Home Sweet Home {before and after}

I've been meaning to write this post for quite some time.  I finally got around to taking a picture of our house today...hopefully hthe neighbors won't think I'm putting it up for sale!  :)  We've been living here since October, but for some reason I still feel like we just moved in.  That could be because I still feel like we are up to our ears in house projects and have a list a mile long of things we want to do to it and things we are in the process of doing!  But I'm learning that I need to live like that list will never end...because it probably won't ever be done. 

So, here's what you've been waiting for.  The BEFORE:

And, now the AFTER:

Here are the two side-by-side (I always love a good make-over story):

We painted the {ugly} green shutters black, and the {ugly} green trim around the windows and garage doors white {actually, the shutters broke when we took them down so we just bought new ones}.  We spray-painted the exterior lights black (they were a light brown)...I had some new ones picked out from Home Depot, but we made a last-minute decision to save some $$$ and decided to just paint the old ones.  And we gave the front door a few coats of bright red paint.  I'm going for the classic American look, you can probably tell {and if you look super close, you will see a little munchkin through one of the frosted glass windows}...

 Of course we added the flag, chairs, ferns, and door knocker.

Quite a bit of a difference, for not much money.  Next summer, I plan to plant a bunch of white hydrangea bushes in the front and get more plants around the garage.  Like I said, the list never ends...  :)

And here's what you could call my "dream house" {from a Kate Spade add I think...}.  The classic American colonial-style that I love. 

A little map of our projects...