Outdoor To-Do List

When Aaron and I stopped by the house last week to look at the dummy rails, we arrived a bit early and had some time to walk around the exterior while we waited for the realtor.  In general, the exterior is in good shape, but no one has been living there since February so there's a bit of work that needs done.  I decided to take some pictures of some exterior things that we want to deal with.  I didn't take a picture of the yard in general because the roofers had lots of stuff in the yard.  For now, you'll just have to trust me that the yard needs mowed and there are tons of walnuts that need cleaned up (the next door neighbor has a big walnut tree and half the branches extend onto our soon-to-be property).  The outdoor work is going to be a top priority for our time...  (We have other "top" priorities like the HVAC conversion from oil to gas, but that is top priority for money but not our time as I wouldn't have a clue in the world how to do that conversion!)

Starting at the front of the house, we have the front door!  The threshold under the door needs painted.  The paint is chipped and I can see bare wood.  I want to get this fixed before the weather gets into the wood too much and we end up needing to replace the wood.  This is an easy and quick fix - we just need to sand off the old paint, give it a quick coat of primer, and put a few coats of paint on it.  The sellers have the right color paint since they just painted the balcony with it, so this should be easy and pretty much free!

 

Still at the front of the house... We have the wrought iron railings on the front stoop.  The finish is worn off in spots and some rust is showing through.  This is also a fairly quick and easy fix.  We need to take a wire brush or steel wool to the railing to get the finish off.  Then we just go ahead and give it a few coats of paint.  I'd love to use spray paint here but the railings are cemented down and I don't trust that we could keep the spray paint from getting on the concrete stoop or the house.  It's a risk that I don't want to take, so we'll stick with Rust-oleum and a paint brush.

Moving away from the front door, we have the gate to the backyard.  These wrought iron railings are fine - eventually they could use a new coat of paint, but they will be okay for a little while.  However, behind the gate, you can see a flower bed that is pretty barren; the little bit of vegetation there is all weeds!  This little area of space isn't worth planting grass, so we can keep this as a flower bed.  I want to remove the bricks that are along the front edge (near the wrought iron railing).  For now, I just want to get the weeds out and get it cleaned up; in the spring, I can get some things planted there.

Behind the same wrought iron gate and railings, there is a flower bed on the other side of the walkway.  Again, this one is full of weeds!  There is also a random hosta plant in the flower bed...  I suggested (and Aaron concurred) that we take out that flower bed and plant grass so that the strip of land that starts at the railing can be grass the whole way back the yard.  I prefer as much grass as possible since I don't have a green thumb... If you look closely, you can see that there is grass just on the other side of the flower bed.  Also, all the flower beds have little wrought iron fencing (that stuff that is only about 6" high) on the perimeter.  I personally hate that so the plan is to get rid of all that.  The only places we will still have flower beds go from the house to the walkway anyway so we don't need to make a "line" between the flower bed and the grass...

Moving around the side, past the baywindows, and coming to the side patio (which has a door into the kitchen)...  There is another flower bed back here.  This one is going to stay because it seems silly to plant such a small area of grass.  You might be able to see the silly wrought iron tiny fencing stuff a little better here, but it just doesn't show up well.  This one is calling for a bush or two rather than annuals like flowers...  I also pointed out the hose that's still hooked up - that needs to be disconnected before winter comes and it freezes up!  On the bonus, that hose hook-up is a frost-free hook-up!

Same area, just a few inches to the right is the step up onto patio...  The step has settled poorly and is quite crooked now.  This needs fixed so that it isn't a safety hazard.  This one isn't quite as easy of a fix as we will have to bust out that concrete and pour a new step.  I would be lost as to how to do this...  I'm sure a Google search would help, but this project doesn't seem so easy!  Anyway, my dad said he knows what he's doing, so we can tackle that when he's available to help.  I'm not sure how expensive that will be, but it will be cheaper to do ourselves (that I am sure of!).  You can also see all the leaves and a few walnuts.  It will take a while to clean all that up, but it's just labor and time, no money required!  The patio could use a good cleaning as well.  Hopefully I can borrow my dad's power washer to really clean that up. 






Just off the patio, you can see the walkway that leads from the gate that opens up to the front sidewalk around to the patio behind the storage area at the very back of the house.  This walkway is a little uneven and has lots of vegetation growing in it.  I'm not sure exactly how I want to fix this up in the final sense, but for now it needs to be cleaned up and sprayed with vegetation killer.  I would really like to extend the walkway through the entire backyard to the back gate which leads to the parking spaces.  I'd rather walk on a walkway than through mud or wet grass.  However, I have a few reservations.  First, I'm not sure how costly it would be, especially since I think we'd need to redo the entire walkway to make sure it all matches.  Second, I'm not sure if it would affect the resale value of the house negatively; someone could want the backyard to be free of a walkway if they planned on using the backyard to allow their children to run around or play soccer or something in the yard.  A walkway in the yard would be a hard surface to fall on and it could be a tripping hazard.  I guess we'll have to put some more thought into this before we do anything more than clean up what's already there.

Finally, if you follow that walkway all the way around to the very back of the house, you can see the door that leads into the storage area.  At first glance, you might not notice anything, but if you look closely at the bottom, the door is quite deteriorated.  The bottom is almost fraying.  The door itself is beyond repair and we just need to replace it.  I understand exterior doors to be around $100 to $150 dollars.  My dad has hung plenty of doors in his time and I'm sure he'll be willing to help us get that done.  Also, while we're at it, I'm not so certain I want a red door.  I think I'd like it to be white like the trim on the front windows.  The kitchen door is also white I believe.  However, it might get quite dirty, in which case white isn't the way to go...  Anyway, on a related note, I also want to get a sliding lock for the bottom of the new door (one that you can only operate from the inside) as an added safety feature as this seems like one of the most likely spots someone would try to break in.  The extra lock would just be a bit of extra assurance...




On a final note, I also want to have motion lights installed on the back of the house.  There are motion lights on the patio outside the kitchen but I'm not sure they are in working order as we were there at night and they didn't turn on.  If those lights don't work, I want to get them replaced.  I'd like the motion lights for multiple reasons.  First, if we park in the back spaces and have to walk to the kitchen door to get home, I want to have some lights turn on and illuminate my path!  Second, we will take the dogs out at night so it would be nice to have light to keep an eye on them.  And third, it serves as a deterrent for a thief!

Well, that's all for now...  Although I think that's plenty to worry about!  I will get around to the indoor to-do list once I get to do another once-over of the inside...