We spent the weekend in my hometown in southern Illinois,
+ while there — as is my way — I perused the listings on realtor.com.
Do you do that, too?
Anyway, I was surprised that there were so many houses under $100 grand!
For example, this plain Jane (with lots of potential!) is only $49,900!
You can see more in the Realtor.com listing, here.
Just yesterday on Facebook,
my cousin from my hometown posted the photo of a house
she was interested in buying, + guess which one it was!
Hard to believe, but yes — the plain Jane house!
Say no more!
I was soon dashing over to Pinterest for some design inspiration to share,
+ here’s what I found, from the blog, Nesting With Grace.
It’s another plain Jane house, this one with a small porch.
(Some of my cousin’s Facebook friends suggested that ‘her house’ needed one!)
But something’s not quite right.
The wrought iron porch column + the stair railings
were all the rage, back in the 50’s + 60’s — but today, it looks dated + too thin.
It needs to be replaced with something more substantial,
+ on that note, here’s the stunning AFTER:
I know! It’s like night + day, isn’t it?
It looks like they’ve replaced the wrought iron with white vinyl,
which is probably in stock at your local build-o-rama.
The light fixture’s been updated to something larger,
+ there’s a new mailbox + new house numbers.
Even though the porch is quite small,
there’s room for a sweet + welcoming French cafe chair.
The new front door has been painted a pretty shade of blue:
Now, pay close attention to this:
all the accessories — the chair + the flower pots —
echo the blue of the door + the white of the posts + railings.
For yet more color coordination, the shutters are painted the door blue,
+ the pair of white Adirondack chairs even have blue pillows.
There’s a lot going on,
but keeping everything in just one color family
makes the design cohesive + not too crazy or too busy.
The landscaping’s been updated with some classic boxwood shrubs
+ some pretty pink + red Knock-Out Roses, which bloom all season.
(Notice how the red is repeated in the red stripes of the U.S. flag.)
The new white window boxes add architectural detail,
+ their small evergreens (dwarf Alberta spruces?)
will provide winter interest when the roses go dormant.
Let’s have one more look at the $49 grand house in my home town:
It’s easy to envision some of the blog house’s AFTER features here, isn’t it?
Remember — it, too, was once a plain Jane!
Now it’s time to share on Facebook!
Stay tuned for my cousin’s + friends’ reactions!
REDBIRD 