House Reveal

This post was published June, 2015.  Right now, (May 2016), our flowers don't look nearly as good because I just planted them.  

Hello dear friends.  TGIF!  Yes, I know it's not Friday but the Mister is taking tomorrow off so it's Friday to us. 

I have not done a room reveal in awhile.  I have a very good reason for that.  The year 2014 was dedicated to indoor renovations which you can see on my Massachusetts Home tour.  This year, we concentrated on the exterior of the house.   

Move in day, December 17, 2013.

When we moved into the house, it was in desperate need of a paint job.  The shutters were mismatched and dilapidated.  The roof was on its last legs and the landscaping was overgrown.

This was the Mister's dream.  He has always wanted to renovate an old house.  I did not share that dream, but being the fabulous supermodel trophy wife that I am, I grudgingly hitched my wagon onto his dream.  All I asked is that the house would have two things:  good heating and functional plumbing.  One out of two ain't bad.   

And then January, 2015 arrived with a vengeance.  I learned a new term, "roof dam" and appreciated the value of having a mother lode of buckets on hand for emergency situations.  

Needless to say, the Mister's welcome home from me in the evenings of January and February were anything but warm and cozy.

But then Spring finally arrived and we had the house painted.  It's amazing the difference a coat of paint can do.  We also "treated" ourselves to a new roof.

We had new shutters and window boxes made for the front of the house.

We ripped out almost all of the landscaping and started anew.

Notice Chowdah peeking into this picture.

Can you tell Chowdah's middle name is "ham"?  If he's going to be in the picture, the least he could do is smile.

I think the window boxes add a lot of interest to the front of the house.  Now all I need to do is to remember to water them.

We also invested in new screen/glass doors.

This is my stubborn, non-blooming gardenia.  I try everything to get it to bloom - I fertilize it, water it, talk to it, I even resorted to treat it like my kids - with bribes and threats.  Still nothing.  I am now trying a new strategy by ignoring it.

By the way... I am not telling Chowdah to get in the pictures.  He just sees me point the camera and nonchalantly strolls over to be center stage. 

This is a picture of the house when it was up for sale.

We had the white cedar trees removed to improve the light in the house and on the patio.  It also enables me to keep an eye on the neighbors.  

We naturally kept the rhododendrons and planted a garden where the trees were.

My stylist, Madame Chili, is on the shy side.  Not a ham like her bro.

Another photo of when the house was on the market.

We had no choice but to have the flagstone removed because it was sinking in the middle and very dangerous to walk on in my stilettos.

We both agreed (very rare occurrence) on replacing it with brick.

Mom, when are you gonna play ball with me?

Until next time...

Our Security Detail