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9.2.15

The Horseshoe House part 1

We bought a house! In September. We'd been looking for nearly a year and had our hearts broken with some other houses. In July sometime we drove past this house for the first time, we'd recently discovered these older neighborhoods near downtown Gilbert and loved them. We wanted an older house in a good area and once we found these few blocks of homes we knew we wanted to be in the neighborhood. (There were a few other neighborhoods in Mesa that we loved and looked in regularly.) In August we stumbled upon the house again and looked through the windows (and maybe climbed the fence to look in the backyard) and Landon said to me "is this our house?!" ...it sort of felt like home from that moment on. We got the keys and as we walked up to it for the first time I said to Landon "can you believe we own this piece of crap?!" ...

We took about 20 days of non-stop work to get it move-in ready and have been tackling projects since moving in mid-October. Remodeling a house 100% on your own is not easy. Remodeling a house 100% on your own when you're married to Landon is a little easier. Even still, I have vivid memories of blistered hands and crying at 3:00 in the morning wondering how the the heck we'd get this place livable... but we did it! (Side note to that: we got "put on hold" by Lu's birth-mom 2 days before we closed on the house. So getting the house ready for a BABY to come home to felt more stressful.)

We have a long list of projects still to do but we love, love, really love our little home.

I want to document room-by-room, where we started-where we're at-and what we have left to do. So without further ado- the front exterior!

BEFORE: 

AFTER(s):






-We painted the exterior, you can't really tell in the first photo because of the sun, but the house was an odd shade of aqua with possibly the worlds most horrible paint job. There was different shades all over and paint splattered everywhere. We painted Lowe's "ocean storm" after trying 5-6 other samples. We wanted a dark gray (well, I wanted a soft black but that seemed a little impractical in Arizona) but didn't want a brown, purple, or green undertone. I was fine with a blue-gray and at times our house can almost look navy, but I'm so, so happy with the color. (My brother and mom actually came in to town for 3 days and helped non-stop with our house. It was one of the kindest things anyone as ever done for me. My brother sprayed our whole house in a day!)

-We took off the security door and painted the front door. The color was a source of much debate for us. And we ended with a compromise of sorts. Landon wanted more limey-green, I wanted more teal-green and we ended with a pretty bright shade of chartruese- Behr's "rolling hills". It's still not exactly what I would have picked, but I do like the cheery welcome. And we've actually had people knock on our door just to say they like the color! 

-We repainted the garage door and trim a cool bright white- Ben Moore "chantilly lace".

-We tilled the front yard and planted seed. Landon was so anxious to get seed down that we ignored a rainy forecast for later that day. Low and behold- literal minutes after the seed was down there was a 10 minute torrential downpour and all of the seed washed into the road. I laughed, Landon nearly cried. But we planted a few days later and looooooooook how pretty it is now! I could sit out there all day. Grassy Arizona winters make up for 100 degree falls, amiright? 

-Landon is a bad-a and built the most amazing RV gate. Designed, welded, built, stained... everything. I love how it compliments our house. 

-To further prove his bad-a-ness, Landon completely made our mailbox! I feel like it's such a good extension of our home. And I love that Landon made the cute thing. He's handy to have around, that guy. 

-We added blinds to the front windows. 

-We added new numbers to the house. 

There are only a couple things left to do to the front of the house. We are going to paint and seal the front porch. Just a light gray porch paint. We tried to pressure wash the previous stains to no avail. We also need to trim back the mulberry tree, but other than that, we pretty happy with the front exterior!

And for good measure.... the man of the house:
and the baby of the house: (concerned about her hair loss and where her next meal is coming from, no doubt.) 

1 comment:

Brandilyn said...

Oh my GOSH I am eating this post UP. Scrolling up and down and up and down and ooh-ing and aaaaah-ing. Can you and Landon come make every house decision for me someday? And can you find me a house in a darling old neighborhood with a ton of potential? And can any future babies I have be even 1/10 as cute as balding Lu? That's all I want out of life. I LOVE your mailbox, literally gasped. LOVE the front door color. And that RV gate! Are we getting old if I'm leaving you a comment drooling over your RV GATE?!?!?!?! Well, I am, it's gorgeous and I cannot wait to be neighbors in 2 motherloving weeks.