IF EYES ARE A WINDOW TO THE SOUL...

I have a friend who moved to the country at the same time that we did, into a lovely white house in Connecticut. Her house is, and I am not being modest, much nicer than mine in pretty much every way - it's bigger, it's on more land (with lower property taxes - fucking Westchester), and has a better location.

But every time she comes over, she stops for a second and looks up at my house with something like envy. It's not really envy though, it's just that my house is made of stone. And what she's thinking is: OMG, they are so lucky, they NEVER have to pay to get the exterior of their house repainted.

This is true, and it's a good thing, because Ted, being as, uh, thrifty as he is, would likely hire Painters-R-Us or something, and then the outside of the house would be as fucked as the inside currently is, what with us going on a year with no cleaning lady and me being a really, really, really bad housekeeper.

But about a year ago, I was talking to my friend Laura and she asked me if I my house had shutters on it, she couldn't remember. And I was like, I don't actually know... Which is when it occurred to me that if I DID have shutters, they probably sucked because I couldn't even remember if they even existed.

After I went outside, and saw that the house I live in did indeed have shutters on it:

I decided that they did indeed suck and plus I hated them. "I must have new shutters!" I decided. "And they must be green to match the door and also not have those slats." Sadly, I am married to someone who would rather paint shutters on the house himself than pay for new ones (I'm actually surprised that this didn't occur to him).

Anyway, I finally wore Ted down (I AM RELENTLESS) although it took about a year (HE IS VERY CHEAP) and now my house has beautiful new shutters. In a spending frenzy, Ted also hired a company to repaint the trim (and FYI they killed two of our trees and left cans of paint thinner all over the front yard for my kids to find and drink so my misgivings about his hiring practices are once again validated - see also: Wedding Videographer).

Here is the house now:

I am aware that the difference is not immediately apparent, but trust me, the house looks better. And now the shutters match the door (insert your own "carpet matches the drapes" joke here), which is the kind of thing that makes me happy (look, these days I'll take what I can get, OK):

So yes, it's just "window dressing" (see what I did there?), but whatever exterior-of-the-house projects I can tackle so that I don't have to deal with the fucking disaster that is the inside of the house is an awesome idea in my book. Stay tuned for my next post on the rickety, wobbly, tippy stone steps to the backyard, known in our neighborhood as the "High Street Death Trap for Toddlers," and the make-over these steps received. I'll get to the inside of the house. One day soon. Definitely.

XOXOXO

ABC