a year of change: challenge accepted.

So those pesky home improvement projects that are sitting at the bottom of your to-do list, below "pick-up dry-cleaning," "go to grocery," and "get that stinky dog to the groomer ASAP?" Yeeeah. You know the ones--they sit there with their big, bold letters, taunting you for days. And then months. And then--well--I don't need to remind you.

Well ladies, the time has come for me to bust out the Sharpie and get some striking on, and the Suburban Bitches are to blame!

I was beyond flattered when the beautiful bloggers behind Suburban Bitches invited me to join them and their fabulous friends Commona-My House, Rosa Beltran Design, and Life on Virginia Street to participate in their A Year of Change challenge for the month of May. 

Challenge. Accepted.

Each month, these ladies pick the same project to tackle and reveal their unique approaches and talents as they complete it. They make it look easy, which is good because their goal is to encourage the rest of us to get sh*t done, too. 

The year began with their first self-inflicted challenge in March when they used Cutting Edge Stencils to stencil something. Anything. Sounds easy enough, right? Right. And April's project was simply to revamp a piece of furniture. Nothing crazy here--just little changes that add up to make big transformations.

This month the ladies are taking it outside. Touché, ladies--touché.

With the warmer weather approaching (unless you are in South Carolina, where it is already sweltering), we have been challenged to get our outdoor spaces spiffed up in time to enjoy the summer weather. Like, before Christmas. And while my fellow A Year of Change participants may feel challenged to create an outdoor entertaining space, I have decided to interpret it as a challenge to do some exterior work on the house and make it more inviting. Because let's face it--if people don't want to come over, there will be no one to entertain.

One of my pet peeves is when you drive up to a home, and all you see is garage. It's like, "have some house with that garage!" Bleh. Unfortunately, our house is one of those houses, and although I love our new house and all of the selling features it had to offer, curb appeal wasn't reeeally one of them for me. In response to my hesitation, our realtor explained that the reason for this design is to conserve construction costs. Pffft. Anyway, the appearance of the garage was not a deal breaker because I knew I could spruce it up.

So I added it to the list. Months ago.

But in my defense, it was a loooong list of items such as--oh, I don't know--"get a new roof," "put in hardwoods," "paint entire interior of house," etc., etc., etc... Etc.

Now that we are finally finished with the repairs and upgrades on and in our new home, I have started decorating with the little money that we have left over. But where there's a will, there's a way, and in a few short weeks we are hosting our house warming party and I'll be damned if people's first impression isn't a good one. (On a side note, some of my friends refuse to make the distinction between an Interior Decorator and a broke interior decor blogger. No pressure.).

So--somehow--I am going to give my garage a facelift over the next four weeks.

Please accept my apologies for the following before photo--which is indeed the Google Street View of our home--as it is the only photo I have that gives a perspective of the scale of the garage. Plus I cut the garage out of all of the other photos.

Today we are simply sharing our plans for the projects, which will be completed and revealed at the end of the month on Friday, May 30th (don't worry, I'll be sure to incessantly remind you as we get closer). And I promise to have some better before photos by then for the comparison.

So stay tuned to see if I can check this project off the list, and in the meantime head on over to see what Suburban Bitches, Commona-My House, Rosa Beltran Design, and Life on Virginia Street are up to outside!