We had three warm, sunny days in a row towards the end of last week, so I put painting the garage side of the house on the calendar.  We were running out of paint-friendly days outside and I wanted to take advantage of them so the two most visible sides of the house were painted and checked off the to-do list.  We’ll then be ready to do landscaping in the spring.  The front is painted, has new windows and replacement shutters on the garage and it’s looking great.  We just need to replace the panels below the windows on the right side of the house, but that’s a one-day project we can squeeze in on a nice day. Now we’re moving to the garage side of the house, which functions as the front of our house since it’s where we park.  As a reminder, here’s how it looked when we

I realized I haven’t shared what we’ve been doing along the side of the house.  It’s still in the works, but I think it’s important to share the reality of a home renovation…  Sometimes progress is made in leaps, but most of the time it’s just one small step followed by another small step. The side of the house isn’t normally very important, but in the case of our house, the “garage side” of the house functions as the front.  Since it’s where we park, this is the door we use all the time.  It’s also where guests enter, where packages are dropped off, and where deliveries are made.  We want to spruce it up to make it more welcoming and charming, but it’s going to take some time to implement all of our ideas. Here is how it looked when we bought the house… When we started cleaning up

Before the rain came over the weekend, Jeff, my mom, and I worked last Thursday and Friday to make a sizeable dent in painting the exterior trim and siding on our house.  The weather truly was perfect for it and, while we were all tired and sore by the end of Friday, we got a tremendous amount done. We started on Thursday with the trim.  I had already primed the porch and trim I could reach along the front of the house and over the garage (as I shared in THIS POST) and it took almost all day for me to just get a coat of primer on.  With the help of Jeff and my mom, I was hoping we’d get all of the trim primed and painted along the front of the house and on the porch, but it was a tall order.  I didn’t know how many coats

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Walmart.  As always, all words and opinions expressed in this post are honest and my own. There are a lot of sponsored posts I get excited about.  I don’t work with a brand if it doesn’t feel authentic and if I wouldn’t buy their products as a customer.  But, I am super, extra excited about this post because our pool and patio area has been completely transformed over the past couple of weeks.  There has been a lot of heavy-duty renovation work that has happened to get the pool up and running and we’ve put in a lot of sweat equity on the landscaping and overdue maintenance like power washing, but it’s been all of the furniture, plants, and accessories that have brought our outdoor oasis to life.  There still is more to do and I can’t wait to see how things look in