Get rid of the railing. No offense, of course, but railing is a ridiculous feature for such a small porch. Your yellow door looks great. For the screen door, have it be natural wood, in a modern, contemporary design - e.g., 4-5" vertical stiles, 6-8" top & bottom stiles, all open otherwise, with vertical 1 x 1s or 1 x 2s in the middle, from top to bottom stile; or, 1 - 1 x 2 in the center, flanked by two 1 x 1s. The natural wood will be a great contrast to the yellow door, will highlight the unique design of the screendoor, and will compliment the brick. Tile the porch! You've got the perfect substrate [concrete] making for a fairly easy job. And tile the steps, but use an accent tile just on the step risers. Then stain the concrete walk. You can find tiles on sale for $.99/sqft [or less!], then splurge a little on riser accent tile - whatever your style - mediterranean, spanish, talivera, a different color, etc.

We have a similar house and, a small budget to improve. Here's our tips: 1) hire a landscape designer for a consulting/layout consult. Their hourly price is worth it! They design, you plant. It will be so much easier if you had the property surveyed prior to closing so you can give the designer the property survey. Consult w/your local town zoning most have rules on laandscaping distance btwn properties. 2) updating your house numbers and exterior lighting is a pain (we just did it) but worth the effort. If you are not handy, contact your local Chamber of Commerce see if there is a local contractor that takes on small jobs. If you are new to the area, join a community volunteer group to meet & greet and find out who's who in the contracting zoo. You should ask people that are long in the tooth for a tip before you hire anyone. If you get a lot of "I don't know" and, they've lived in their town over 20yrs. I am finding that a lot of really good contractors in my area are on Houzz. Kudos to Houzz for finding them. 3)Does the interior feel like a trailer, too? Ours does. We changed the layout. In our opinion you need: a strong marriage; a partner in the trades; a job with a lot of vacation time accrued and, a tent to live in the backyard while walls are going down/replaced in our opinion. We took the bedroom facing the front of the house and sectioned it into 3 spaces: (street facing) is now a mudroom and a powder room, on the flip side (facing backyard) we created a master bathroom. Looks amazing, took away the trailer feeling. Changing the small master bedroom into 3 new rooms as a DIY cost us about $3k in 2015 includes upgraded electrical and window removals. 4) working on the exterior first is a good idea. when you can smile as you pull in the driveway makes everything else easier.

If you have horses you need to consult someone about setting up proper pastures for them on your acreage. You do need to be careful how much grass they get and what kind of grass it is and the time of year, but if you get set up nicely then they can graze a fair amount of the time and it will cut back your feed bills. The thing is that you'll want at least two pastures for proper pasture management, if not more. (Depends how many horses you have, if they can all go out together, etc.) But the idea is that you can move them between pastures so none of the pastures ever get eaten right down to bare ground. There is still some work required in the pastures, spreading manure and so on, but before you do anything else with landscaping I'd look into the pasture needs to make sure you don't spend money on anything that will be not suitable for using the land for pasturing, or will mean duplicating equipment. I would also advise caution with renting out the barn - hang out on any online horse forum and you will hear plenty of horror stories and a laundry list of problems that can come up. Some people obviously do it happily, but I would definitely do plenty of research before going down that road. (And yes, you will likely have to get additional insurance.) You want to know what you're getting into and have a good agreement in place and an understanding of the costs. (In addition to insurance, horses can be very hard on buildings and fencing, so you need to make sure that your agreement either stipulates how things are to be maintained and how things are paid for if the person doesn't keep things in shape, or be charging enough to pay for doing the needed maintenance yourself.) If you are interested in renting out, the idea of using it as a hay field is probably one of the most promising - you might still need extra insurance to cover yourself against any accidents that might happen on your property during farming, but if people in your area do hay then you are likely to find a taker and hay costs are high enough that many people would be pretty happy to have some extra land or to grow their own.

Hi Alaina, first must say that it's so good to hear from you and see your updates! Your new mirror turned out beautifully....wow! Reminds me so much of that BDDW mirror....which btw, I'm still coveting til this day, lol. Your art is stunning too. Please remind me....is it an original? If so, who's the artist? I'm relatively new to the original art world and discovering what I love in regards to works and artists has been a regular pasttime for me lately. With the new colors and accents you've brought in, I'm sensing that your tastes/style preferences has evolved a bit. Or maybe I'm just not recalling the earlier discussions clearly? Anyway, overall, I actually like the way the colors have livened up the space a notch. Not that the space even needed it....considering the bold and beautiful piece of art is already had. Although I'm usually with Tems on most things, I do agree with you re: the stools. I ❤️ love the stools! Not 100% sure about the starfish....though I do like that sculpture itself. But, like you, not sure it works where it is now. That may be (for me anyway) bringing it over the "too much teak" threshold. I also agree with DrDeb in regards to the table vignette reading too busy, particularly with the colorful pillows in the background. Maybe it's the pink agate that's throwing it off for me? That, along with the pink books almost feels too "glam"? I see your space more as soft contemporary (mixed with artistic and warm organic modern touches) vs. anything glam....if that makes any sense.... Overall though this space and your project is still one of my faves here on Houzz. Thank you for taking me along for the ride. It's been so fun and got to learn a lot from you and others here.