Come on Over

Hi friends! I'm so excited to invite you to my home. There are so many of you new followers that I want to personally extend an invitation for you to come party at my house. Over the next few weeks I want to give you a personal tour of our home, as well as give you some helpful hints and suggestions to make the most of yours. My goal is for the tour to be on Mondays, and the rest of the info to follow through out the week. I'd love to sit down and get to know you, so stop by and take a look around, and make some comments so I'll feel like you were really here and we had some serious fun.

First thing is you need directions, but I'm guessing if you're here, you already figured that part out. All the mailboxes are on my side of the street, which makes it really confusing for some people. I am sure to tell people that we're the tan house on the corner and people still try the red house across the street or the yellow house next door, neither of which is on a corner. I tried to make it easier by adding these giant white numbers on our front door. Do you like them? My mother in law said it looks like an apartment and our friends said it reminded them of Harry Potter. I bought some matching numbers for our black mailbox but haven't applied them yet.

Last year we did a major overhaul and tore out our sidewalk because it was always under water if it rained for .00002 seconds, which, since we live in Texas, definitely happens. I'm so glad we did this! I also suggested we make it a little wider as I knew right around the corner I'd need to be walking hand-in-hand with my adorable son and we needed room to walk. I love the gentle curves.

We did some landscaping and I really pushed to incorporate the tree in the bed and I'm pleased as punch with how it turned out. I love the fern around the tree. My spring annuals are growing a little out of control, but I'm trying to hold out until the winter annuals are ready. We have summer well into October so I need to wait as long as possible.

I also ordered this gorgeous black window box (that matches the panelling on our new shutters) that is over five feet long for under my kitchen window. It's only been planted about two weeks and so far, so good! It's really nice to have something pretty to look at while washing dishes. {Jenny, if you're reading, your house is pretty ... but so are flowers!} When I need to water them, I simply open the window, turn on the kitchen faucet, and aim the spray nozzle right into the box! Genius. I am a genius.

This is our front door and porch area. I know I've talked about wreaths before. I whipped up this wreath one night after bedtime with some moss and hot glue. Nothing to it! The funny thing is that when it's really hot out with low humidity (not too often) the moss shrinks up -- but it fluffs back out when the humidity returns. I just cut a thin strip of burlap and pulled pieces off to fray it and tied it in a loose bow. Simple and so cheap.

There's this weird little nook between that pillar and the house. Currently there's a little green gnome in the space, but I'm never quite sure what to do with it. Any ideas?

And just for fun, here's a quick before and after and after line up:

Before: Leroy Brown with pinky purpley brick and butter colored door and trim

After: Tan painted brick with black door and crisp white trim

(Read more about our Farbie Dream House Transformation)

Of course there are a ton of things I'd still like to do, but that's another post!

Thanks for touring the outside with me. I can't wait for you to come in!