Chip and Jo would be so proud….

In true Fixer Upper fashion, we embarked on a little external renovation journey of our own early last summer. While I don’t think Frank was quite as excited as Chip was on “demo day”, the end result has us feeling beyond happy.

We bought our home in the Spring of 2015 knowing that it needed “a lot of work”. In fact, my dad wouldn’t let us forget it every time he walked out onto our deck and just stood there shaking his head in disgust at how many things were falling apart. Needless to say, we were acutely aware of the fact that we had to do some serious work to solidify the outside of the house. Siding and new windows were on the list, in addition to fixing the deck. After a very mild first winter with an extremely drafty house, we knew the windows and siding had to make it onto the shortlist! And since it doesn’t make sense to do just two major projects at one time, we convinced my dad to help us build a brand new deck with a screened in porch. Insert all the heart-eyed emojis here!!

So naturally, we broke ground on ALL of this in May….during a

very busy start to the wedding season!

After six months of intense physical labor (on all of our limited days off); three seasons; two back injuries; and one permit revision ….we finally completed our big external renovation in November! Whew! I might feel like I could finally breathe if it weren’t for all the excitement! Here’s a peek at what we’ve accomplished…

BEFORE

PROGRESS (Please excuse the iPhone images mixed in!)

AFTER

Now we joke that we won’t know what to do with all of our free time! Ha! As if I don’t already have some ideas brewing for our next project…. don’t anyone tell Frank! 😉