Transformation of the house exterior is complete!

It is hard to believe this day has finally come!  The exterior transformation of our home is complete, and we are ecstatic with the results.  The painters just finished and I immediately got to work sweeping and putting the outside back together tickety-boo.  Besides losing one rosemary plant the garden has survived!!!!  Re-roofing is not easy on plants and believe me, at one point, I just had to look the other way and breathe deeply.  When we purchased our home we had a lot of comments from family and friends, but you know, despite the many negative ones my husband and I always had a vision for our home.  It is hard to explain but we looked at our home through different eyes and we saw it finished, not how it really was.  This got us through the years of the reality that our house was truly hideous.  But the potential!  We were determined to restore this mid-century beauty!

Lets see a little bit of the journey…

This is our home when we purchased it and did practically nothing outside.  Need I even write that as it is pretty clear from the picture that we did nothing outside.  HA!  Note the curvy gingerbread house posts, the scalloped curvy upper window fascia, and the curves between the posts – not our style.  First order of business in our modern transformation was to straighten all of those lines.  We wanted everything straight and linear.Much improved as the front garden is slowly evolving…isn’t it amazing what landscaping can do!?  Blows my mind.  We changed the front posts to natural cedar ones and straightened out the curves in the trim between them (thanks dad!).  We had new straight fascia installed to get rid of the last of the curves. When I began my front garden and made decisions regarding plants and such, I always held our ultimate vision in my mind.  I knew we were going to eventually need a new roof and silver galvalume was the only roof for this house’s roofline in our opinion.  When I looked at my home, a silver roof was simply what I saw, I barely saw the current roof.  Plant selections were made based on the color of the future roof (many silver plants) and paint colors, green and tans.

And here she is after her make-over.  She stands proudly now and fits in with the other pretty houses on the cul-de-sac.  Before we stood out like a sore thumb.

I am going to include a few pictures to demonstrate how we chose our color palette.  First and foremost for us was to choose colors that blended our home into nature and the surrounding landscape.  We wanted to blend not stick out.  You can see several tones of tans and greens in the many native grasses in my garden.

Here you see more tans, greens and silvers.  I can hardly wait to take this ugly hedge out in short order.

More blondes and greens in the Mexican feather grass…which of course change colors with the seasons.  That is a BIG plus in Texas where there is not much seasonal color.  Well, I should not say that, there really can be seasonal color.  Lets just say compared to the trees I am used to in Canada, it is different.  I try to incorporate seasonal interest in my garden so it looks different and pleasing with the changing seasons.

The static feature of our windows being silver also influenced the silver roof, silver plants, and modern fixtures.

It was A LOT of fun putting on her jewelry to complete her transformation.  This modern light fixture and these modern floating house numbers really complete her look.  They restore her into the mid-century beauty she was built to be back in 1961.I love these lights we chose so much, they deserve a close-up of their own!  My husband is so insightful when it comes to lighting, he bought a really neat vintage lantern bulb that looks so pretty at night!
And of course to give credit where credit is due, we could have NEVER done this without Robert Yuras from Yuras Roofing, and Hector Garcia from Toy’s Painting.  These guys are the ultimate dream team.  If you need any roofing done, or any exterior or interior painting or remodeling, these two companies operate with such integrity and professionalism we simply could never thank them enough.  They are so respectful and so are their teams.  A contractor is only as good as the crews they bring in and let me tell you, we have learned the hard way on this.  Not only are these contractors great, their teams they bring in are great.   I always felt comfortable being around them, and with them around our property and our children.  That is always a huge concern for folks, and we are so pleased with this experience.  If you are in the San Antonio area, look no further than these guys.  BELIEVE you me, with such a fixer-upper house, we have had a lot of bad contractors and these companies are worth their weight in gold.  Thank you Robert and Hector, you are our heros!

Stay tuned for the filling in of the front garden beds – yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was patient …and now, I can dig again!

• Posted in: Before and After ♦ Front Garden - year 1
• Tagged: best painter san antonio, best roofer san antonio, galvalume roof Texas, house before and after, house transformation San Antonio, mid-centurey modern house san antonio, modern house, San Antonio painting, San Antonio roofing, texas gardening, texas organic garden, xeric garden