i hate ivy.

After living here for nearly four years, I finally have a mental picture of what I want the exterior of my house to look like:

(image from maldivesdeals.net)

I'm kidding.

I do have an idea, though, and it involves a lot of different projects - including some that may or may not be possible, and some that I will likely need to pay someone else to do. I am sure that I can't come up with any ideas where I actually like the pink brick. So, that needs to be painted.

And before that can happen, I need to deal with this:

Can you even tell from this picture what that is? Its the side of my house, covered in ivy and flanked in front by overgrown bushes and random little trees.

Here's another view of the same wall of the house, a bit closer to the front:

See that window there? That's the bathroom window. At this rate, it doesn't matter that its frosted, because no one is seeing anything through all that mess.

There's another window under there, too, to the guest room. And all that ivy can't be good for those gutters.

Clearly all of this stuff needs to come down. I really, really dislike landscaping work, especially now in the middle of allergy season. So I tried to be realistic about it. This is a necessary first step to anything that I want to do with the front of the house. Its something I can work on a little bit at a time - even fifteen minutes after I come home from work will make a big difference. It won't cost me anything.

Wrong.

Because in my first fifteen minute session, today in the limited time between coming home and heading out to Life group, I might have gotten a little overzealous.

That's the gutter that is now hanging off the house. And some of the siding along with it. So much for something that wouldn't cost me anything.

I called Victor, who is going to come look at it, but there's not much point in fixing it until I get the rest of the ivy down. Hopefully, I'll be back next week with radically different after photos.