Our Very Own DIY Curb Appeal Project

It's been almost an entire year since James and I moved into our house. We've been updating this, painting that, repairing things, etc. The joys of home ownership. One of the things that kept bugging both him and I was the lack of curb-appeal. The contractors that remodeled our house and the neighbors seemed to run out of creativity and steam by the time they got to ours. Our front porch was no more than an unstained platform with some railings slapped on to it. They did no landscaping but they did paint the door a bright lime green for that pop of contemporary color!

 The back porch is much larger and painted/stained so I made the trip to Lowes and had them match the stain. Our first thought was to see what adding paint would do and how much it would help. It did, a little, but it wasn't enough.

Luckily I have a handy-man husband who decided to take on the project of adding on to the porch. I came home one weekend and viola! The porch was larger! Of course, I had to paint it because that is one thing that my husband refuses to do! Once we added on to the deck we decided to get started on some landscaping. I don't have the greenest thumb and one thing I hate doing is getting on my hands and knees and weeding out flower beds. I did that as a child and I knew I didn't want to as an adult. Since James makes beautiful planter boxes, we decided to add some to our home. We covered the surrounding area with white rocks first and then inserted James' planter boxes.

Next came the fun part- for me at least- choosing the flowers. I did some research and talked to co-workers and friends about which plants would be easiest and best for the Texas heat (and for my laziness). I wanted color in the planter boxes and then some flowering bushes in front of the porch to eventually grow up to the height of the deck. James bought a flowering tree to place on the porch. Overall, I'm very happy with how everything came together. Now I just need to make sure I keep them all alive :) 

Even with all of these updates and improvements James and I both knew we needed something more. Eventually we want to add a roof and cover the front porch but that's a larger project than we want to dive into right now. So, I thought about shutters. James agreed and my research began. I found a great video tutorial through a trusty pinterest blog and after watching it- we made the trip to Lowes for lumber and paint. We followed the directions to a T (other than the measurements since our windows were 84" versus 60"). They were super quick and easy to make and I think they fit perfectly with our home. 

 
Even though we have more work to do, we are happy with the transformation and what we have right now!!!