Before & After
Sometimes it takes vision and creativity to see the potential in what you're buying. A West Virginia homeowner shares a Before & After on a small ranch style house built in 1976. At purchase, virtually nothing had been done to the house's exterior or the yard.
Before (above): Here's the backside of the house at purchase: not even stairs off the back door, and less-than-inspiring mustard yellow siding. The large oak and linden trees belonging to a neighbor provide lovely summer shade over the house and small back yard, but the lawn suffers in the shade, particularly next to the house.
After: The house has received a new paint job: a light green with deeper greenshutters, and a 8' x 16' deckhas been added off the back door. While the new landscaping fills in (shown here: Blue Star juniperwith shade-loving coleus), large potted plants on the deck add color and visual interest.
Lessons learned: This homeowner says that while she loves the shade
the neighbor's trees provide, she discovered they deposit a "steady
seasonal variety of messy debris," and cause her white deck furniture
to blacken. If she had the project to do over, she says, "I would think
twice about having an open deck."
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