A little renovation

Our house was built in 1963. We bought it in 2011. The siding that you see here, we believe, was original to the home. It was old. It was chipping. It was rotted in some places. It was in horrible shape. We don't plan to stay in this house forever, which means the exterior needed a good facelift. 

These pictures were taken before we moved in but after we had already made an offer on the house. You can see into the living room, which we have also refreshed. 

The garage door pictured here was replaced not long after we moved in. This one was solid wood and so so heavy! We had to lift it a couple of times to leave when the power went out and boy was it tough. Solid wood. Possibly also from 1963. They built things tough!

We hired a company to do the work, because it was such a big job and we don't do things fast. Also, we didn't want vinyl siding but something that would last a long time. We used something called HardiePlank.

In progress...

This part was so exciting to me. See that fresh wood? There was no soffit on that part of the house and so we would have a family of birds move in each Spring and their sweet little babies would hang out there and we could watch them from Brixton's bedroom window. It was cute the first year, but eventually we had to block the hole they were living in. I blogged about that years ago when I blogged about the bees in the front wall. So many adventures here. 

This was also exciting. This giant beam was pretty rotted on the edge. Our roof is octagon shaped and so there's no good way for gutters, which led to rot on this beam. Problem fixed.

Making progress. See that wood beam over the garage. That's Nate's beautiful design. He's good at that.

And now some before and after shots.

New front entry

Before and after

So much better! It really is so great. I feel like it looks like a new house. This is just the back. The front of the house is stone. They just had to paint trim on that part so it's not as exciting.