Blue is the new white.

When Sean and I first started looking for a house, back in 2013, I wanted a very specific style of house: a white one, with black shutters and a red door. I was told over and over again that I was being too specific but the very first house we found was a white house, with black shutters and red door and it was the house we bought. But it's been a few years and this 1950s house was looking a bit tattered and torn. (We're still trying to wrap our heads around this whole homeownership thing.) We were told when we moved in that we'd need a new roof right away -- well, it turned out to be okay for the last 4 years but it was definitely time to improve. The bushes out front were becoming unruly, no matter how we tried to tame them and the overall look of the outside had been neglected because we tried to focus on the inside. Well the outside look matters! So this summer, we paid a bit of attention to it.

It's definitely a change!

We started off by removing the overgrown bushes, then had the roof redone, the screen porch redone and lastly the house was painted. We decided on Admiral Blue (Benjamin Moore) because we've been toying with the idea of moving and all the houses we saw and liked were blue. We figured why not make this house all we wanted it to be rather than uprooting ourselves while searching for something we can create here at home. We still need to paint the front door -- though we got a nice clear glass door that really opens up the look -- plant some landscaping and probably get some shutters though that's still debatable. And we're in no rush... the neighbors must love us. :)

We chose to close off the bottom part of the screen porch for safety reasons. Javi (and the cats) were running full force into the lower screens and I was so worried Javi would fall right through! I think it looks so much better this way and I love the lattice because you can't see our lawn stuff from the street. I mean, no one wants to look at that...

Next we paid some attention to the weeds under the front deck. I say "we" super loosely because I had nothing to do with this at all but I love the way it looks now. :) It's a whole lot neater, at least!

We also paid a bit of attention to the left side of the house. This area known as the jungle was ridiculous with weeds and overgrown plants. We had it all chopped down and removed (just like we have every year though it's just grown back in the past), but this time we had new "loam" (had no idea that was a fancy word for dirt) delivered and then tried our hands at grass seed. I'm now a professional grass seeder. 

:) I'm not quitting my day job or anything to become a landscaper but it's a vast improvement! At least now, we can walk all the way around the house -- I heard that's important in case of emergency!

In the backyard, we collapsed our unused septic tank so that the yard could be flattened. It's hard to tell in the photo below just how high the hill was and how big of a hump we were dealing with-- but it was silly and unnecessary. We lost our fire pit in the process since that was positioned right on top of the unused septic tank. We definitely need to buy more loam and plant more seed because a lot of it didn't take. But that seems like a problem for future Sean and future Jasmine -- like in the spring of 2018. I mean winter is coming...

All in all, I'd say it was a successful summer for outdoor home improvement projects! And now to finish up some indoor projects before this baby arrives... :)