10 Years in our Home (a visual measuring stick)

June 1 marked 10 years in our home.  Looking back at posts from that first year, many didn't include photos.  I was just excited to see things.  The blog has changed.  The way our house looks has changed a little with painting garage doors and our porch.  But the best marker of time is something growing...in this case the silver maple tree in our front yard.

We had friends visiting over the weekend and we were looking at that tree.  I mentioned we had been here 10 years and the comment was made "I bet that tree looked a lot different then".

Remembering back, I looked around our street and saw some trees dying.  Our home was four years old and it appeared some trees made it and some didn't.  I made the decision to prune the dead limbs to at least improve the look of the tree.

See for yourself the change in 10 years...the little tree that could! (I think I see an American Goldfinch in the before picture)

Porch and Garage Door Makeover

 In the theme of being here 10 years and time to get things done, the porch has needed attention for a while.  We knew we had to paint to at least protect it but it was also an opportunity to decide what color to change to (from the brown we have long hated).  This is Cindy's area as a decorator and we looked at different colors and shades within color groups.  We landed on gray being a good neutral and then landed on a shade of gray that we liked.

Cindy has many professional contacts and we hired one of her painters to do the job.

Before Pictures

During the Process

After Pictures

House Cleaning 2021

Cindy thought it was time we clean the house...literally.  We've been here 10 years so it was time.  I noticed someone up the street getting their house power-washed and mentioned it to her.  We called and got it set up.  Two young guys with a business and did a great job.

Our deck is on the north side of the house and gets very little sun so the deck and that side of the house have mildew or something that builds up so that is where we saw big improvement but also the garage doors looked much better.

Here is the deck before and after:

BEFORE

AFTER

New chairs

Here is the house before and after:

BEFORE

AFTER