I pulled into the driveway after a Giant run a few weeks ago and, for some reason, really looked at our house the way a stranger would. The front door had faded from red to a sort of tired salmon. One house number had slid sideways on its screw. The mailbox had rust freckles, and the two yews by the front window had grown so tall they were blocking half of it.
Nothing was broken. It just looked like nobody was paying attention. So Mike and I set aside one weekend in July and a budget of $100 to fix what we could. We spent $87.
Where the $87 went
| Project | Cost |
|---|---|
| Quart of exterior door paint plus a decent brush | $27 |
| New house numbers | $16 |
| Two cans of spray paint for the mailbox and post | $12 |
| Eight bags of mulch (on sale) | $24 |
| A flat of petunias for the porch pots | $8 |
| Total | $87 |
Everything else was free: our own hedge trimmer, a flat spade, a bucket of soapy water and a pressure washer borrowed from our neighbor in exchange for a loaf of zucchini bread.
How the weekend actually went
Saturday
- Bushes first. Mike trimmed the yews back to below the windowsill. This single job made the biggest difference of the whole weekend, and it cost nothing but a sore shoulder. The front window looks twice as big.
- Pressure wash. The porch, front walk and steps went from gray-green to actual concrete color. We skipped the siding, because older siding and a pressure washer don't always get along, and we didn't want to find out the hard way.
- Weeds and edges. Ella pulled the weeds growing out of the sidewalk cracks, paid in popsicles. I cut a clean edge along the flower bed with the flat spade. A crisp edge makes a plain bed look intentional.
- Mailbox. Mike took it off the post, sanded the rust spots, and spray-painted it and the post flat black in the garage.
Sunday
- Front door. I washed it, taped off the hardware, and painted it a deep navy.
- House numbers. New ones went up, level this time, and a bit bigger than the old ones so you can read them from the street.
- Mulch. Eight bags covered both front beds about two inches deep.
- Pots and the light. The kids and I planted petunias in the two porch pots we already owned, and I took down the porch light globe and washed out about a decade of dead bugs.
What didn't go right
I painted the door in full afternoon sun. The paint dried almost as fast as I could brush it, and I ended up with streaky lap marks. Sunday evening's second coat, done after the sun moved around to the back of the house, covered most of them. Paint in the shade or early morning. The label says this too, which I read after the fact.
I bought red mulch because it was the cheapest bag on the pallet. Next to the navy door and our tan brick, it looks a little like a fast-food restaurant. It'll fade, and next spring I'm topping it with plain brown.
We ran out of mulch. Two inches deep takes more bags than you think. The side bed by the driveway is still waiting for its turn.
What gave us the most for the money
If I only had one Saturday and twenty dollars, here's the order I'd go in:
- Trim anything that covers windows or crowds the walk. Free.
- Clean the porch, walk and light fixture. Free, or close to it.
- Paint the front door. Around $25, and people really notice it.
- Fix or replace the house numbers. Crooked numbers make a house look neglected faster than almost anything.
Flowers and mulch are nice, but they're the finishing touch, not the foundation. A tidy yard with no flowers looks better than an overgrown yard with a pot of petunias on the step.
Owen stood in the driveway on Sunday night, looked at the house for a long minute and announced, "It looks like a different house but the same house." I'll take it. Next summer we're tackling the shutters, which are a whole other shade of tired.
