Outside Help!

We've just been able to start turning our thoughts to what the outside of our home will look like some time next year. Thankfully, I have really creative family, from my husband to my brother-in-law. The exterior paint colors had already been picked out, and the more we see them, the more we love them! We are planning on using the sage-like green with a tinge of grey for the main exterior color (including covering the brick) of the house. The dark charcoal color will be the color for our trim, underside of the eaves, the garage, the siding on the peaks the house, the chimney, and our cinderblock fence (the previous owners had already painted over what looked like some graffiti). The red will be our front door and shutter color.

Tim and I had already decided that our house needed something to draw the eye to the front door, but weren't really firm on what that meant. We also knew we wanted to make some shutters for the outside windows and some beautiful window-boxes to add anther depth to the landscaping. The whole house was in need of some TLC for most of the eaves around our house, so Tim had the great idea of using bead-board over what already exists to add a little interest to what is otherwise a really simple feature. Chauncey added that we should make the exterior trim around the roofline thicker to give more prominence to our trim color.

After we talked about our plans for the outside and looked at what we really had going for us, Chauncey just "whipped up" this little something. He even drew in some landscaping for us! In addition to the shutters, bead-boarded eaves and thicker trim around the roofline, we will add clean-lined corbels across the front and side of the house to add some much needed architectural interest. Our house is currently a pretty plain-jane box that could use a little loving on the outside. This will definitely help! On the front of the house, larger beams will frame out the front entryway and provide an avenue for us to add lighting to our entryway. A tongue & groove ceiling will line the front porch to create a more defined and prominent front porch. They talked about a lot more stuff with the front porch, but I didn't necessarily understand all of it!

The side of the house will get a small arbor coming off the side of the peak to break up what is a REALLY LONG side of the house (the drawing makes up for where my words are lacking here). A small, slow-growing spruce will frame out the side of the house and really finish everything out. On top of this, we will plant more grasses, bushes and probably a tree in the front to really give our house some great curb appeal. I could not be more excited to see how this turns out in real life!

The front door actually got a little hint of the change that the rest of the outside of the house will get. Chauncey was gracious enough to spray it while he was out here, and a brand new door handle really tied it all together! We will replace the storm door next year so it doesn't hide our beautiful new door.Hope you enjoy our dreaming as much as we do!