So this was our house about a year ago.  It’s perfectly fine, but to be honest I have always hated the exterior.  The white was so boring and there was no real character to the place, but I knew it had potential.  Plus, after living in a tiny beach bungalow in CA, this house was huge and so was the lot.  Our lot in CA was so small, that our neighbor once “watered” my mom through our living room window while watering her plants outside her own home.  That’s how close together our houses were!  When we moved to GA, we wanted space for our growing family and a little bit of privacy.  This house gave us those things, but unfortunately it was not our dream home.  So, over the past few years, we have made changes big and small to make this space feel more like ours.  The exterior changes are some of my favorites.  Here’s what we did…

Eric(sweet husband) and I spent a great deal of time researching the look that we wanted.  We drove around, took pictures(stalked) other people’s houses.  We searched the internet and tore inspiration photos from magazines.  When it was finally time to actually get the work done, we had a perfect idea of what we wanted.  Now, as most of you know, the perfect plan and the perfect budget do not always align with the sun, moon and stars, so we made a few adjustments and moved on.  And this was the result…

 

After several years of waiting and much planning, I now have the curb appeal that I have always wanted for our home!  That’s our sweet boxer, Lucy, in the yard.  Here’s a rundown of some of the changes…

Probably the most noticeable changes were the dormers that we added over the porch and the garage.  The porch roof stayed the same and the dormer was added on top, so it wasn’t terrible expensive to do.  What was expensive was the metal roof, so we decided to do it on the garage dormer and just add a touch of it here on the porch.  I think it worked well.  I also had the oversized bulkhead on the porch raised and arched.  We’re not sure why the bulkhead was so large, it wasn’t hiding anything.  By raising it, we were able to get more light onto the porch and into the house.

We also had the standard rectangular window above the porch dormer changed to an oval to add more character.  The windows were replaced and new, more substantial pediments were added.  I had always wanted a double front door and was thrilled to find one that we could use in our existing opening that required very little construction.  That’s my youngest with the bubbles!

Choosing a paint color ended up being the most difficult task of the whole project.  We went through 19 paint samples before we settled on favorites!!  It took a while, but I feel like our final choices were unique and gave us a bit of that beachy feel that I loved from our time in CA.  Just in case your curious, we used Behr Premium Plus Ultra from Home Depot in silver sage for the siding, hushed white for the trim and mined coal for the shutters.

Here’s one more shot of the finished product sans Lucy and my youngest.  We still have plans for the driveway and the sidewalk, but that pesky budget didn’t allow for that with this project.  What do you think?  Have you done a major or minor remodel to the exterior of your home that you think changed the look completely or just made it feel more like you?  I’d love to feature your photos.  Send them in!

Happy Thursday!