2 My Updated House

My house renovations are complete... for this year at least!

 I am so happy with the results.  We had replacement windows put in 5 years ago and unfortunately the company that did them was less then compentent.  We have had problems with the large picture windows leaking ever since.  Each year we would call and the company would send out their installer and he would run a bead of clear caulking around the inside and tell us that would fix it.  As luck would have it we had called a contractor to come look at replacing our current wood and tile floors on the main floor of our house as well as removing our fireplace.  We also knew we wanted to reside sometime soon, so I asked him to quote that too and thankfully I did because he happened to catch a HUGE issue with the main picture window which prompted him to dig a little further and it wasn't pretty.  Basically we should never have installed replacement windows, but should have gone with new construction, and the installation on the ones we did get was a shotty job.  Olivia's large window (the one with the arch) was held in with three, THREE!, nails and no insulation was put around it.  There was also a small bit of mold from water leaking in.  It was a mess.  That made our decision a bit easier as to what project we would be tackling this year.  We called the company that did the windows and made the owner come out and look at the problem and told him he would be replacing our windows (well, our contractor would be installing, HE would be footing the bill) with new construction ones.  After much back and forth he agreed.  We did have to pay a small portion of  the $10K, but he was responsible for the majority of it.  Since we were doing that it was a no brainer to move forward with the siding.  The end result:

I love that the contractor fixed the roof above the porch to match the line of the dormer porch, it just completes the look.  
You may not be able to tell from these pictures, but hte shutters are panel versus louever and I'm in love.  It adds such a touch of sophistication.  We went with two tones of siding - the darker, main color is a D5 vinyl siding (thicker slats) and the lighter color on the dormers is a cedar shaker style.  
As you can tell since we were already up on the roof we had the contractor remove our chimney piping in preparation for next years chimney removal.  We only ran into one complication - our new windows required new molding and unfortunately we couldn't get the stain to match.  We brought it to Sherwin Williams and tried multiple times to no avail.  Not sure what the builder of the house used, but next year when we replace the floors we'll also be replacing all the molding in the house... until then I have to live with non-matching molding.  At least it isn't OBVIOUS in most places... this is the worst area:

It drives me nuts, but I'm starting to get used to it now and most people don't notice unless I point it out.  They could have added a few more coats, but at this point we said, let's just stop.  We don't like the current dark molding anyway, the newer, lighter color is much more modern and nicer, let's just replace everything next year.  I hope you all are having a wonderful Memorial Weekend!  We will be heading home from a wonderful long weekend of camping.  Make sure to stop by tomorrow for an amazing giveaway from the awesome Amy Anderson of Mod Podge Rocks!