Small Changes, Big Impact - Painting Our Exterior Brick

We have made extensive changes to our home, inside and out.  However, some of the most high impact changes happened to be the cheapest / easiest ones we've made.

(Our house at the end of last summer)

Last year, I shared the before and after of our exterior, here.  However, the many changes that we made were done over the course of about 4 or 5 years.  The change that took our renovations from nice, to wow, in my opinion, was\ painting our brick and adding fresh landscaping.  Don't just take my word for it, take a look.  Here is a picture of our home after we changed the roof-line/windows/siding:

This picture was taken just about a year ago.  I remember being so excited to get our flower boxes planted, stepped back to take it in, and realized it was kind of sad looking!  That is when I knew something had to be changed.  Here is our home after new paint/plants:

Creating an Outdoor Room

Our winter was cold and long.  My family has missed our time spent outside in our backyard and on our deck.  My son has spent the past few months asking me, daily, if we could "please eat outside on the deck, mom!"  The weather has only barely broke, but our deck is all ready and waiting for spring / summer!

Did you notice the dead looking tree in the background of the picture above?  That usually has leaves by now, but due to the (miserable) weather in our parts, it's still yet to bloom!  Can you tell I'm just a little bit ready for consistent warm weather?  I'm not bitter at all.... I swear....  ok maybe just a little.  ;)  I lost five newly planted rose bushes just on the other side of the deck over the winter, so maybe that is why I decided to go for the gold with these already full hanging baskets this year rather than planting them myself and waiting it out to fill in:

Creating an Entrance: Summer Planters

Last year I gave our home exterior and landscaping a makeover to help improve our curb appeal.  One of the updates we made, among the many shared here, was to line our front entry path with planters and boxwood's to help create an entrance:

I chose two large scale planters to line the start of the path so that I could add drama and color to the landscaping each year with annuals.  Today I'm going to share the plants that I chose this year to fill these planters.  By now I think most of us have heard the formula for creating an eye catching planter: thriller, filler, spill-er.  With this in mind, I made the following selection:

Exterior Updates

Hello!  Trying to post really quickly here, so this post will be short on words, long on pictures.  I mentioned about a million times on this blog that we placed an effort on improving our curb appeal and landscaping this summer. 

Peony Love

If you are tired of hearing about my love for certain plants, I'm sorry.  Maybe you should turn away now because you are about to hear - or see in this case - about my love for peonies; by far these are my favorite flower. 

Garden Stakes

This year, my husband ripped out a whole section of grass alongside our house so that I could plant an herb and lettuce bed right off our french doors and deck.  Therefore, I planted a larger variety of herbs and lettuce than ever before and wanted to make sure I kept all the different plants straight.

(Almost) Free Landscaping Makeover

I'm really new to this whole "landscaping" stuff.  Our first place was a condo and our outdoor space was a 6 x 8 foot balcony.  The first four years in our current home was spent expanding and renovating the home on the inside, and tearing out the overgrown jungle on the outside. 

Side Entry Mini Makeover

Each year we've lived in this house, I've only added annuals to the planters in the front of our house.  Here is what I did to our window baskets this year:

Given the amount of work we are taking on outside this summer (we just completed a project this weekend that I hope to share soon but if you follow me on instagram you might already have seen it), I decided to keep it simple and use Dragon Wing Begonias and Sweet Potato Vine.  A friend of mine plants this variety of begonia each year and I always love the look, so I decided to give them a try. 

Vertical Wall Garden How-To

Yeah!   It is finally warm outside and this year I am WAY ahead of myself and I'm already finished with our outdoor flower planters and herb garden (well, about 85% finished):

Kitchen Garden Planning and Outdoor Extravaganza

Outside, it's in the thirties and we're experiencing flurries.  Just a day ago, we were ambushed with 7 inches of rain overnight!  We woke up to find a pond in our backyard!  For a few hours, the lines between our yard and our neighbors actual pond were blurred.  I thought the boys and I might go fishing should any of his little fishies cross property lines...  Lucky for the fish, our "pond" dried up pretty quickly and lucky for us, we didn't get any water in our basement.