2011 Home Spring & Summer Project List

So now that we’ve given you a list of what we hope to tackle in the upcoming winter months, this is what we’re looking at for the Spring & Summer months ahead.  I have to admit, personally, these are more of the more exciting projects that will have more of a wow-factor, giving our home much more curb appeal and a fresh look.  I can’t wait to get started!

Spring & Summer Exterior Projects:
 

• Landscaping. We’ll continue working on our garden and adding new plants or shrubs here and there, so that come summer time we have a really green, lush, cozy space to enjoy outdoors with friends and family.  Our home is physically pretty close to our neighbors, and although we like all of them, it’s nice to have a little more privacy and space to call our own.
  
  
• Outdoor Furniture! We will probably try and find something on Craigslist, or even something used at a thrift store. I would LOVE to have a farmhouse style table outside, which I realize would be difficult to move into the garage (vs. a fold down table, for example) but I just really like that style. I could even potentially build one of these bad boys. We would like to also have some café style chairs for seating, and I’m thinking that two Adirondack chairs would be nice just for Kyle and I – morning coffee outside on the weekends or wine after work sounds good to me! Here are some inspirational photos of what I'm going for:

via The Newlywed Diaries

via A Country Farmhouse

• Fire pit!  We’ll probably purchase a small, movable fire pit for summer late nights on our patio – can’t wait!
  
  
• Make a plan for new siding and painting – big project!  We’ll also probably start finalizing the paint colors and coming up with a game plan for re-siding and painting the exterior of the house.  We have some new siding and some old, so we’ll probably just replace the areas that have old siding and try and match it to the new stuff the sellers put up more recently.  We want to paint the whole house after that, the front and back door steps / porch, garage doors and front door. We may delay this project another year based on weather, time off, and prioritizing it with all our other outdoor projects, but we at least want to get a plan underway so we know what we're in for!
  
  
• Compost. I would like to add a compost bin somewhere, so we’ve got to find a good spot for that. Right now I’m thinking we could put it off the second side entrance to the house, and we could really easily just step outside and put things into our compost from the covered porch.  In the meantime, here are some composting resources I've been checking out. With the help of a friend and her chicken-poo, we will be well on our way to some good soil for our garden soon!
  
  
• Remodel the Bird Feeders - We also need to clean out the bird feeders we have along our garage, and give them a little remodel of their own. We’ve seen the birds going inside the houses more recently, so we’re going to wait until it’s warmer in the spring for this project.  After eventually cleaning out the nests, I want to paint them a color that will pop and add some cute little touches – maybe a piece of wood for the birds to perch or some other little decorative element on the outside of the bird houses.  This will make it fun for our indoor kitty, Sophia, to watch the birdies outside during the day.  It will also hopefully make room for new, clean nests for the birds (with the house being vacant for several years, there is a good chance there is some gross stuff going on inside).  Here is a peek at the current, sad birdhouse situation, which are all located along the top backside of our garage (which will be right by our future patio):

Those are just a few things on our radar for the upcoming months. We look forward to sharing with you along the way- Stay tuned!