Fall (Outdoor) Cleaning

Don't you love this time of year?  When it's warm enough to wear summer clothes but cool enough to forgo air conditioning and open windows instead... it makes me want to spend every spare minute I have outside.  I also get the urge this time of year to do a lot of outdoor cleaning, which means I've been scrubbing siding, cleaning windows, and pulling up weeds in the garden to prepare for fall planting.  

We've really tried to spruce up the exterior of our house the past year... there's always much to do (especially landscaping), but it feels like we've finally made some progress. 

BEFORE (1st week moved in):

AFTER:

Since we bought our place, we needed to make a lot of changes outdoors that were out of necessity, things like moving the driveway, installing attic vents, regrading the yard, and (unfortunately) removing some trees.  This year we did a ton of cleaning, removed shutters and replaced the round aluminum columns with square (here), which definitely improved the look of the house more than anything else.  I tend to think of our home as being a little masculine... I always felt the round columns looked out of place and unproportional. The grass has finally grown in and we even did some planting this year and have plans for some side beds next year.   

 

Over the weekend I pulled up our summer annuals and planted yellow pansies for fall.

 

 The girls kept themselves entertained by swinging while I took pictures (smile). 

 It's definitely starting to look and feel a little like fall here. 

Around back, we've pulled up quite a bit of the garden but the marigolds are so lush and pretty.  I never thought of marigolds as smelling good, but right now they have the most wonderful fragrance and their scent carries in the breeze every time I'm out back. 

 The zinnias are still growing strong... almost hard to believe they were once seeds. 

Recently Justus and I also repainted our deck.  We actually had to paint it twice... we thought we were never going to get it done!  The first time I painted half of it, it started pouring (with a supposedly 0% chance of rain) and the paint ran.  When we finally got back to it a couple months later, Justus helped me and after we finished, I heard a noise, turned to Justus and said, "Please don't tell me that was thunder!"  We looked up to the sky and within five minutes, it was pouring!  Justus ran for the shed and pulled out all the tarps we had.  We draped them all over the deck while lamenting our bad luck, but fortunately it didn't do any damage.  Phew!

A pain it was, but we are so glad to have the deck looking nice again.  Now I just need to repaint the picnic table!

(If you're wondering why we are already repainting our deck after painting it just a year and a half ago (here), it's because we mistakenly didn't apply enough of the Deck Restore product... ah, the joys of having to redo a project!)

Recently we bought one of these seed storage cans at Tractor Supply for dog food and loved it so much we bought another for the deck to store odds and ends by the door. 

I love sitting out on the porch in the evening or early morning with Justus and coffee.  Sitting out there that particular evening prompted me to take some of these pictures and share them, despite my reservations of sharing the exterior of our place!

Hope you have a lovely weekend.