I’ve always thought that one of the biggest reasons nobody bought this house for so long was because of the lack of curb appeal which in my opinion, is one of the worst reasons you could give. It’s so easy to pretty up the front of a house – even if you don’t change the actual exterior structure.
Over the course of the last year, we have done a couple of little things to improve the curb appeal of this house of ours. Last summer, we updated our lamp post and in the fall we gave our mailbox a makeover. We also ripped out a truckload of azaleas and put in a few Indian Hawthorns, a Knock Out Rose tree, and threw down some grass seed. Sadly, the grass seed only took in certain areas (partly due to heavy rains washing it away) but we’re stubborn so we’re trying again this fall – this time we’ll most likely put down a layer of top soil and we’ll try to get it done earlier than we did last year.
Here’s a view of the front of the house from the listing:
And if I’m not mistaken, here is the last picture I showed you guys of the front of our house (because I’m a bad blogger):
Well, this is how far we’ve come this year:
To be fair, these pictures were taken in different seasons so that alone makes a big difference. The mulch bed to the left of the porch still needs to be cleaned up and new mulch needs to be added but it’s still better looking than it was this time last year.
The two biggest things we’ve done have been to add more mulch beds and rebuild our front porch. I’ll give a full run down and pictures of the porch soon but for now here’s our mulch progress – we’re still battling some falling sticks/branches and the vine system from Hell that keeps popping up all over the place:
Both of these projects have often been rewarded with Happy Hour trips to Sonic. I need a shirt that says “Will sweat for Nerds Slush.”
We’ve come a long way but as always, we still have a long way to go! We’d like to eventually add some stone edging to the mulch beds and we also need to regrade part of the lawn and re-mulch the beds we put in last year at the front of the house. We’d also like to continue tackling the crazy wild area off to the side (not pictured) and rip out all of the ivy between us and our neighbor. A good power wash also wouldn’t hurt, but once we wrap up our front porch project we’ll probably leave the front alone until next year, with the exception of re-seeding in the fall…and maybe snapping and going all Bruce Lee on that ivy but we’ll see.
Most of what we’ve done to the front has been purely aesthetic, but the front porch had to be rebuilt due to structural issues. I’ll tell you all about that next time, along with how it was fixed but for now here’s a preview:
Why yes, that is a rotten stair stringer and no, it wasn’t the only one. Isn’t home ownership fun?!
jbellwaite says
This looks great! As another home-owner who purchased a house completely lacking in curb appeal, this is totally inspiring. Keep up the good work!
Jess says
Thank you! It’s a slow process but we’re definitely getting there! I would love to do some bigger impact changes but right now, we’re sticking to the small details and hoping it all adds up.
Martha Mensing says
Looking sooo much better!