Making the Outside Shine like the Inside

This weekend, Darrell and I decided to finally attack the front of the house and the yard!   It has been looking very shabby, and not only were we embarrassed by its appearance, we also felt bad that the neighbors had to look at it like this.  When we purchased the house, it was apparent that there had been large bushes or trees in front of the house at some point, although they had all been cut down to the ground.  Out of the stumps, unsightly sprouts were growing:

Close up view of the raggedy yard:

One of these old stumps with its new sprouts:

To take care of this, Darrell first took the weed eater to the stumps and cut down the big sprouts so that he could assess how to move forward with the yard.  Then he mowed the front yard, which cut down the weeds within the lawn, and he took the blower to the leaves, twigs, and dirt (lots of dirt, since its been so dry lately) to clear the drive and front porch so we could proceed with the next tasks.

Of course, Darrell couldn't allow the stumps to remain in the ground, as they'd be in the way of future landscape plantings... so what did he do?  He ripped them from the ground with this bare hands.  Well, his two hands and a gimpy shovel that we swiped from Vassar Street:

That was just the first two bushes... bare hands.... unbelievable. But he didn't stop there, he kept going. (While I took pictures. I know, I'm a giver.)  There were 6 huge stumps that got the D-rail treatment... Including this guy:

The final pile of roots and stumps:

We then tackled cleaning out the gutters and eliminating the little trees growing in the corner:

Darrell got on the ladder and dug out all of the leaves, dirt, and asphalt from the roof shingles.  Clearly it had been a LONG time since anyone had cleaned these things out.  He also carefully removed the gutter plants...

Look, it even stood straight up!  Honestly it's a lot bigger than it looked in the gutter.  Sooooo, let's take a vote...Should we plant them in front of the house?  Yes? No?  Hahahahaha.... just kidding. That ball went straight into the yard waste pile!

Since the gutters were cleaned out, we then moved into pressure washing the house, soffits, and gutters.  I used a long-handled scrubber with soapy solution (I just used Dawn dish soap and water) to wash the dirt off.  Darrell came behind me and rinsed/blasted the dirt to get a sparkly clean finish:

Here is an example of the dirty soffits and gutters:

And here is the same area, cleaned:

When we were finished, the whole house looked it had gotten a fresh coat of white paint under the eaves!  A little cleaning was all the doctor ordered and boy, does it look pretty.  One more thing this house needed that only took a little elbow grease and some TLC.  It makes me feel good that we can do this for the house!

And just when you think, "my goodness, how did they get all of this done in one day?!?" ... we also spread Weed & Feed across the front yard and watered it in:

So that was our Sunday!  The front of the house and the lawn got the TLC it has been longing for, and Darrell and I have sore muscles in places we didn't know existed!  Darrell was whooped, as was Charlie... it was exhausting for Charlie to support us from inside the house! Rough life for a Dachshund.  Thankfully he and Darrell can sympathize with each other:

And for me, tomorrow's going to be rough.  But when I hobble out to my car in the morning, I'll look at that pristine white ceiling of the front porch and remember why it was all worth it!  I'm starting to love this house....