We've had our eyes set on a new kitchen. We've been refining our plans for a few months, and I think we're going to start on Kitchen Phase One pretty soon. In the meantime, we thought it would be a good idea to tie up some loose ends. One being the siding. We've been fooling everyone because we only did the front. There was still ugly siding in back. No one ever saw it, so Neal decided to do it in between jobs.
Let's review what the siding look liked:
And here's what it looks like after with new paint, trim and trim paint:
If you're detail oriented, you'll notice there's a new window on the left in the picture above. It's in the dining room. There were no windows on one side of the house, so you couldn't see into the back yard in any part of the house
Now you can:
TA-DA.
So that's awesome. It brings in more light which is nice since the sun travels on that side of the house. We also decided to spruce up the back deck. It was painted kind of red. We decided not to spend the money yet to completely re-do it, but with some Sherwin Williams "Deck Scape" paint and galvanized hog fencing (yep, we're hogs) a face lift doesn't make it stand out as much. Here's a sort of before picture. There were red painted diagonal slats blocking the whole deck from looking out.
It's not finished yet, but here it is in progress:
So we also did the front handrails. We got a bid for that stainless steel cable system for a open, but a little-bit-modern look, for $1200. That wasn't happening, so the hog stuff is in front now too. Personally, I like it better than the stainless cable, and it was 1/10th of the price of the cable, so I like it even more. And, as I was doing this blog post Neal and I decided to paint the handrails white, so now they're white (well almost):
Before the white paint.
Ok, then the last thing is that I really wanted to "finish" our master bedroom. I still haven't, but I've added some details, made new curtains, etc.
Antler curtain tie backs from Urban Outfitters:
I change the furniture around about every other week, and I've landed on this arrangement (I think, for now?!)
A real antique! Given to me by some friends. It feels disrespectful to paint it, so I'll probably keep it like this:
I don't know which lampshade I like better:
So, there you go. Some more updates, tying up loose ends before we start in on the kitchen.
