Ta-DAH!

You know how a few pounds can sneak on every year until... well, you graduated high school weighing 115 pounds soaking wet and then 10 years later you realize that you've gained so much weight that the thought of running into a classmate has you "wearing sweatpants for all the right reasons". (I'd like to take credit for that, but it's a quote from King of the Hill.)

Yeah, so owning a home is sometimes like that. Especially when the home you own is older than you and your hubby's ages combined. Year by year, you let the little things slip by and you slap some pancake makeup on and you "make do" with what you've got. And you don't really notice. Especially things outside. The next thing you know, you're living in a house that looks bad. In fact, it looks like this:

What can I say? It's Canada. We spend the majority of the year inside wearing touques, watching curling, and figure skating while we fight over who is going to put on their snowshoes and go to the store for a lottery ticket.

Painters were hired; scraping and painting was done and this is the result:

We didn't realize what an eyesore the house had become until the painter and his crew told us that people were driving by, honking their horns and giving them the thumbs up!

It's hard to get a true representation of the colour. You'll just have to come visit.

We're really pleased with the colour and are basking in the glowing compliments from all the neighbours.

Despite how good the house looks, we're still clinging to the last little bit of our slovenly lifestyle:

That's the remnants of the tree we had "decapitated" after Hurricane Juan... and the last pieces of the shed... and the omnipresent trash cans.

Sigh. Baby steps.