no need to wait to paint the brick until the new siding.

It took 2 weekends to tackle it and it was honestly a harder job than I expected but it was worth it. Brick is so porous that it will eat your paint! We used a Kilz primer and started out applying it with a paintbrush to get into the groves, but it was taking forever! Eventually, we took out our Wagner Flexio paint sprayer, and then things went so quickly! We would still use the paintbrush to smooth out the groves. We went with Valspar Duramax 365 and had it tinted in Sherwin Williams Alabaster.

AFTER: So much better with the painted brick! I also went a little nutty and removed more of the landscaping. We want to make a front porch is this area so eventually it will all be gone anyway and we will do some flower boxes instead.

Now, we needed some finishing touches on those windows. I love shutters! I always think of them like the eyelashes of the windows. Crazy, perhaps? But, I think they are a must have! I searched high and low for the perfect ones! I wanted something special that seemed like us. I didn’t want anything cookie-cutter that could be picked up off the shelf.
I found Ekena Millwork and I loved that you could customize the shutters in a variety of styles and sizes! Plus they had so many color options and I fell in love with one immediately!

Aren’t they fun! The color is called Lily Pad! Our schools’ mascot is a frog and when I told Jon the color name he thought it was meant to be! We went with a two-panel version because it felt a bit different than what I have seen around and gave me a little Southern vibe. I love old Southern homes so I loved a little nod to that.

Designer Tip: When you are ordering shutters for your windows make sure to get them the width it would take to actually close your window. This was Jon’s pet peeve. He didn’t want them to look too small and not at all look possible to work as real shutters. Will they move and close the window? No, but they are the right size that they could.

MOCK UP OF MY VISION:

The shutters have been ordered and I’m itching for their arrival! They should arrive by mid-November!

Don’t forget about your front door! It was really important for us to re-use as much as possible when it come to the house. We love old homes with characters and we really tried hard to remember the lives of the family that lived here before us. So, we moved the stickers all over the wooden front door, sanded and primed it, and gave it a new dose of life with paint! Ideally, I wanted to use Fine Paints of Europe for a lacquered finish, but I was getting quotes in the $1,500 and I just couldn’t stomach that. So, I did some digging and found Valspar oil-enriched door and trim paint and I went with Sockeye by Sherwin Williams. Awful name, but beautiful color.

Now we are just waiting on finishing installing the house numbers and mailbox and installing the shutters. You got a little sneak peek at the light! Originally I wanted a brass lantern, but it’s delivery date kept getting pushed and we had exposed wires so I needed to act quickly! I ended up ordering this lantern scone and then used a little rub and buff to get some brass!

Almost there!!!! The kitchen is currently getting installed!!!! Ah!!!