Updating the Outside - The "To do" List

Hi all.  I hope everyone had an amazing weekend.  It was beautiful here.  Spring is around the corner and I can not wait.

Look what I came across this weekend!  I wish I had a place for it in my home, but I don't so it is available for custom finish.  Let me know if you are interested.  It had a 1920 stamped underneath.  I love that!  Its a great piece with tons of character.  It just needs a good home.

A few weeks ago, Blittle and I were planning on getting away for 4-5 days in April to Key West or something else in south Florida.  Usually I have no problem committing to a vacation.  The hope and excitement of travel is one of the reasons I get up in the morning.  When we were planning our trip, we couldn't decide or commit to a destination.  I took it as a sign.  After some discussion, we decided to take some of the travel money and Blittle is going to take some vacation time in April and we are going to start updating the outside of our house.  We are going to keep saving for Europe and hopefully our next big trip will be to Cirque Terre, Venice and Rome in the next 12 months!


Our plan for the exterior.

I haven't posted many exterior pictures of the house.  The only updates we have done are building the fence which we built right after we moved in and laying sod because we killed so much grass building the fence.  Read about it here.  Over the weekend our neighbors across the canal had an open house so we thought it would be a great time to take pictures of the back of our house from their boathouse deck.  Not weird, right?  Here are the shots we got.

Yes, my house is 1990 country blue and it drives me nuts.  Yes, we have a sad little dock that is in desperate need of help.  Yes, both my neighbors have super cute yards and houses which makes our's look worse than it is.  We have a lot of work to do to catch up.

This list is mainly for me, but just so y'all can hold me accountable I am sharing it with you.  :)

Here is our to do list...for now:

• Dock
• Build new dock
• Furniture
• Lighting 
• Fish cleaning station
• Boat lift
• Fishing light
• Need electricity and water ran to dock

• Under stairs
• Pour concrete
• Close in under stairs to create storage

• Railing
• Replace all railing with new, up to code railing to match fence

• General Exterior updates
• Stain the fence and dock
• More exterior lighting (upstairs and down)
• New light fixtures
• Container landscaping (large containers for fruit trees, small decorative containers)
• Furniture (more seating, new outdoor dining)
• Flagstone walk to gate/dock
• Paint entire exterior
• New house numbers
• Rain barrel
• Run gas line to grill/outdoor kitchen area
• Plan and build outdoor kitchen area

This list is obviously going to take a while and probably won't get finished this year, but we are going to make as many updates as we can this spring and summer.  The new dock and boat lift are first up.  This is what we are going to build when Blittle takes his vacation days.  Building a new dock to enjoy this summer or go on vacation?  It really was a tough choice.

We decided to do a large dock/deck instead of a boathouse.  I will tell y'all more on that decision later.  We have already priced pilings and our plans are drawn up, ready for approval.

I can't wait.  We sat out on our sad deck this weekend, enjoying the weather and sun.  It is going to be so great to have a living space over the water soon!  

Next up will be under the stairs.  We have this weird empty space where the concrete doesn't attach our side porch to our back porch.  There is a strange block of concrete that creates a ugly transition and there is tons of wasted space.  We are going to pour a slab to fill in the entire space.  This will also create a better walkway to the back yard and back porch.  Then, we will close in under the stairs to create storage for our lawn mower, weed eater and other yard stuff.

I am always on the look out for more furniture.  We desperately need more seating outside and with 3 seating areas (back deck, back porch, dock) it requires a lot of furniture to fill the spaces.   I have already saved some DIY outdoor furniture plans on Pinterest and I am headed to Garden Ridge and Homegoods today to see if I can get some good deals.

Of course, we are going to DIY as much as we can.  Pilings and some of the electrical work we have to hire out but everything else will be us and anyone we can talk into helping us.  :)   I plan to do as many as tutorials as I can so be sure to check back and keep an eye out for outdoor posts.