• Baby Toddler Helping Paint Iron Handrails on 1950s Ranch Home
    Outdoor Projects

    How to Update Rusty Iron Handrails

    Just because your iron handrails are old, rusty, or peeling doesn’t mean you need to replace them! Easily update rusty iron handrails with a little elbow grease, spray paint, and painter’s tape! While iron handrails aren’t as popular as they used to be, there are still plenty of them around! Including on the front and back of our house! If yours are starting to peel or there are spots that are starting to rust, you’ll want to take care of them right away to avoid further decay. It’s not a complicated process, but it can take a little time depending on how ‘out of shape’ your iron handrails are currently.

  • How to Reduce Maintenance for Concrete Sidewalk
    Outdoor Projects

    Easy Way to Clean and Maintain a Concrete Walkway

    How To Make Concrete Low Maintenance Sealing concrete can actually reduce how often you have to clean it! Clean It Well As I mentioned in my fireplace makeover video, my projects tend to snowball and get out of hand pretty quickly…well, that’s what happened here. We need to reapply some caulk and touch up paint on the railings and columns on our front porch. But you can’t paint dirty wood. So I decided to pressure wash the whole front porch. Then I thought while I have the pressure washer out, let me go ahead and clean the front walk. And then I’ll seal it too. It’s been way too long…

  • Painting Brick House for Cozy Curb Appeal
    Outdoor Projects

    Cozy Curb Appeal 4 Ways

    4 Ways to Create Cozy Curb Appeal There’s not just one way to create curb appeal for your home! Here are 4 ways we’ve recently updated the curb appeal of 3 different houses featured on episodes of Today’s Homeowner. Tear Down What Doesn’t Work Sometimes you don’t need to add anything to update your home’s curb appeal. You just need to get rid of what’s not working for you anymore. This can be big or small! We worked on one house that had a sad and ugly fiberglass carport attached to the brick. The worst part was that it leaked, so it really wasn’t offering that much protection. It was the…

  • Sunshine Ligustrums in Their Happy Place
    Outdoor Projects

    Curb Appeal Update 2018

    How Our Yard is Looking One Year After Updates About a year ago I shared how to make vinyl shutters look brand new. It was supposed to be a series of ‘curb appeal’ posts about small things we did in our front yard. But best laid plans…? Old Plants One of those small things was updating the plants in the front beds. We originally planted gardenias there. And slowly over the 6 years they were there, they lost their leaves and didn’t look very healthy. After treating them for bugs and fertilizing them, I did a little research and learned that afternoon sun is basically just bad for gardenias. Hmm..that’s…

  • How I Updated Vinyl Shutters for 6 Dollars
    Outdoor Projects

    Updating Faded Vinyl Shutters

    A cheap and quick way to make vinyl shutters look brand new and improve your home’s curb appeal It’s been a little over 5 years since I updated the siding, windows, and landscaping at our house. And since then not much maintenance has happened in the front yard. Besides our weekly mowing, I’ve restained and sealed the handrails, painted the porch floor, built a planter box, and that’s about it. In addition to a little neglect, our house faces south and gets the brunt of the sun all. day. long. So there are a few things that are looking a little old, sad, and rundown. One of those things are…