Home Tour: Outside

I thought I'd talk about something other then babies for a minute ;) And who doesn't like a good home tour every now and then!?

If you're anything like me, then you love them. I love looking at pictures of people's houses and gathering decorating ideas for myself. I also love {love!} to look in model homes. Although you can't beat the character that you find in an old house {believe me, I grew up in a beautiful 150 year old Victorian} I've always wanted a brand new home. Something that you can see being built from the ground up. Something that you know is yours... first. Something that you've picked out and designed all the details, big and small, that will be apart of your new home. I can't wait for the day that Bob and I are able to build a new house...

But until then, we'll continue to renovate our current home. Room by room. Like we've done for the past {almost} 5 years.

Let's start with the outside, shall we? Our house is in a nice older neighborhood in a South Jersey town that's right along the Deleware River. While I do like where we live, I also can't wait to move. It's a bit too far of a commute into the city {Philly} everyday for work. If I had it my way, I would have moved closer to my parents town {or in my parents town} from the start, but the houses and taxes {gah!} are so darn expensive. Alas, here we are...

When we first started our home search, we knew our budget would only allow for a "fixer-upper." I'm very good at seeing the potential in a home, so house hunting was fun for me. I had no problem seeing past the sellers furniture, shag carpets, paint colors, and wall paper and envisioning what could be. And, for our home in particular, I knew that, behind the big bushes hiding half the house, was a home that could be adorable with a little love...
Yep. That was it. Our home on February 28, 2006. The day we moved in.

It needed a lot of love.

As I was searching through my computer for pictures of our home today, I realized that I have no idea where they all are! But here are pictures that I found from May of 2007:
As you can see, we've done quite a few things to the outside of our house. The first summer we were there, we took it upon ourselves to rip out all the bushes that were hiding the house and do a little landscaping. We also took down the ugly metal awning, got all new windows throughout the house {!!} and put up pretty blue shutters. We got a new front storm door {pictured below} new lighting fixtures, and a new house number.

Most recently, we got a new roof {can't find a pic, grrr} and new landscaping out front...
Though we've done a lot outside, our "to do" list is endless {who's isn't??} We need a new fence and new siding- both of which cost a lot of money, of course. We're trying to fix things in order of priority, starting with the inside first {hellllllo kitchen reno!} but I think we've done a pretty good job so far.

Next up on the home tour- the dinning room {including the old air conditioning box that the sellers turned into a flower & nick-nack shelf!} Stay tuned...

Have you voted today? =)