DIY Shutters for our Addition! {And good news!}

Happy Friday Morning!!!

I just got news about an hour ago that we get to talk to our little girl tomorrow!!!!!  I am so happy!!!

We do not get to Skype with her because the orphanage does not have it installed on their computers yet, but we don’t care!  Just to hear her voice will be the best!  And to tell her we love her!  Oh my goodness!   The call is at 10 am if you want to think of us at that time and say a little prayer for our girl!

Speaking of our girl, my precious friend Layla is selling t-shirts in her Blog Threads shop until Monday, and a percentage of the profits is going to go toward our adoption!  Isn’t that awesome?!  She has the cutest shirts there, so if you want to check them out, click on the button below!

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Now to our new shutters!  If you have been following my blog for a while, you know that we bought a basic 1400 sq foot ranch five years ago, and we have been slowing turning it into our little “cottage” or “farmhouse.”  You can read about that process HERE.

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When we bought our house five years ago, it looked like this…

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We re-did the front porch and added the two story addition, and it looked like this for a while….

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Then we finally painted the brick and addition the same color (BM Dove White,) and it looked like this…

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Better.  But not there yet!  

When we added our new front porch last fall, it was a GAME CHANGER!  

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You can see in the picture above that we still needed to landscape, but we were waiting for Spring.  I added some hostas a few weeks ago, but we still have more to do.  

You can also see that we added new board and batten shutters to our house last year.  These were the same type of shutters we made for our Lowe’s Spring Makeover in Nashville last spring. 

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You can check out the tutorial for that HERE.

About a week ago, Cy built more board and batten shutters to match the ones on our front porch, and our house currently looks like this…

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Our future plans are to add a two car attached garage on the other side of our house that will have the same gabled roof line that our addition and front porch have. 

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We are also planning to add a wrap around porch to the addition to give our home even more of a farmhouse look.   You can barely see it in the picture below, but we actually have french doors on the right side of our addition that walk out from our master bedroom.  Right now we don’t use them, or we would fall flat on the ground on our faces, but eventually, we will have a wrap around porch there.  :)  (And some rocking chairs!)

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This is what our house looks like from the bottom of our driveway.  We have about five acres, which means a lot of mowing.  But thankfully, I LOVE to mow!!  I am the one who usually mows our front yard every week.  :)

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It has been so much fun to watch our house be transformed over the past five years.  It would have been great to have the money to do it all right when we moved in, but that wasn’t a reality.  We have had to work on each project a little bit at a time over the past five years to get it where it is today. 

And it is going to be fun to do even more in the coming years.  Including our guest cottage!  It’s getting an exterior makeover this summer, and I can’t wait to show you!  :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

31 Comments

  1. Whoop whoop! So glad you get to talk to your girl! Been praying and thinking about you guys! Love the shutters! The house looks awesome!

  2. Praise the Lord for answering prayers so you can talk to your little girl! Still praying adoption goes quickly.

    Love your house and the progress you’ve made.

    God Bless you and your family!

  3. SO happy to hear that you get to speak with your girl! I know that makes your heart happy :)

    Love the update on your house, it looks great. I remember thinking you were crazy to leave your other beautiful home for such a fixer upper (we were five years into our fixer upper and still had -still have!- so far to go!), but your vision is coming together perfectly!

    1. Thank you, Leen! We are getting there. It’s been a long process, but fun watching it start to come together. :) Bless you!

  4. Just bought the Glass 1/2 Full shirt in honor of your adoption. What a cute shirt and what a beautiful reason to spend money. :) Praying for a wonderful phone call.

  5. WOW!! It just keeps getting better and better. So happy you get to talk to your little girl, what a wonderful Mother’s Day present.

  6. So excited about that phone call. What a great Mother’s Day gift!

    I love what you have done to your home. Doing it a little at a time makes you appreciate the changes even more. After all, planning and anticipation is half the fun. Can’t wait to see the next installment.

  7. Thank God you get to talk to your little one. Have a great talk. I have your way to make shutters. Directions in pile of to do pages on my desk. Happy Mother’s Day.

  8. I still cross the fingers for the adoption of your little girl!
    I envy you for such an awesome property and I think You’re blessed with it although it’s lot of work to keep it in good condition.

  9. Your home looks awesome Traci! Well done!
    So very excited for you to speak with your future daughter this morning! Already prayed for your meeting. To God be the glory! Have a blessed day!

  10. I know I’m late to the party so hope all went well with the phone call. I’ve certainly been praying for y’all. Your home and the surrounding property is just beautiful and is what I envision for our dream home. I just purchased the tshirt referencing a boy stealing my heart and can’t wait for it to get here. I LOVE my boys (and my girl :) ).

  11. So glad things are moving along with your little girl. How awesome it will be when she’s home with you forever!

    Love the shutters. We are going to build similar ones soon. Your video didn’t mention anything about sealing them after staining. I’m curious how they are holding up to the weather? Thanks!

  12. Love the transformation! It’s been fun to watch over the years. Y’all do impressive work!

    And I’m not even kidding when I say that I want to be a guest in the guest cottage.

  13. Hi your house is beautiful! I am about to paint my home a color scheme very similar to yours. I see that the brick and trim are Dove White, but what color did you use on your shutters? Thank you so much!

    1. Hi Natalie!

      My shutters are painted Ebony Fields by Valspar at Lowes. It’s a dark charcoal gray with a little bit of brown.

  14. Questions about the shutters…we are going to start on some this weekend. Did you first stain then in the Dark Walnut and then change over to painting them later on? Did you seal them when stained? Did they hold up? We were planning to stain ours but I’m hesitant because I’m not sure how we’ll they’ll hold up compared to painting. Thanks for any help or advice. Your house looks beautiful!!!

  15. Love your transformation!!! Love that you get/got to talk with your angel!!! In your close up picture of your shutters it looks like a rustic color! What paint/color is that?? Love!!

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