A record of Painted Brick House’s Exterior Makeover

We are right now still in Richmond (not for much longer though!), and in order to share a large progress post about our Florida house’s exterior, we want to be there in person so we can take tons of progress photos that’ll explain a lot more and make that post exceptionally exciting. So that is coming your way next week (yes, by this time next week we will certainly be living there!), but buckle up because this post is not a consolation prize. It is simply as dramatic as the before & afters of our current house’s interior, which we shared a few weeks back. In fact, our Richmond house’s outside transformation could likely be filed under: “Biggest update we have ever made. Ever.” So let us get right into it.

We in fact forgot that we had filmed a before tour of this house’s exterior, but then a bunch of you requested a final exterior video tour simply like the one we did inside. So we dug around and found the original exterior tour in the archives and BOY was it a blast from the past (it is from 2013). I mean we both knew we had done a lot of work on the outside over the years, but even we were unprepared for how far we have come.

So we thought it’d be lively to share an “after” video of the outside with you folks. BUT FIRST, please enjoy the before tour below. Seriously, it makes the after video MUCH MORE Lively to watch with the “before” so fresh in your memory.

Note: You can also view this video here on YouTube.

Ok now here is the after tour that we simply filmed about a week ago (which explains why there are not exterior planters and outdoor furniture because we had already packed them up and sent them off in the POD to Florida).

Note: You can also view this video here on YouTube.

If you are curious about a specific project or change, we have linked a bunch of the old posts about them at the bottom of this post. But first, I hoped to throw in some before and after photos too – since I know not everyone can watch the videos at this exact moment.

You saw the front already above, so let us take a look at the backyard – which looked like this when we picked up it.

We had to take down a few trees right away for safety/insurance reasons (the inspector described the one growing right through the deck as “tickling our house’s foundation” and when others came down some of them were fully hollow!). Over time we also made some fairly major changes, like converting the sunroom into an open porch, taking off the deteriorating deck, and more lately adding the Hands-on vine trellis (which has grown even more since I snapped this photo – it is nearly to the top in a couple of spots already! Sherry wants to share an Instagram story later today to catch you up – so keep an eye out for that).

The backyard itself has come a long way, and it has taken us all of these years to get it to the point that we’d consistently pictured it…

… well, apart from not getting around to putting in a more proper patio (we consistently planned to update the pea gravel to stone eventually).

We have done everything from having the yard graded to installing our own irrigation system to assist the grass grow and adding landscape lighting ourselves (you know I am a sucker for good lighting). In 2017 we had some professional landscaping brought in around the perimeter, and we cannot forget adding my beloved shed.

It is simply so crazy to look back at these photos because we both remember how much potential we saw in this place when we first laid eyes on it.

I think it is only in seeing the stark contrast between these photos/videos that made us realize that we got it exactly where we hoped it to be. And while I think we are immensely proud of this transformation, there is certainly a feeling of relief that we will not have to put continued time, energy, and money into maintaining allll that grass (we are going from nearly an acre of land to .10 of an acre). Plus our smaller yard in Florida should be faster and easier to transform. We learned a ton from having a small yard that we Enjoyed at the beach house (more on that here).

If you are interested in more details about specific projects or changes, here are some posts for you to reference. You can also check out our general “Outside” category archive for more.

• Converting an old sunroom into a back porch
• Tiling the back porch (it used to be a carpeted sunroom!)
• Vaulting & planking our back porch ceiling
• Adding landscape lighting out front
• Painting our brick house white (including the cost!)
• My other soul mate: the shed
• Updating the shed with new lights, window boxes & paint
• Our pea gravel patio, string lights & other updates
• Creating a Hands-on vine trellis
• Adding an awning over the front door & a bluestone path
• And here is generally how we grow lush grass ourselves

And again, next week we are planning to share all the details on the exterior of our NEW house in Florida. We are scheduled to make our move later this week so fingers crossed we can get some new photos taken and uploaded by Wednesday the 20th. You folks are in for a treat.