Curb Appeal

Last spring, we developed a problem with raccoons in the roof. It was an extremely frustrating problem - we would hear them above our heads at night and then, they began to tear apart the soffits. We paid a ridiculous amount of money to have a removal company come but they were not allowed to do an actual removal (it's against the law here) but they did what they could to prevent the animals from coming in. Very frustratingly, the animals ripped open the roof and we ended up having a new roof put on (which, in the long run, needed to be done but was not an expense we wanted with me on mat leave).

It's ended up working out really well for me. As long as we have lived here, I have hated the exterior of this house. The previous owners loved a particular shade of green that looks terrible with the brick of the house and the house was looking rather grotty. The roof was dark brown with dark brown eavestroughs and it just looked really old and tired. There was a stained glass panel in the front door that I hated. We kept putting off doing anything about it because we wanted to coordinate our paint to our roof and we just didn't have the money to do the roof.

Once the roof was done, thanks to the raccoons, Dh became a machine and he has worked all summer. He has replaced the ugly green shutters, put up new lights, a new house number, stained the garage doors (which really needed it since he drove through them a few years ago and the two bottom panels of one door didn't even match and the door's original colour was a kind of orange), built a new gate at the back, painted all the sills and around the door, painted the door and replaced the insert and put a blind on the back. I love it!

Who knew that having your roof eaten could be such a wonderful thing?

Before

After