Before & After, part two
The much anticipated part two of our before and after transformation is here! Like any proud property owner, we wanted our outside to reflect our inside, to be inviting to our guests and draw attention from the street. The Inn sits roughly 200 feet back from Main Street, and when you drive by, you immediately notice the sprawling front lawn. Before we updated the exterior, the home felt a bit lost in the lush green background. Sitting so far back on the property, we knew it was essential to make the house pop! With bright & modern colors, gorgeous lighting, and some strategically-placed landscaping, The Inn now has serious curb appeal!
We are going to take you through the whole process, from what the home looked like in September 2020, to the current exterior vibe. There are some touches that we were waiting to add until after Mother’s Day, specifically filling our planters with fragrant flowers and planting our herb and vegetable garden, but it will be happening in the next few weeks now that the warm weather is here to stay. Enjoy the transformation photos, and let us know in the comments what you think of our before and after.
Above, photos from 2010 when the previous owners found the property in disrepair after sitting vacant for many years. They discovered caved-in floors, crumbling plaster & chimneys, and even a large nest of honey bees living in the attic. Through the 15 month complete renovation, the property owners were able to conserve the original wood plank flooring, the wooden trim and staircase, the hand-carved mantles, an antique claw-foot bathtub, the hundred-year-old pecan & Russian cypress trees, and the overall layout of the home. Below, you can view some photos of the exterior, taken sometime between 2011 and 2019.
When we began renovations on the property in September 2020, one of the first things we had to tackle was the front porch. The deck flooring was in bad shape, needing to be replaced immediately, as well as the porch posts, eaves and soffit. We also swapped out the lighting for modern brass fixtures. See below for some photos of this process.
From this point, we painted the entire exterior of the home in Naval (SW 6244), which coincidentally happened to be the 2020 color of the year. We used Cut the Mustard (SW 6834) on the front door to make it pop, and Pure White (SW 7005) for all the trim and wood moulding. In the fall we also began working on the porch (now known as the Garden Terrace) off of the Dining Room, which was also in bad shape and needed to be replaced. We expanded the footprint to be almost double the size, and added a gorgeous pergola which we plan to drape with lighting this coming week.
After the bones of the deck were completed in December 2020, winter began in earnest and we took a break on the exterior work to focus our attention inside. We picked up the exterior renovations again in February 2021, and this is when the real magic happened. I’m happy to say that I went around the property and snapped pictures before this part started, to really give a feel for what everything looked like, from multiple angles. In this phase, we added many, many tons of clam-shell to the parking lot and driveway, added buffer landscaping to the property boundaries, added a brick patio to extend the seating of the Garden Terrace and to connect the front veranda to this space, reconfigured some of the existing landscaping by moving bushes and shrubs into better placements, added edging to the gorgeous 100 year-old trees, and finally, added outside up-lighting that highlights the home at night.
Now for the after photos! There are always things that we will continue to improve and work on, and we will be sure to update the blog with these changes. We know that The Inn’s guests will love these outdoor spaces just as much as we do.
What do you think of The Inn’s exterior transformation? Which space do you think changed the most? We would love to hear your thoughts!