Revamping the Exterior of the Old Cottage

We have decided to give the exterior of the cottage a little refresh. Normal people wait and do this in the spring, but we are not normal. 

You see, it all started with a power washer. I wanted one for my upcoming birthday, and I was impatient. I used my surviving another trip around the sun as an excuse to drop a couple hundred dollars on a new Craftsman tool. You know you are starting to get a little older when your wish list consists of tools and gadgets to make your life a little easier. 

I started cleaning the front of the house with my handy, dandy power washer. If you have never used one before, I would 10/10 recommend. It’s so satisfying watching dirt and grime wash away, pun intended.

Just like every other project with this house, one of us always stop and ask, “Why stop here when we could do ‘XYZ’ too?” That moment happened when I took a step back to admire my work, then I started to look at everything that needed to be painted, removed or fixed. 

The boyfriend and I started planning how to revamp the exterior of the house for cheap. We figured we would get the most bang for our buck through doing a little landscaping.

The dead crepe myrtle and the relatively healthy crepe myrtle had to go. I’m personally not crazy about giant trees/bushes right in front of a home. They often overshadow a beautiful home, and that was exactly the case with this home. 

Removing the crepe myrtles turned out to be a bigger project than we originally anticipated, but we ended up renting an excavator to remove these stumps and a few others in the backyard. 

As someone who is all about saving money, a little manual labor really does the trick. We have some other plans to paint and continue landscaping, and we cannot wait for those “after” photos. Stay tuned.

Your friend,

Laci