Tag: Curb Appeal Page 1 of 6

Painting the Exterior of the House

On 2021-09-01

Our neighborhood was built in the 60s and early 70s. Most of the houses still maintain their original brick exterior and colors. It feels like a time capsule driving in the neighborhood. However, we have made a lot of changes on the exterior since moving in. We demoed the metal awing in the front of the house, got rid of the cracked concrete patio next to the foundation, removed the foundation planting, and installed a brand new storm door. These steps were taken to address the water issue around the foundation, but of course, these projects improved the curb appeal tremendously.

The front of the house, summer 2017, shortly after we moved in

The front of the house, summer 2019

The front of the house today:

When the roof was replaced, we painted the soffit, the fascia, and the front door to a darker color to match the new gutter, which gave the house an entirely new look and feel. Many neighbors stopped on their tracks and told us how much they loved the new look of the house. Some even said that they enjoyed watching us make decisions during the renovation process. “It is like watching a HGTV show in weekly episodes!” They said and we laughed together. Our neighbors’ praises certainly confirmed our choices of the trim color, and the front of the house looked really good!

But somehow, the house still looked a little strange. For the longest time, I could not pinpoint what was off about the house, until Slav suggested that we should have painted the gable.

A gable is the triangular part of a wall under the roof, especially between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. Our house is side-gabled, meaning that the gable portion faces the side of the house. Although not in the direct view of the street, one can still catch a glimpse of the gable when passing by.

Generally speaking, the gable color does not need to be the same as the roof, or the fascia, or the soffit. More often than not, the gable color actually contrasts the roof color, and accompanies the siding of the house. Our house has yellow brick siding. After careful consideration, we decided to paint the gable the same color we used on the fascia and soffit – bronze.

We used bronze on the soffit and fascia to match the bronze gutter, and really liked how it looks. The original gable color appealed very yellow next to bronze, which made the gable portion look very dated.

To repaint the gable portion, we first had to clean the surface to get the dust, wasp nests, and spider nets off:

Then we needed to use the sander to take off the peeling old paint and rough the surface to receive new paint.

We also needed to patch and caulk the gaps and holes:

I spend a whole weekend cleaning and sanding. Then Slav patched all the holes with sealant/outdoor caulking.

The gable on the garage side is relatively lower to the ground. I was able to reach all surfaces with a tall ladder. But the west side gable is a different story. With sloped land underneath the gable is very high up. Slav had to climb up for most of the work.

After letting the sealant dry, I lightly sanded everything again, cleaned the dust off, and it was time to paint!

The new paint reads a bit blue in the picture above, almost black in low lighting, but it actually looks lighter and warmer in person. I think it made an amazing difference from the old color:

Here is the west gable before:

And now:

Definitely more seamless and better!

At sunset, the bronze color reads warm. I love it.

Painting the gable looked like a small upgrade, but it actually took us two whole weekends and many evenings. It provided a big visual impact, and the house finally looks “right”. 🙂 The best part of this project? When I painted the gable on the tall ladder, this girl was watching me closely from the below.

What do you think? Do you like the looks of our newly painted gable?

OMG OMG OMG We Got New Windows!

By Alison

On 2019-06-03

In Our House, Renovation

Hallelujah, we finally updated all the windows!

We used to have aluminum windows throughout the main floor of our ranch. Since day 1, Slav has been wanting to replace them. I do not blame him. The old aluminum windows lack both form and function. They are dingy, hard to clean, and do a terrible job insulating the cold/heat and noise.

The pictures above show the old aluminum windows on the back and the north side of the house. These are windows in the kitchen, our bedroom, and the office:

The previous owners added more layers to insulate, which made it impossible to clean between the layers:

Some of the windows are so rusted that they do not open. During winter months, condensation formed and mold was growing along the window frames:

Colorado is so dry that we do not usually deal with mold problems. But these windows were exception. Needless to say that we were ready for this upgrade for a long time. So when DesignCrew, who did our basement egress gave us a very reasonable quote, we jumped on it with both feet. Their quote does not only include replacing 7 old aluminum windows with custom vinyl windows, but also includes the cost of making the office window bigger.

The picture above shows the old office window on the left, and the living room window on the right. You can see the office window was shorter. To bring some symmetry to the front of the house we wanted to make the office window taller so it would match the height of the living room window.

Making this window taller requires cutting the brick window sill off, removing a few rows of bricks below the sill, and building the sill back up again. The DesignCrew guys subcontracts the brick work to a masonry contractor so the quality of the brick work is professional.

In the morning of the window installation, we pushed everything away from the old windows and covered our stuff.

The crew arrived after 8 AM and worked their way from the inside out, so they can clean after themselves effectively. Lee, the father of the company started to enlarge the front office window (the left window in the picture above) right away, while Ryan (one of his sons) worked on the smaller window on the north side (the right one in the pictured above).

The bricks were removed before the windows were taking down. Lee, the guy in the picture explained to me that doing things in this order prevented the dust from entering the house. I really like how methodical and organized these guys work. Cannot recommend the DesignCrew enough!

Within an hour the bricks demo was done. Lee then removed the window and trimmed the wood framing to meet the new opening on the exterior brick. You can see how much we were lowering the sill from the picture below:

Before noon, the new opening was done and I had a rare opportunity to peak into our exterior walls.

Apparently our brick house was constructed in the following layers: a layer of brick, a layer of insulation board, then interior wood framing. There is no insulation between the interior studs as we discovered during the ethernet cable installation.

It is so cool to be able to look into the walls – I love the mechanical aspect of the house a lot more than the finishes. Maybe one day we will build a house from scratch!

The rebuilding of the window was pretty quick. I snapped the last picture above and went for a walk in the neighborhood. By the time I was back, the new window was up!

The new and bigger window let in so much more light and the office was instantly brighter:

And we can see a lot more of the front yard garden now with a lower sill. All the flower beds are visible as soon as you walk into the office. This new window has become my favorite spot in the morning. I love sipping my tea while watching birds and flowers in the comfort of my pj.

All the new windows facing the front and back are double-slider windows – both glass panels are movable and can stop at any position along the window track. The panels can also be pop off easily from the inside for easy cleaning. Each window comes with a bug screen which is a continuous one-piece. The screen can be removed for clearer view. This feature is useful during winter months when we do not open the windows.

Lee saved all the sill bricks during demo so the masonry contractor could re-point them back onto the wall.

He also replaced the bricks on the side that were cut into halves with bricks taken from the bottom of the window, so the wall on both sides of the new window looks seamless.

And this is the new look in the front of the house! Doesn’t it look much better with both windows at the same height?

Compared to this:

So satisfying!

While Lee tackled the office window, Ryan worked on replacing the two small windows on the north side.

We rarely open these small windows due to the furniture placement. All they are there for is letting the light in. To have a better view we opted for awning windows, a decision we are so happy with.

We anticipated that awning windows will appear bigger, but we did not think it would look THIS much bigger and better. The unobstructed view out of these windows looks like a picture and instantly made the rooms feel more finished. In the bathroom downstairs we chose a hopper which is also without the middle frame. For small windows I highly recommend this approach. It also made the windows look bigger from the outside.

And there will be no more mold!

Also replaced are the kitchen windows:

Which Roxie is clearly excited about:

And the other window in our bedroom. Directly below is the egress window DesignCrew put in for us back in January.

A much better view of the backyard from our bed:

The last window we replaced is in the garage! The old aluminum one was completely rusted and could not open.

And here is the new one:

We have been living with the new windows for a couple weeks now and really like them. We no longer hear traffic on the street, and every room is a lot brighter. The temperature inside is a lot more stable, and opening and closing the windows have been a breeze.

In addition to the comfort, upgrading the windows brought such an instant upgrade to our curb appeal. We keep asking ourselves why we had not done it sooner! After removing the old front porch, installing a new roof, putting in new landscaping, building a new horizontal fence, and now with brand new windows, we finally checked off all the big items on our exterior renovation list. Remember the front of the house when we bought it?

A very different view today:

Now we can finally move into the decorative elements for the exterior. Slav has been wanting to add stone veneer to the bare foundation, and I’ve been dreaming about climbing clematis on over-window pergolas. Slav is also very motivated to paint the gables and the garage door darker to better match the bronze trims and gutters – or I should say, to let me paint the gables and the garage door darker. This summer will be full of small and fun projects to continue improving our curb appeal, and I cannot wait!

Fence, Finished!

By Alison

On 2018-11-28

In DIY Built, Our House

After five weeks of hard work, our DIY fence was complete.

Do you like it? WE DO. A LOT. 🙂

Besides a few weeks of planning, this fence took five weeks of physical work to build, including demoing the old chain link fence. Here is a week-by-week task breakdown:

Week 1: Preparing the ground for the fence

Week 2: Concrete work – setting fence post

Week 3: Attaching bottom pickets

Week 4: Demoing the old chain links and a mid-project clean-up. Slav also finished attaching the top pickets during this week.

Week 5: Building Gates

The goal of this fence project is to replace the old chain link with cedar fence for both privacy and curb appeal:

And here are the new fence we built in the place of old chain links:

The north front fence is the perfect backdrop for the front yard landscape we installed this summer. To accommodate the slope, we divided this 20 ft of fence in four panels and stepped down after each panel. We also made each panel 5′ wide so we would not end up with a short panel on one end.

The new south front fence on the other side of the house is only 15 feet long. It consists of a 4-ft walk gate and a 10-ft drive gate:

You might remember how much trouble we went into building these gates. Now we are fully rested, all the effort feels worth it. The choice of simple black hardware and the decision of having them hidden resulted in a perfect seamless look from the street.

For finishing touches, Slav mounted address letters onto the new fence, which we have been holding onto since moving into the ranch, 17 months ago.

The new south side fence is the longest stretch of this build – it is a little over 90 feet and also sits on a slope. Slav incorporated several step downs to keep the height under 6′.

You may notice that the pattern of the side fence is a bit different. The side fence is constructed with only 1″ x 6″ picket, whereas the front fences have decorative details on the top.

Slav did 90% of the work. Despite being his first fence DIY, Slav did a fabulous job. Don’t we all expect this though? He is a perfectionist and we all knew it. 🙂

As expected, the new cedar fence has been the biggest upgrade to our curb appeal. Here is what the north side yard looked like this Spring:

And here is the same angle today. I loooooove how the color and the texture of cedar play with the evergreens, black mulch, and river rocks.

This is what the south side yard looked from the street before:

And today:

The new front fences not only added privacy, but also enclosed two side yards which we can now access from the back. The northern side yard used to get lots of afternoon sun and had to irrigate. But now, with the 6′ cedar pickets to its west, this area is in shade and a lot cooler.

Without the chain link running along the northern fence, we can finally landscape this area. It will be a great outdoor project next spring:

We needed a “utility yard” for a long time and the new south side yard is just that. Behind the drive gates is the perfect spot for Slav’s trailer, and we are thrilled to keep the waste bins off the view from the street.

With two dogs we always had a poop bucket outside. Someday I would like to have a beautiful porcelain planter just for that. But for now, a Lowe’s bucket with a “bullshit corner” plate mounted above will do.#pitbullmom

Here you have it, our new horizontal fence. As our first DIY fence, we are proud of ourselves for pulling it off in 5 weeks. Most importantly, we wrapped it up before the harsh winter set in. It is beautiful, it is sturdy, and it will become the perfect backdrop for more pretty things – I am talking about pergolas, climbing vines, and solar powered outdoor lighting. But we will save the fun for next Spring, because the mountain is calling!