home improvement.

Published on by Quandie

Well, shucks.  I’m continuing to work on long overdue maintenance projects at our house, which means that once again this week I don’t have any blog fodder to speak of.

But I thought I’d share what I’ve been doing, just for the heck of it.

First up, I decided to clean up our curb appeal.

We have a small … porch? … stoop? … deck? … step? … not sure what to call it, at the front door of our three season porch.  It’s really just a simple box with decking boards on top that sits on the ground.

To be honest, I’m not sure we’ve ever cleaned the decking.  Surely we must have done it once or twice in the 30+ years we’ve lived here, right?  But I don’t recall when.  Clearly it has been a long time.

  LOL, seriously you guys.  I should probably be embarrassed to even show that.  But just look at the amazing difference a little pressure washing can make!

After a good washing, I repainted the sides in our house color and then added the same sealer to the top that we used on our deck earlier this summer.

So far I’m impressed with the way this is working on the deck, it adds some protection from the weather without changing the natural look of the wood much.  It also soaks into the wood rather than sitting on top of it, so it won’t peel off.

It had rained overnight when I took that photo, so ignore the puddling water on two of the boards.  But truly, I can’t believe what good shape those boards are still in after 35 years.  I’m not sure that you can even get boards that thick and wide anymore.

As you can see, I also painted the front door in my new outdoor green accent color that I’m calling English Green.

Next to the small porch, stoop, step thingie is a Limelight hydrangea that has been there for I suppose about 10 years or so.  It’s really outgrown the space, but I can’t bear to pull it out so instead I give it a massive pruning every spring.  This year I decided to also limb it up from the ground to make it look more like a standard.

That revealed a bunch of space underneath for a new garden.

I tried to fill it in without having to purchase any new plants.  I divided a Guacamole hosta and a May hosta from other areas and put them in here.  I moved some Chocolate Snakeroot from another garden, and also pulled some heuchera from another spot.  The bright green lamium was already growing under the hydrangea.  The only new plant is the taller hosta in the corner (left in above photo), which is a Krossa Regal.

Here’s the front of the house, all spruced up.

Some of you with eagle eyes may have noticed that I’ve made a change or two to the front window box since I last posted about it.  I pulled out the coral colored begonias and replaced them with a white caladium.  The color of those begonias was all wrong with the rest of the deep pinks in that area, plus they were getting totally swallowed up by the other plants.

The caladium is at least holding its own.

With the front of the house looking pretty good, I turned my attention to the back.

We had a lot of peeling paint on the south facing back side of our house.  Repainting it was on our to-do list last summer and we never got around to it.  So I was determined to make it a priority this year.

As I’m sure many of you know, it’s not the painting itself that’s difficult, it’s the prep work.

Ugh!  There was a fair bit of time spent scraping that peeling paint.

I decided it would be easier to break the job down into sections that wouldn’t be too overwhelming.  So for now, I’ve completed the back wall …

And it looks amazing!  Such an improvement.  It has inspired me to keep going, so I plan to get another section of the house done yet this summer, and possibly also the potting shed.  We’ll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I’m stepping away from home improvement for a bit to finish up not just one, but two pieces of furniture.  So be sure to stay tuned for those!

25 thoughts on “home improvement.”

    1. That’s bee balm, or Monarda. It spreads like mad, but is easy to pull out where you don’t want it. I think I can be excused from leaving all of my hosta flowers in place for the bees because I make up for it with all of the bee balm (which, as you can guess by the name, bees also love).

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  3. The house looks gorgeous! We just went through a residing, porch, and new entry project last Fall and it really makes you love your house all over again! I love your color selections and your garden. Beautiful!

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    1. Thanks so much Kathryn! I suppose I should have mentioned my house color, but I’m not sure one could find it these days. It was originally called Montana Moss, but I’m not sure what brand. We color matched it in a different brand right from the get go.

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  8. That’s some beautiful curb appeal right there! Love seeing the whole house. I love the color of the house and the door too! And the landscape is amazing! Truly a labor of love one can tell!

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  9. Your house looks so charming! Love love love all your plantings, flower beds, window box! I think the green and white plantings in the window box look fabulous! Upkeep on a house is kind of never-ending it seems!

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  11. Well I mentioned lemon bars to Netti…We cleaned and marked for hours yesterday for our Autumn de-stash sale. Your home is lovely…

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