The Exterior

After taking a one year break from renovations on The Herbert House, Connor & I were ready to start tackling the next thing on our to-do list of home transformations: The Exterior!

For those that don’t know, back in July, 2018, my fiancé Connor became the proud homeowner of the cutest little fixer-upper on Herbert Street, which we named The Herbert House. From the Summer of 2018 to the Spring of 2019, we spent over 10 months completely gutting and renovating every square inch of this house with the help of our family and friends. And to say those 10 months completely wore us out would be the biggest understatement (Chip & Joanna make it look way too easy). Since we finally had the interior exactly the way we wanted it, we decided to take a much needed break.

2019 TRANSFORMATIONS

Last summer, we focused on smaller (and much less labor-intensive) projects to improve the exterior, like removing overgrown landscaping, planting new flowers, painting the front the back doors, and installing a sprinkler system — thanks to Kisco Irrigation 😉

July 2018, the day Connor closed on The Herbert House:

July 2019, one month after our sprinkler system was installed:

We also added small things like a new front porch light and address sign…

and lighting in the back yard…

These projects were little ways for us to freshen up the outside of our home until we were ready tackle what we knew would be another huge transformation — making the exterior of our house match the style of the interior!

2020 TRANSFORMATIONS

Some time last year, I became so inspired when I saw a post from one of my favorite DIY Instagram accounts — Our Faux Farmhouse. Do yourself a favor and go follow them if you don’t already! They limewashed the exterior of their home to create a more rustic and distressed vibe than simply painting it white.

After showing this transformation to Connor and watching multiple DIY videos to learn how they completed this project, Connor and I couldn’t stop talking about how much we’d love to transform our home in the same way. We kept comparing this potential project to the major renovation projects we took on the year prior, and to us, this seemed like a walk in the park…

And it was!!

A couple weeks into quarantine we decided there was no better time to start this project than while we were both working from home. So with that, we bought ourselves some limewash and got to work!

We started by sampling the limewash and practicing the distressing technique on the back of our house (just incase we wanted to back out after giving it a shot lol) and we immediately loved the way it was turning out!

In the midst of limewashing the house, my dad spent a full 10-hour day helping us paint all of the window trim, gutters, and siding using his paint sprayer. This saved us days worth of work! We sealed the windows and doors off to keep them from getting sprayed with paint.

With the painting complete, the only thing that was left to do was install a new front door and get rid of what we liked to refer to as our putting green (aka the front porch). We decided to have our new front door professionally installed because after un-installing, restoring, and then re-installing all of our interior doors two years prior, we vowed we’d never do it again! HA! We also transformed the exterior of the garage, removed the front window awnings and the flower bed pavers, and installed a new AC and furnace unit!

The entire exterior transformation took a little bit longer than we anticipated, ending at a total of about 14 weeks, but it was worth every second! Without further ado, here is the final Herbert House transformation…

THE FINAL TRANSFORMATION

After two years of endless work and more trips to Lowes than we could count, Connor and I have declared ourselves officially DONE transforming the Herbert House! This little fixer upper has become the most perfect first home for us — even better than we ever dreamed it could be — and it’s all thanks to every single person who has helped us along the journey!