Curb Appeal

In preparation for our move, we finally did something we have wanted to do since the beginning.  Why is it you always do the awesome stuff for someone else to enjoy?

 

Here is our house as of the second week we lived here.

 

Complete with trees to plant in the backyard. 

Sidenote - I have always wanted a front porch, but none of the three homes we have owned has had one.  Maybe the fourth time's a charm?

The green shutters were faded and beginning to warp, and the door was the same murky color.

Things that have changed in this picture: Handsome Hero no longer has facial hair, Ella is HUGE, Jack is HUGER, we are now a family of FIVE, and I have a lot less hair and somewhat less body mass. All for the better. Except the kids. They need to stop growing. Like now.

 

We thought the house looked tired, mainly because of the shutters.  Since curb appeal is the most important tool you have in selling your house, we wanted ours to stand out.  Originally we thought we would paint the shutters, but closer inspection revealed that they weren't worth it.

 

We chose to replace the green with black.  It's the traditional choice, but also the one I thought would look best against the white siding in our saltbox style house.  See how much better it looks?

The last step was to paint the door a beautiful deep red {hard to see through the storm door}.  If we were staying, I would have gone Granny Smith apple green, but since we want to appeal to the masses, it was between red and black, and red makes a more memorable statement. 

I love it!  And no, I didn't touch up the sky to make it that brilliant.  God did it.  I am a photo ignoramous.  He is not a Creator ignoramous.

Anyone want to buy our house? 

The Lewis family moves again!

You know what a challenge is?  Adding a newborn into a family with two other little bitties. 

You know what makes that situation crazier?  Breaking your right ankle when the baby is a 1 1/2 months old, rendering you unable to drive, much less carry the baby. 

You know what would make you certifiable?  Sitting on your bed with your leg a big blue cast up to your knee, feeding an infant while listening to the older two play in the other room, and agreeing with your husband that yes, maybe this is a good time to move again.

We have accepted a job transfer that finally, twelve years, four states {one twice}, four houses, four apartments, three jobs, three kids, and one husband later gets me back to the South.  We will call Knoxville, TN our home by Christmas!  I would have trouble believing it if it weren't for all of the home improvement noises I hear going on downstairs right now. 

When I got my first teaching job in Delaware, I was very excited, but terrified.  I had lived in the same house almost my entire life, and had never been away from family for more than a summer, and here I was going North of the Mason Dixon where {gasp} yankees lived!

Enter: Handsome Hero.  I met him in Delaware, but he was still in school.  After he graduated, we got married and moved to Wisconsin.  We thought we would be here for around five years so we bought a house, but less than a year after that we were transferred to Everett, Washington.  It wasn't exactly a move that brought us closer to family, but it turned out to be the perfect move for us. 

Fast forward another five years.  We decided to move back to Wisconsin, a difficult move, but absolutely the right one.  We thought, again, that we'd be here for at least five years, but now, again, we are moving.  Two years seems to be our limit at one time in the Great White North.

Our goal has always been to move back to the South and family at some point.  After we started having kids, it became more of a priority, and now it is finally becoming reality.  We {read: Handsome Hero and my mom} are working like mad to get the house ready by completing all those little things that have to be done before a house goes on the market. 

Over the next week, I'll show you some of the things we have done to improve the curb appeal, etc.  I think the house is looking pretty wonderful as I observe from my perch on the bed!

The kids understand some of what is going on, but it shows up in the funniest ways.  Yesterday, Ella was telling me the story of the Three Little Pigs {apparently named Pam, Sam, and Jam with parents Lydia and Ghostless}, and instead of them building their houses out of straw, wood, and brick, they went to the market and bought one for forty bucks.  When I started laughing, she said, "No, I'm serious!  It was a pig house!"