House, Reader; Reader, House

After all this talk about selling our home, I figured it was time to actually show it to you, or at least the outside. 

The home is as old in years as we've lived here....almost three and a half.  It's not exactly a tract home, but certainly not a custom home, either.  We live in a community that is the epitome of suburban living (which has both it's upsides and downsides, I'll be honest).  When the weather is beautiful there are flocks of people everywhere....dogs being walked, bikes being ridden, strollers being pushed, laughs ringing out through the air.  We also live in an amazing school district - one of the best in the state, actually. 

I love our house, but it certainly does lack charm like an older house (as well as established landscaping).  There are no large trees, and some plants (like the Sky Pencil Barberry flanking the entryway) are very slow growing. 

 As far as changes we'll need to make before selling, there certainly are things.  Make sure there are attractive (and living!) plants in the pots, weed the beds, and possibly replace those barberry.  They do look sort of sad in this picture, huh? Also the house numbers (which I've blurred in this photo) have begun to leave a dark streak on the house which will need to be painted over. 

This is one of the improvements we've made that we're most proud of:  the deck.  Made as maintenance free as possible, which cement board siding, Trex decking and treated lumber underneath.  It's a really large size as well (and cost only $2K more than the builder wanted for a simple, treated deck that was less than half the size)!  Our dogs Bailey and Zoe are enjoying themselves on the grass.  Both are labs, and have been with us for nearly eight years. 

We love that our yard does not back directly up to another house, but instead backs to all these trees.  It was one of the things that sold us on the house!  The fence was added as a means to keep our (then three, but now two) dogs from running free.  I also love the security it adds for the children. I can actually make dinner inside while the kids play on the deck or in the grass. 

It's difficult to see in this picture, but there are raised beds with strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries along the fence line. 

Yet another shot of the back.  You can see the large windows we enjoy in our family room, and also the windows for the daylight basement. 

The playset we added last summer when I was pregnant with Lilah.  I do have to keep a serious eye on her with that thing now, though!  She's been climbing up the ladder for months.  Anything she can to keep up with her big bro!

We're very much into eating well, and organic as much as we can, therefore we have all of these raised beds and the large bean teepee at the end for growing as much of our own food as we can.  The last three summers we've grown beans, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, peas, tomatoes, peppers, melons, onions, garlic, potatoes, and strawberries.  What a future buyer will think of these I'm not entirely sure.  We'll think about and broach that subject more in the coming months. 

Yet another shot of the back and another angle of the deck.  You can also see the curtains I have in the family room (off the rack curtains I purchased at Lowes that don't really go well in the space from both a fit and design perspective) which I'd like to change out for roman wood shades. 

There will be lots of cleaning up that we'll do out here when it comes time to sell, for certain, but we're definitely focusing on the inside first.  We have so much to do inside that we're just not sure how long it's going to take.  Heck - there could either be snow on the ground, or it could be next spring!