I thought I’d never utter such a phrase, but I am bursting with excitement about our curb appeal. At least the potential; it still looks a little sad at the moment. But soon, friends, soon I will feel less shame. And that’s an improvement.
Some background: When we assumed ownership of our house in June ’09, we dove right into major interior projects like removing walls and gutting the kitchen. The must-do-before-moving-in list (a.k.a., the must-do-before-moving-OUT-of-parents’-basement list) was looong, so we essentially ignored the outside. Not that it didn’t warrant attention.
Um, charming? Quaint? No, no real estate euphemisms can hide that we bought ourselves a bit of an ugly duckling. She was long on the shabby and short on the chic.
We had a dumpster for our initial demo, so we took advantage of the opportunity to address at least the most offensive eyesores out front. Sadly not the chain link fencing; we have yet to take on that epic hassle. Instead, we tore off the (stunning) awning and (top quality) shutters and removed the (luxurious and not at all gag inducing) carpeting from the porch and steps. I don’t have a “before” picture of the house with the carpeted steps, but trust – it was bad. Bad enough that the hideous concrete left behind is actually more desirable. Here’s my mom doing battle with the carpet.
The few changes we made felt like adequate declaration to the neighborhood that we’d be taking care of this previously neglected house. But we followed them up with a whole lot of nothing attractive for months and months. It was especially easy to ignore the front of the house since we parked in back and rarely saw it. Here’s what we were missing come March.
I know, it looks worse. Cringe. Neighborhood lore has it that the previous residents harvested that corn and made tamales that were sold off the porch. Not sure I believe that. But you can believe that this corn is not the worst of our outdoor offenses. We once got an oh-so-polite notice from the city that we had a week to remove all the garbage from our property. Um, yeah, that’s a little tough on the homeowner self-esteem. I should clarify that we’re not talking about regular household trash or anything; just construction debris that was all neatly piled on our front porch and in our backyard. But they don’t mess around in this city. Seriously, I see Code Enforcement vehicles cruising the neighborhood all the time.
But I digress. We got our act moderately together that spring, and had it looking like this in May.
Hold on, it looks like semi-respectable people live here rather than savage heathens. That lasted a few weeks until the double newborn bomb went off at our house and we promptly resumed our program of exterior neglect. Although, full disclosure, the ferns didn’t even last that long. I love the look of hanging ferns but they’re not right for us because (1) they can’t take the eviscerating sun that wallops our front porch all day, and (2) they require regular watering. That kind of neediness just isn’t going to fly around here. We’ve since learned to buy desert plants.
Ok, yadda yadda, we’ve limped along out front with varying degrees of embarrassment for nearly three years…Let’s cut to the exciting part. Folks, this house is about to jump to a whole ‘nother level because it is getting painted. PAINTED! As in buh-bye, red brick; hello, sweet glorious paint in yet-to-be-pinned-down color of my dreams. I could die. But not before June 14 when work commences.
If you need me, I’ll be agonizing over the perfect shade of gray…