Outdoor Cosmetic Renovations: Planning Stages

I’m going to just say it: the first time I looked at Rooster Dude’s house from the outside, I was running through a Jeff Foxworthy checklist in my head: Old car parked on blocks? Yep. Broken appliances. Those, too. Add in chickens running around, and various junk that never made it off the porch and I thought the house was beyond all hope, at least from the outside. (The inside wasn’t bad at all, thank God.) I guess it’s a single country guy thing.

When this became my home, too, I started pushing for the de-cluttering. Now that we’re almost completely finished with that, we’ve started with the landscaping and planning some of the easier cosmetic fixes.

One of the best changes we made was adding a picket fence to the side of the house to cover up the air handler and DirecTV dish, which we’re yanking up soon since we don’t watch TV. My house design pet peeve is having entire walls with no windows or doors. I don’t get it; there’s nothing appealing about a blank wall. At some point before the year is up, we’re going to add two windows to that side of the house. We also planted climbing roses on the fence and (as you can barely see) framed it with dwarf Japanese maple trees, which should be about 12-14 feet tall once they’re done growing. Still, I think this side of the house, is going to need something else for visual interests, I was thinking a house star. As I was Googling it to find a picture, I realized, however, that there’s a name for these: barnstars.

Until I just looked for a picture of one, I thought they were just cool, rustic stars, but (run get your pearls to clutch), it turns out they have a history and some, in certain shapes and contexts, are relaxes to folk magic. For me, as a Catholic, that makes them a non-option. While this type of star may have no real meaning other than an old-fashioned builder’s mark, I just don’t want any type of symbolism on my house that doesn’t reflect my faith.

So onward in looking for outdoor decorations. I found something I got really pumped about: An Our Lady of the Roses Iron Cross, which can also be wall mounted.

 

I showed it to Roster Dude, Not a Catholic (a non-denominational, specifically), I got this look, that went on for long enough for me to take a picture:

“People are going to think our house is a church and ask to bury people in the back yard if we put that up. I also still don’t get the whole devotion to Mary thing.”

So my cross was out. Finally, after a bit of searching, Rooster Dude found some videos on making rustic signs. I think we can both agree that a modest sized sign with our last name and house number might be good way to break up some of the blank space.

Our other big cosmetic decision for the outside of the house is paint color, but we agreed on yellow and blue right away. It’s just traditional enough without being boring. Right now we have a tan and burgundy scheme, which both needs repainting and isn’t quite to our taste.

Thanks to Exterior Medics Home Improvement services for the inspiration.

Our current exterior paint scheme.

I think these few outdoor cosmetic changes are going to give us some good momentum for the big changes we’re making inside. Short term, we’re texturing the walls, repainting, getting rid of the popcorn ceiling, and shifting our black and white checkered hall tiles 90 degrees. Over the next year (or two, depending on finances), we’re going to double the size of the house by adding an upstairs, which will be nothing but a huge master suite and en-suite bath and an extra bedroom (possibly to be used a birthing room/nursery, should I be able to get pregnant). Downstairs, our current master bedroom is going to be merged with the current living room to add a library area and we’re adding on a new laundry room and expanding the kitchen.