on the outside

I ran into a couple of problems yesterday installing things and putting things together.  At least it was a somewhat sunny day.  So, we are going to take a quick break from our in house remodeling to look outside.

The 101 list only had two things to work on for the exterior of the house.  Of course, there are many, many more.  Here’s what made the list.

Paint house  - dark gray with white trim and a red door (Ooo!  Ahhh!)

Some examples

Courtesy of The Lulu Bird

Replace front door and hardware – something that lets light in

 I like both of the examples above with the windows at the top.  Or I could go with something a little more retro/modern like this

Painting the house is something I would love to get done this year.  I know a new coat of paint would make a very dramatic impact and completely update our home.  The white house with teal trim is a little dated.  

Unfortunately, we have a few somewhat major projects that should be done before the house gets a new look.

A new roof

 From this

Courtesy of Synth Stuff

To this

A new roof is something we need.  We may be able to put it off another year or two, but it needs to happen soon.  There are some pieces of plywood under the roof that will need to be replaced and there is some major rotting on some of the eves.  It doesn’t make sense to me to put a new coat of paint over something that’s falling apart and we’ll have to replace soon anyway…even as much as I want to do it.  So we need to save $6-8K to replace the roof.  Daunting, especially with only Steve working and me in school, but something we need to do. 

New gutters

This would come with a new roof.  When the eves get replaced the gutters need to be replaced too.  I’m not sure how much this would add to our roof quote, but I’m guessing around the $1K number. 

Put in vinyl windows

Our house has a majority of vinyl windows, which are great!  For whatever reason the previous owner left 2 of the older metal pane windows in the downstairs.  These need to be replaced, both for insulating purposes and for a more streamline look out front.  The vinyl windows are all white and the metal ones are black.  It looks strange to have the one black window at the base of the driveway.  The metal windows also don’t have any kind of trim around them while the vinyl ones do.  Once the house gets its new colors these windows would stand out even more without a nice coat of white trim around them.  Browsing on Lowe’s it looks like we could do each window for around $200, so $400 total.  That’s with the price of the windows and the needed supplies.  That’s actually a lot less that what I had thought.  Maybe this will be a project in our near future.  Well, we’ll have to at least wait until it’s a little less rainy.

There are also some other things I would like to do around the house, but these don’t need to be done before we paint.

Paint shed

This one is easy.  We’ll just include it when we paint the house.  Likely we’ll have enough paint that it shouldn’t be a big deal at all.

Reseed the lawn

If someone asked me to describe our lawn in one word I know exactly what it would be…sad.  There isn’t so much a lawn as weeds that we mow because, hey, at least it’s green.  Steve has been discussing this project with me over the last week.  I think it will get done soon!  :)

Landscaping

Our poor little flowerbeds.  I thought they were bare when I planted them originally (see pictures above).  That was before we lost a bunch of plants last winter due to some late frosts.  They are now looking barren - nothing like the pictures now.  Auntie Megan said she would donate some plants to this worthy cause when they knock down their house prior to construction.  I can’t wait.  It’s a wasteland out there now (except for my beautiful lavender plant – she has quadrupled in size!).

So there are a few projects to look forward to when the weather gets a little nicer and we have some more green in our pockets.