Curb Appeal

I was just looking through the Better Homes and Gardens website while I was taking a break from cleaning and I found a photo album of before and afters of houses that had remodelled their exteriors. Some of these houses were dismal before - just plain and boring - but all of the after pictures were fantastic! My first thoughts were, "Yah, if I had a load of money I could make my house look like that too," but my next thoughts were more along the lines of, "Wow, it doesn't take much to make a big difference," and, "I could do that!" I pulled up a picture of the exterior of our house from before we moved it. We've already added a load of curb appeal simply by cutting down some trees and putting up a fence, but there have been a few things that have always bothered me about our house. The first I'd have to say is the position of the front door. When we hadn't seen the house yet but had only seen pictures I thought that there was only one side door. The house I grew up in had a front facing door that left you no doubt of where to go. This house - not so much. The second thing about this place is the color. It's yellow. Not sickeningly yellow, but definately dated yellow. Matt and I had tossed around the idea of residing this house but we also were talking alot about movie into a bigger place, so it seemed like a silly investment.
Well, Looking at this album inspired me. I opened that picture of our house in Paint and, very primatively, drew on some additions: I moved the door, added a front walk-way, colored the trim... Things that would require some, but not a huge amount of work, and definately would change our house for the better. Now all I have to do is convince my hubby!
Actually, my sister's house is one example of how easy it can be to change your house. When they first moved in the house had faded grey stucco and blue trim. It looked like a barn. Last summer they painted the stucco a dark brown and the trim black and now it looks like a new house! With only painting! The difference to their place has definately been an improvement.
I'm watching my guppies in the tank right now and one of them is just about to have her babies. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised to see them just popping out any second now. Then we have another female who will probably have her babies in a couple days, and another one due next week. Fortunately that tank at the hospital is large so that we can put any extra guppies we have in there!
I finished cleaning Gabe's room before lunch today and then I was fortunately enough to have Matt come home for lunch! We just had some soup, nothing fancy, but it was really nice seeing him in the middle of the day. Once Gabe wakes up from his nap we'll go upstairs to play for a bit and then I'll start cleaning our bedroom. I forgot that I have to make dinner tonight since I haven't had to in nearly a week, so I'd better figure that out. But I already know what we're having for dessert... wedding cake! We had kept the top tier of our wedding cake in our freezer and Matt suggested we pull it out today. I forgot just how gorgeous it was! I definately didn't forget how yummy it was though! I'm excited for it!

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)