This should really be titled "Before + In-Progress", seeing as I'm not entirely satisfied with the exterior of the Estate as it currently sits. But I also have no pending plans to update anything in the near future, so this is probably the most accurate After we'll have for awhile.
Anyway, truth be told looking back on these photos of the house from the day we bought it was a bit sobering. But then it was also kind of heartwarming to see just how ugly our home was, knowing just how much I was in love with it. You don't need to tell me the place was a dump, the photos do a great job of that. But the potential! I was basically a living heart-eyes emoji straight out of 2012.
Anyway, we bought this place in April 2012 and somehow the VA gave us a loan, despite this thing being less than livable (VA loans typically have a bit more rigorous underwriting standards to prevent buyers from getting into inhabitable homes). I truly thought this house was beautiful from the start, which is a testament to just how blind love can be and just how miserable I make my husband.
We lived with these windows for a year before replacing them, and we lived with the terrible paint job for even longer. The first item of business was getting a fence put in to harangue pets and future children. Fortunately I know a guy (Dad. Dad is the guy.), so we got a far better fence than we paid for or deserved. I showed him a picture of a fence I liked and he made it happen.
After windows, paint, and the fence, we haven't really done much else (aside from a few painfully slow-growing boxwoods). Future plans would include new sawed and sprinklers, walkway to the front door, steps up the lawn, flower boxes below the windows, lighting around the front door, just a completely different front door, a mailbox and street numbers that cost more than $1.98 total, and doing something to the make the weird stone facade palatable.
But since there are four thousand interior house projects that seem more pressing, the outside of the Estate will have to wait. Plus, next to those before photos, I feel like we've come a long way already.
