We’ve knocked out two more projects on the left side of the house this past week!  This was the side of the house that had been most neglected over the years.  Even though it does face a street (our house is on a “peninsula” lot), it’s not a side of the house we see very often.  It’s opposite the garage, driveway, and side entrance of the house; you don’t see it at all from the backyard because of the fence, and you only get a peek of it from the front.  It’s been a little out of sight, out of mind for us, and I think that was the case for the previous homeowner as well.  What was once a lovely abelia hedge framing a lilac tree was completely overgrown and overrun with weeds and English ivy.  Because of the landscape tangle, the brick hadn’t been cleaned in years, and

As I’ve shared the exterior of our home, I’ve been asked a few times about the panels under some of our windows, so I thought I would write a post about them.  Let me start by saying that I’m not a tremendous fan of apron panels under windows.  I don’t mind the ones on my house, but I would prefer just to have taller windows.  While they were an intentional and original design feature of the house, they give the appearance that original larger windows were once replaced with shorter windows, and panels were added to fill the gap.  In some homes, that might be the case, but in our house, this detail is original.  It can also be found on many other homes in our neighborhood, so it must’ve been a trend in the late 1960s to early 1970s. I don’t know with 100% certainty why the architect of