Then, There Was Stucco

This blog post is LOOOONG overdue.  Life gets busy, but we have many friends and family that are far away and I know some of you have been dying to see some before and after's of the house!  On the day we went under contract, this is what the outside of our home looked like:

Because where we live, it snows in April. :-)  Fast forward to June when we closed and immediately went to work on the outside remodel.

We did as much of the work as we could ourselves, and used a contractor for what we couldn't do. Doug's Dad, brother, and my cousin/Doug's good friend helped get the outside decked after we tore all the siding off ourselves.

The front of the house had this bizarre "solar" heating that was really just galvanized metal behind thick greenhouse glass that was not only completely ineffective, it was also inefficient. We had to take the glass and metal off, fill the area with insulation, and board it up. The boys also had to add - and I am quoting here because I know not what it all means - 16 on centers in the middle of these fake solar panels.  They had to be framed in and then covered essentially.

We also switched from a super 80's octagon to a super classy rectangle window above the front door.

We replaced all the windows, but I'll do those in a different post to keep the pictures a little less overwhelming.

In case you were wondering, all that white sheet stuff is prep to apply the stucco. We also added a front porch, which was 100% my idea and my only valid contribution in the realm of ideas to our house. I'm pretty proud of it!  Stucco goes on in several layers, with the color layer being the last layer. It looks like concrete leading up to that. You have to water the stucco so that it doesn't dry too fast in our harsh, 7200 feet climate. I'm certain the neighbors wanted to come over and tell me my house wouldn't grow no matter how hard I tried!  We also had a rain storm one evening while I was watering the house, and received a kiss from heaven with a double rainbow.

Picking a stucco color was so dang difficult! Our contractor came with three books of colors and I went into it wanting red or green, something bright! However, as we held sample after sample against our house, we ended up going with a color totally different than anything we had originally planned.

After the stucco was on, next up was the task to replace all the soffit and fascia to metal, effectively making the exterior of our home completely maintenance free.  On the next weekend, the porch needed roofed and finished.  As with all things on this house, we got lots of help from Mom and Dad Hammond.

The final steps to completing the outside were painting the front door, and installing light fixtures. Doug installed LED on the front porch, and

I got these cute little lantern style fixtures on sale at Mernard's.  I love them.

Garage Lantern

Back Porch Lantern

So here it is, in all it's glory.....the outside, before and after.  By the grace of the man upstairs, we finished everything outside by the last week of October, missing the first snowfall of the winter.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, the garage doors came much later, but I am still going to post the pictures on this post!  They really sealed the deal and brought the whole exterior remodel together!

Garage Doors Before

Garage Doors After