{ Let's Talk Exterior }

 The outside of this house makes me cringe. I know it could be worse and I try to remind myself of that daily hourly. One person told me they actually liked the color of my house, BUT not me. No thanks. 

 It's not just the color that makes my eye start to twitch, I get overwhelmed by the lack of landscaping and the abundance of weeds looming around the house. The attached rickety carport makes me nervous. The unwelcoming front cement steps and old wooden front door make me sad, the gross windows and surrounding trim are screaming at me to be replaced, the half dead and ridiculously too large pine trees that practically cover the front of the home from the road need to be chopped down- like yesterday, and the tiny, very dirty deck off the back of the house makes me wonder if my kids need their tetanus shots updated.  Am I being too picky? Maybe a little too dramatic! 

 I know, that was a mouthful but I needed to get out how much the exterior of this home makes me look forward to the day that it has more of my personality and likes to it. There's a huge difference to buying an old home that needs work and building our first home. I need to get used to reality, that results take work, time and money.  Snapping fingers and closing eyes doesn't work around here. There is SO MUCH that needs to be updated and changed. Pretty much everything in fact. And even though I just barfed up my horrible thoughts for you I have to say I am extremely excited to see this house evolve and change into the house that we feel like is home to us.

Waiting is hard for me. It's been ingrained in me that the exterior (and interior) of my home is a reflection of who I am. That statement is something I have tried to push down and out of my thoughts for years. It's especially hard for me being married to a "junk" hoarder (for those of you who know us know exactly what I'm talking about!) Granted, I DO try to keep my house tidy and strive to have my home be the best it can be BUT, I do NOT want to pass on the feeling to my children that the "stuff" that we have (our home, cars, clothing and such) is what gives us our value. So for now, until we can afford to make changes to the exterior, I am trying to be content with what we have. We have our daily bread, our immediate needs are met, so i have to remind myself of these things often. Do you smell what I'm stepping in?  Does that mean I cant give a little shout out to what I hate? No, I don't think so, sometimes it feels good to get it out, doesn't it? So there, my thoughts are out and now I am looking forward to the future and the beauty this beast will someday become.

Realizing that the list of what needs to be done out here is long, all of which are very expensive changes, I decided to write it all out and show you some house exteriors that catch my eye. I'm doing this because it makes me feel like if I list it all here, eventually it will get done and I have something to look forward to. It gives me hope and it's fun for me to dream about what I really want. Plus when we go to make decisions I can refer back to this post. So here's me dreaming...

I want to add on a front porch, a little something like this below. I like the white railing and I love the front door. 

I love the look of shake siding on houses. The house below has great color choices and the combo of shake/horizontal siding looks great together. I think our color choice will lean less toward gray tones and more toward warm tones since the chimney is tan/brown in color.

I also really love vertical siding. If you didn't see my sister's home exterior in this post you can see that they did a combo of sidings which included vertical siding. It looks beautiful. So our future exterior may have vertical siding as well somewhere. 

I also REALLY love pergolas. I want to tear off the old tiny deck that we currently have and do a patio similar to what you see below. That space screams cozy to me. 

We are planning on adding a garage with breezeway attached to the house. Something small and similar to the photo below. Currently there isn't really anywhere to hang coats or store boots and shoes upon entering the house, so having the breezeway where we can have a large closet for coats and a place to sit down and put shoes on will be great.

(Source)

I imagine the interior looking something like the photo below. 

As for the landscaping, this house has a lot of weeds and plants all thrown in one big mess together. We did a little bit of landscaping last year on the side of the house but hardly anything to get excited about so next spring I am looking forward to digging up around the front of the house and changing it up drastically. 

I lean toward simple landscaping. Something similar to the look below. 

(Source)

Those are all good photos for me to look forward to when we are able to do some changes. Hopefully we will be able to start on some of these things next spring. I'm dreading the looming winter and usually become somewhat of a home body in the cold weather so it's good for me to have something to look forward to! 

Happy Friday and Have a great Weekend! Oh and don't forget, if you wanted to get a few things to kick start your Christmas purchases you can get some great discounts using PROMO CODES provided by some great Etsy shops from yesterdays post. So check it out!