We finally got around to completely finishing those cedar details on the front of our house that we started just over a year ago.

I know, we feel a little embarrassed by our lack of speed. The heat of the Texas summer is almost here and we wanted to have some of those outside projects finished before it hits us full blast.

Last year we covered the front patio posts with cedar planks to hide the thin, spindly posts that were there.

We also covered the ceiling of the patio with cedar planks. We love this so much, we are probably going to do something similar on the garage walls.

WE, I mean, I am the King of starting projects, and then moving on to another one before the first one is finished. Luckily I have Jamie here to bit.. , no, I mean to rationally persuade me to finish the fist one. (side note here, we still have a few little details left unfinished in the kitchen). A prime example is the shutters that I made with leftover cedar pieces back in AUGUST….They have been sitting in the garage taunting me as a testament to my short attention span.

Now they are hanging on the front of the house and we couldn’t possibly love them more. It took several different approaches to make them stick. I didn’t want big nasty screws in the front of them…..and what do we have? Big nasty screws in the front of them. Hopefully a little stain on the screw heads will make them disappear. BTW….When people talk about hanging things on brick, and they used a masonry bit to drill into the brick…..What they really mean to say is that they drilled into the mortar surrounding the brick. It is way easier. I drilled holes, slipped in a “Sharkie” (it’s a plastic insertable anchor), and then screwed my shutters in with galvanized drywall screws.

After our dear friend Chuck stained the fence….It looks so amazing that everything else looked shabby in comparison. We knew it was time to stain the cedar posts as well.

Here’s the picture of the house from the real estate listing the first time we saw it …….2 and a half years ago….

And here’s what she looked like after we painted the trim chocolate-brown, beefed up the front patio posts, painted the front door luscious orange, and replaced the patio light…..

AND NOW……. (insert drumroll please) this is what she looks like today with the new shutters and stained patio posts….

LOVE………………….. just love.

Now she looks like she was supposed to. There were holes and nails in the mortar where shutters used to hang. I wonder what they looked like.

I’ll bet they weren’t the perfect combination of “Modern” and “Texas Ranch” that we have now.