The Great Outdoors

Today is window day!  Doug and I painted all the trim in the garage last night, All the blinds and curtains are down, and the first window is in!  I'm so very excited to have brand new clean windows-- especially because my windows have been exceptionally dirty lately.  When you know that new ones are coming-- why clean the old ones?  Am I right or am I right?

So like I mentioned, I've been trying to decide on trim.  What style?  What color?  Well after looking at my options, I decided to keep it simple.  Our house was built in the 70's and it's basically just a white square box.  There's nothing special about it.  It has a flat roof, a couple of windows, and white siding.  I've seen some people around here upgrade the exterior of houses like mine with expensive siding, stone work, and crazy elaborate trim... and while it looks nice... it kind of looks like you're trying to make your house into something that it's never going to be.  No matter what I do to my house, it's never going to look like a gorgeous Whistler chalet, a beautiful Victorian with load of character, or an eclectic and cool old farmhouse.  Nope-- it will always look pretty basic.  So, I decided to just go with it and keep the exterior simple-- and then add character in other fun ways!

So I've decided that...

I'm not painting over the white siding.  I'm not going to add crazy fancy trim around the windows.  I'm not going to paint the trim a crazy color-- it's going to be white-- like white white.  Instead I'm going to try and achieve a more sleek modern clean look.  We're going for wide trim all the way around the windows, but it has a clean modern profile.

Here's some of my inspiration...

While my house will NEVER look like this-- I dig the style.  A clean modern farmhouse look.

White on white.  Keeping it clean.

Look at how GORGEOUS this house is-- that porch-- oh my.

I saw this house makeover a long long time ago and it really inspired me.  Instead of tearing down the 70's rancher this amazing couple decided to work with what they had and transformed the house into this amazing beauty.  For before and after pictures click HERE.

So the backdrop will be white and clean-- to add a bit of drama I'm going to paint the front door  and the garage door black, or charcoal, or maybe even a really really dark brown.  How gorgeous is front door?

I love this door too... and the styling... perfect.

My next move is to upgrade the lighting.  I'd love to put up two gorgeous vintage-y, galvanized, barn lights-- one on either side of the front door.  And then I'd love to add another one above the garage door.  Kind of like this...

Here are some of my favorites from Barn Light Electric.  I'm just going to dream a little...

Barn Light Radial Wave Sconce in a galvanized finish.

And then maybe this one for above the garage-- in the galvanized finish.  This one's the Barn Light Aztec Sconce.

Other contenders...

Barn Light Colby Sconce.

Barn Light Gunsmoke Sconce.

And finally, the Barn Light Montana Sconce.

Tough call... they are all so fantastic.

And then the last layer... a collection of plants in gorgeous weathered clay pots... with the plants preferably alive.  Isn't this beautiful?

Anyhow... getting those windows in is the first step.  The Toews boys are hard at work.  I popped outside to take a little look-see and my brother in law offered to clean the outside of each new window as they install them.  Music to my ears... let me tell you.  What do I want for Christmas this year?  How about new CLEAN windows!!!

All images via my Outdoor Inspiration Pinterest board