Summer Spruce Up

I have been working very hard this summer trying to get the house looking nice. We have been here 9 years and this house has suffered years of neglect due to young children, frankly. Any parent knows how useless it is to try to do anything with babies or toddlers around. Now that my youngest is at a somewhat independent age I decided it was time to get to work. That and the fact that we plan on moving, hopefully in the next year or two and if we are going to touch up the house for that I figured we should enjoy it looking nice while we still live in it!

I will say, that I always feel really bad when the boys are essentially ignored and told to go play while I'm working. I tried to utilize the days that Chance had off so at least he could give them attention while I worked on a project, however I know the boys were growing tired of Mommy always being busy. At one point Luke complained, "Mom, the house doesn't have to look perfect! It's what's on the inside that counts!" I do think it is important to have the boys see that life is not all playtime and that sometimes there is work to be done and that it's nice to see a task completed! Nate took this picture for me and told me it is so we will always remember how clean the house looked!

I wish I could say everything is finished, but there are still a few more areas I would like to give some attention to. But I definitely checked several things off the list this summer.

Quadrant came out and redid our porch. This is what kind of started it all. Once our front porch looked shiny new, I kind of wanted the rest to match!

Then I washed all the siding on the house. This one was stupid. I should have just paid someone to do it. I spent way too much time on this and WAY too much time on a very high ladder. I actually wiped every place I could reach with a sponge and then rinsed it away with a hose. I pressure washed places I couldn't reach, but it didn't do as good of job. I didn't get every area spotless, but the house looks much better now!

Pressure washed and stained all the fences.

Repainted the deck railings and re-stained the deck.

Added some landscaping bricks to the front yard.

And the backyard.

Pressure washed the driveway (and the neighbors - that's another story!) and patio.

Painted the hallway and stairway. This was LONG overdue and I am so happy it's done!

Fixed the kitchen ceiling (texture, primed) and then painted the whole downstairs ceiling. This was torture on the neck, let me tell you!

Recaulked the downstairs windows.

Cleaned all windows (inside and out - even the 2nd story ones!), sills, screens.

All I have to say is, being a homeowner is a lot of work. Maybe I don't want a bigger house!