The Difference 3 Years Makes

Will and I moved into our project house 3 years ago today.

Before and “after,” or more along the lines of before and “during.”

Looking back at that first image it is hard to remember why we loved this house so much and wanted it so badly. It is easy to remember Will’s initial reaction of, “no freaking way.”

It almost looks like one of those “guess the difference in the photo” images. Can you name all the changes?

Some are a little hard to see, so here’s the cheat sheet.

Completed:

• No more ivy in front of the giant window (thanks Sharon & Howard!)
• No more dead ivy on the siding to the right of the window (my grandma is sooooo happy about that)
• New purposeful plant bed in place of the ivy (still working on getting the right combo of deep shade plants there since I’ve been resisting hostas)
• New sprinkler system (you can’t see the system but that green grass was hard earned)
• New roof (thank you Chinook winds and State Farm insurance!)
• New fence (you can’t really see the old, but you can see the new horizontal wood fence in the “during” shot)
• No more pine tree leaning on the roof
• Took out the “decorative” supports on the front porch to the right of the window
• Removed the handicap railing behind the pine tree
• Pruned the trees to the left and behind the house so you can actually see our roofline

We left the roof and the tree removal to the professionals, but I’m happy to report that we (and a few other helpers) tackled the rest without breaking the house or our bodies.

Still to do:

• Replace the driveway (this will make the neighbors and my dad very happy)
• Remove the dying crabapple tree to the right of the driveway (we’ve been trying to nurse it back to life but it refuses)
• Landscaping more below the front widow and completely re-working the area to the left of the driveway/car
• New garage door
• New windows
• Painting the brick (we hate the red speckled madness a whole lot less now that the roof is a different color, but it still looks dated to us)
• Replace the house numbers

Pondering:

• Taking out the brick “knee wall” on the front side of the porch and running a walkway straight out to the sidewalk
• Making the grass area between the proposed walkway and the driveway a garden
• Getting’ fancy with new wood siding where the current gray lives
• I’m sure there’s a lot more that is in the process of being pondered in Will’s head