I'm feeling a little sentimental today. Exactly a year ago we closed on the sale of our home in New Mexico. This was the ending of three years of many, many, many projects and hours of blood, sweat and tears (and a little fun too) and the beginning of the adventure of moving our family to Washington.
I thought I'd share some pictures of our New Mexico home. We lived in a town where homes are kind of expensive (but cheap compared to California and New York prices though...) and are not very nice. There isn't much land, so building a home isn't always an option and most of the homes are older. We bought a 2000 sq foot 1974 house on a .14 acre lot and spent three years making it look better.
We did most of the work ourselves with some help from my very-selfless father-in-law. The only thing we hired out on the exterior was to have some guys caulk all the joints and around the windows.
Ready for the before? We had vision when we bought it. (Our friends probably thought we were crazy for buying such an ugly house.)
The first summer in our house we killed the lawn, put in a new sprinkler system and planted grass from seed. We loved our green grass! It's not very common in New Mexico.
Let me tell you all that I can remember that we did on the exterior:
Installed and painted new doors.
Installed new windows (bigger in the bedrooms so they were up to code).
Tore off the brick.
Jack-hammered the brick flowerbed wall.
New garage door.
Installed new soffit.
Bent metal using a metal brake for drip cap and fascia.
Painted 250 Hardiplank boards.
Installed Hardiplank trim around windows.
New gutters.
And much much more.
We used Hardiplank siding from Lowe's that I painted first and then we installed. We painted it Roycroft Bronze Green with Sherwin William's Duration paint in Satin. The trim was prepainted from Hardiplank, but we had to do a touchup on each piece after installing.
I can't find a true BEFORE picture of the back of the house. This picture shows it with a new patio door and all new windows.
I can't find a totally finished picture of the back. I'll have to keep looking. This one is missing some trim and the deck is taken apart temporarily on the side. 
BEFORE Side View...
I might have had a few panic attacks while helping my husband install the new windows. I don't really love standing on ladders.
Before view of the front porch. I guess I don't have a picture of a close up of our old kitchen window and blue door with a lovely screen.
All that I can say is that my husband amazes me! He's a civil engineer by professional, but is truly a man of all trades and can fix and build anything. I can't wait to start remodeling our new house.
(Did I mention that when we sold our house in preparation to moving to Washington we had two offers the first day? That was a blessing for sure!)
It's been fun to look back at pictures today. I miss lots of things about our old home, but I mostly miss the people that I spent time with inside our home. I'm thankful for my friends and family and a very handy and patient husband.
