Curb Appeal

We have officially lived in this house longer than our first house:) We only lived there for a year and half, and we will have been in this house for two years in a couple of weeks. So crazy that it's already been two years! We've done a lot to this house since we've been here. We've painted a ton (mostly me, but that's because Brian's always at work, and I'm the one who always wants the changes:)), and we've done a ton to the yard (this is mostly Brian, and my dad's work....all I do is weed....occasionally:)) If I had before and after shots for you, I would show them, but I don't, so I will just talk about our newest improvements. Ever since we moved in we had a HUGE bush up by the steps (again, wish I had a before shot). We've hated it since we moved in because it was just kind of ugly and would over-take the sidewalk if you didn't trim it on a weekly basis. I'm not even kidding, that thing was a monster. We just hadn't gotten around to it yet because 1) the outdoors is not my territory:), and 2)Brian just didn't feel like cutting it down and digging it out (can't blame him here at all!) My dad solved that problem for us last week. He had someone come and cut it up and dig it out for us. Problem solved!

Brian and I were sitting outside playing with the kids last weekend and I was just looking at our new front porch, minus the monster bush. It is so much more open now and you can actually see the whole porch. We've had a couple of plastic chairs up on the porch since we moved in. They were just a cream color, kind of boring, but it never really mattered because you could only see one and we just didn't sit in them ever. But looking at the porch without the massive bush taking up a whole side, it looked boring, since our house is a cream color too. It was just a lot of blah neutral colors and all kind of blended together. I commented that we needed to get some fun colored chairs. Brian came up with the genius idea to just spray paint the plastic ones we had. Brilliant! Not real sure why I didn't think of it....well, it's probably because I suck at spray painting and most of my stuff I have tried to paint in the past looks like crap. Brian totally doesn't have this problem, and he can even paint without getting it all over me which is not the case for me at all, my fingers have spray paint on them for days. Anyways, he picked out a fun bright blue and did some painting. I spray painted (you should have seen my finger. Seriously don't know how Brian managed to paint two whole chairs without getting any on him! All I had to paint was three pots) three clay pots. The end result is fabulous, and our front porch is no longer boring!

New view from the front yard. Amazing that you can actually see both chairs. With the old bush, it went up to the bottom of the window and covered half of the sidewalk if you didn't keep it trimmed.
Up close shot of the tiered flower pots I made that I'm super proud of. I saw this tutorial for this a year ago and have been wanting to do it ever since. Giving the porch some spice was the perfect excuse! I have fake flowers in here because I can't keep anything alive (except for a tiny bonsi (sp?) plant I got from a student my first year as a para). Whenever we have flowers in a pot, or I'm trying to grow something from a seed, it all just dies. I forget to water it, then I water it too much to make up for lack of water. It just makes me unsuccessful. Plus, I'm just lazy and don't want to have to plant things in these pots every year. So, I improvised and found some really fun fake flowers that will look fabulous all year long. So if you are in the need of some fun bright colors in the middle of winter, you know whose house to drive by!