I mentioned last Thursday, that I have yet to share a proper updated photo of our home now that we've moved back in July 2013. I've shared little snippets here and there on the blog, but not a full current shot of our home. Looking at old pictures of our home when we first bought our all peach rancher in 2009 compared to now its crazy! So much has changed its hard to believe its the same house we saw so much potential in. I just knew back then it was our little diamond that needed to be cleaned up and shown some love.

I haven't shared these pictures of our house back then in a while, so here's a reminder of where we started. The house was literary all one color peach, including the trim and garage door. All peach everywhere. they're must of have a clearance sale on peach paint! The 'grass' was full of weeds and have no sprinkler system, which honestly is a must for the 100+ degree weather in the Summer and early Fall months in Sacramento. The brick around the garden bed was falling over and the front door was badly in need of a paint job, it even had colored pen scribbles on it. Here's our home way back in 2009 just a few weeks after buying it.

2009

After buying our home we quickly went to work on transforming the outside of our home. We painted the outside of our home ourselves a medium light grey painted the trim white, added black shutters, new mail box and painted our front door a pretty shade of red. I think the biggest bang for our buck was deciding to paint the exterior of our house, the fresh paint instantly made our home feel more modern and fresh. Just like paint is a game changer inside your house, its also a huge game changer to the outside of your home. We also killed the weeds and what little grass existed in our front yard and had a sprinkler system installed, we also added shrubs and flowers. Below is how our home looked in 2012.

2012

In July 2012 the unthinkable happened, our home caught on fire (read more about the house fire here) For several months our home set in vacant mode, while my husband and I met with various contractors, dealt with our insurance company and waited on permits to be approved. Finally in January of 2013 our home began the rebuilding process, here's a look at our home a few weeks after construction began. The garage was a complete tear down, and looking at those pictures remind me of how far we've come and thankful we're back in our little rancher again, making it our home.

January 2013

We moved back in our home in June 2013, the outside our home still felt very unfinished. Our pretty lawn was & sprinkler system was thrashed from construction and debris and months of being unable to water it (system heads etc were broken and for safety reasons our water remained shut-off) Even though our lawn was a hot mess for months, I loved coming home! For our siding we choose to do a combination of shingle siding and lap siding and paint our home dark grey. I love this shade of grey depending on the light it goes darker or light. We also painted our new front door a pretty shade of chartreuse. I swear this go around in our house, every room is getting a little sprinkle of chartreuse, but that's a post for another day.

July 2013

Now finally here's how our home currently looks! Our sprinkler system has been repaired and sod has been rolled out, if you follow me on Instagram then you may have seen little peeks here and there.

March 2014

Sadly since the picture below was taken, my sweet lemon tree slowly died and dried out, the little lime tree we brought for our master bedroom patio is alive and well and sprouting new buds. I took advantage of Home Depots return policy and bought a new lemon tree on Sunday.

We still have list of projects we plan to tackle slowly to the front our house this year and next. We've been debating on adding shutters to our windows, we plan on upgrading our basic house numbers to more modern ones and moving the location. And of course we need to add more shrubs and flowers to our garden beds! I'd also love to build a small pergola over our garage, which I think would add to the charm of our little rancher. I've pinned my fair share or pretty pergolas above garages, so we'll see. I also want to bring in some simple seating to our small front porch area again.

My family and I are so happy to be home!

What outdoor projects to do have planned for Spring / Summer?

It's been a quiet two weeks on the blog side of things, I haven't had a quiet moment lately to sit and blog about current projects that we've been slowly working on and planning. Spring is just around the corner and I'm so excited to start tackling some projects both indoor and outdoor. A few outdoor projects include: Vegetable Garden, Building a Trellis for Vines, Creating a relaxing outdoor space and plant flowers and bushes in the front of our house etc. Over the past few months our backyard has been completely transformed, can't wait to share progress pictures next week and share what are next phase of our plans are. I realized the other day and I have yet to share a proper picture of how our the front of our home looks now, I'll be sharing that next week along with additional plans we have for the front our house.

On the inside of our house, I've been working on Avery's gallery wall I mentioned I wanted to complete a few weeks ago. I've also been working on sprucing up our 'plain slate' master bathroom, I'll share a in progress picture next week. In addition, I've been ordering fabrics, sewing pillows and finally getting some order in my kitchen cabinets more on that next week.

For the past few months, I've been dreaming of creating a similar outdoor space on our patio. I scanned and saved this image from Crate & Barrel fall of 2013 catalog. I love how relaxed and the outdoor dining and seating area feels. I also love the mixture of the natural wood finish outdoor furniture tied in with the grey outdoor dining table. I can already picture dining outside Spring though the falls months. One of my goals is to create and living and dining areas outside our home, so it feels like and extension of our the inside of our home.