Year Three of Home Ownership

Sometime in November, we entered our fourth year of home ownership (!!!). It's easy to feel like nothing is getting accomplished and the house is falling apart for a living, so sometimes I like to step back and really take stock of how far we've come. There are some BIG items I really would love to tackle (ahem, the kitchen) that will just take a little longer than I would have hoped. But we crossed some biggies off the list this past year, including: new front fencing, painted shutters and front door and finally replaced the dining room light fixture. 

Let's climb in the wayback machine and remember the journey:

Curb Appeal

From Day One, I was not feeling the red shutters. For exteriors, I like a classic look and I'm usually pretty partial to black shutters with brick. 

When it came time to paint ours, however, I decided to match the color to the darkest shade of the brick and ended up with a dark, dark charcoal-brown that looks like sealskin. I considered many, many shades for the front door and ended up wimping out and going with my favorite color: Wythe Blue by Benjamin Moore. I can't quit it! I think/hope the exterior is slightly more stately.

I tried and failed — TWICE — to keep boxwoods alive in those planters. I'll start a new hunt soon for a better option. Maybe an evergreen shrub?

Our motion-sensor porch light finally crapped out and I jumped at the chance to replace it. We ended up going with this Capistrano model, which I purchased off Amazon.

It's classic and modern at the same time. 

The biggest item on our agenda was to replace the crumbling front portion of our fence, which our fence guys estimated was original to the house (making it nearly 40 years old).

The new fence is a beaut, and I couldn't resist topping it off with fence jewelry (a.k.a copper post caps). 

Front Room

I can never get over this before picture because the room just looks so, so different. Since buying the house, we've:

• Removed the railing
• Put in hardwood floors
• Removed the wallpaper
• Painted
• Added bookshelves
• Finally hung drapes
• Finally replaced the dining room light

We had a very hard time agreeing on a light fixture. I wanted something modern and frankly, would have gone a little funkier, but Sean talked me down a bit. We went with the Bautista light fixture from All Modern. 

The dining area before...

And today! We just hung the drapes on Sunday. 

 These are very simple, but very elegant IKEA Ritva drapes that, when hung, can almost have the tailored look of a pinch pleat at the top. They are very long and cost less than you'd spend on four panels at Target that would look half as good. I got the rods at Target. They look like a cross between nickel and muted brass and I love the faceted ends. Modern, but not overly trendy.

Master Bedroom

Wow, this picture reminds me how much I did not like that color. 

In 2017, we added a headboard and just this past weekend, we finally hung some art. The prints are two quotes from our favorite authors that I picked up at a boutique in Provo, Utah:

• "You have bewitched me body and soul," Jane Austen
• "We were together, I forget the rest," Walt Whitman

The middle print is by Ashley Goldberg and I think I gave it to Sean wayyyyy back in maybe 2007 or 2008? It reminded me of us. 

So that's year three of the Kennedy Casa! I'm not sure what year four will bring, but I know my to-do list includes:

• Purging!
• Framing and hanging more art and getting rid of what doesn't have a place
• Saving for the kitchen reno and maybe seeing what we can do to make it more enjoyable in the meantime
• Finally giving some shape and character to Sean's man room
• Possibly doing some small upgrades to the hall bathroom
• Updating 1-2 ceiling fans
• Painting trim that's way overdue for painting
• Painting the trim on the sheds*

*I really, really don't feel like doing that.