Thank you, hail storm!

Okay. We're at the point where most everything is finally taken care of and I can think straight again, lol. (Ironically, I just realized that we're exactly one month out from my brain almost exploding, lol.) So. Here's my wrap-up of before and after pics for now. 

First is a basic photo from the front of the house, before the hail storm:

And here's how it looks now. Things that changed include the new fence, removal of the trees growing in the fenceline, removal of the screen door and repainting of the front door, repainting of the entire house and trim, new gutters and screens for the whole house, and new roof.

Some little details were addressed as well (not covered by insurance but the timing seemed right and we'd been wanting to change them for awhile anyhow)...here's the before:

Here's the after. We changed out the outside lights, door hardware, and doorbell (and house numbers, which you can't see in this picture) from brass to bronze. (Wish I'd taken a picture before Nathan removed the screen door, which was annoying as heck.) I'm on the lookout for a new doormat and possibly a wreath (as the boys nixed me putting my star back up...said it was too much red, lol).

And here's the view of our south side yard, from the backyard, before:

And here it is now. We removed all the cables and satellite dishes and such attached to the house and got rid of the dumping area and rock pile in the corner (by the fence) and pruned that pine tree so we could move the fenceline forward a bit. We have no idea what to do there now, but at least it's cleared out. ;)

Also, you can't see it well, but we installed polyguard window well covers, which will hopefully prevent any flooding in the basement in the future.

The same weekend we got rid of the dumping area and rock pile, we cleaned out the garage...which was too full to fit the replacement car we got after the hail storm totalled Nathan's Scion. (This is before.)

It's hard to see the details, but we really eliminated a LOT of stuff to make room. The garage feels positively spacious now. And, for the moment at least, we actually know where things are, lol:

Whew. So, that's that. Thanks to our insurance, most all of this stuff was covered...thank you, hail storm! ;) Thanks to the fact that we knew we needed to replace the roof soon anyhow (it was about 24 years old shake) and Nathan was able to work an additional job last fall/winter, we had enough saved up to more than cover what wasn't covered by insurance. Feeling incredibly blessed!

(We still have the back deck to replace and will then also replace the sliding door back there...more on that in a minute.)