Front Exterior Upgrades

This post is sponsored by Kent Building Supplies in Petitcodiac, NB.  They provided me with a gallon of Sico Solid Wood Stain.  However, all opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

First of all, here is a photo of the exterior at the end of last summer.

Our two front living room window's seals were gone and had gotten so bad they just looked dirty all of the time.  The fog had been inside the panes so long that they created a dripping dirty look.  So.  We ordered new windows from Kent Building Supplies in Petitcodiac, NB. 

As Ryan & I like to sit in the recliner and look out the window at the birds at the feeder hanging from the tree, I chose to get plain glass that do not open and do not have any dividers in them.  Even though they are the same size as the last ones, the plain glass makes them feel so much bigger!

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​So thankful for my Daddy . . . he's always willing to lend a helping hand!


I recommend locals to buy their windows from KBS.  You know that I am a budget shopper BIG TIME so I called  everywhere in Moncton for quotes.  Kent's retail prices were much cheaper!!  I clarified 'retail' because as an employee, I got even bigger discounts beyond that!  Yay, me!  :)

Next up was raking and shovelling out all of the old landscape rocks.  I do love the look of landscape rocks but these had been there a long time and the landscape fabric underneath was no longer useful and we could not keep up with the weeds.  It was pretty much a family affair getting all that rock cleaned up and removed.  Ryan put the most work into it, and I appreciate that.

So what does a trucker use to prepare a shrub bed?  Why tarp, of course!  Weeds can't grow up through that!  We had lots of tarp on hand so there was the added benefit of no cost!

I had originally planned to keep it as cheap as possible.  Say what?  LOL.  Anyway, I was going to reuse the landscape rock.  Ryan pointed out that it would be a ton of work filtering out the rock from ground and weeds.  AND. he really likes the look of mulch and wanted that.  So, black mulch it was.  He purchased it from a landscape place in Moncton, loading it onto the utility trailer.

Then, to keep the mulch where it belonged and to tidy things up, we purchased landscape ties . . . at Kent in Petitcodiac!  :)  Ryan measured and cut the ties and I stained them with the gallon of Sico Solid Wood Stain given me by the Kent in Petitcodiac for this post.  It took two coats for full coverage . . . as is usual with solid stains.  It dries quite quickly so I was able to get it all completely finished in about an hour or so.

​The next part of the process was to clean the patio stone walkway.  Ryan used the Olympic Deck Cleaner . . . and threw in some dish soap.  I guess he likes suds!  LOL

Then, we took turns using the pressure washer.  That part was rather fun, to be honest!  I had to share the fun.  (insert pouty face, LOL)

Once I had a nice sunny day again, I dug out the rubber knee pads and the gallon of Sico Solid Wood Stain.

Remember in the post about staining patio blocks, I mentioned how the stain looks to be a different color than the painted doors even though they were the same PPG color (Armoury)? Well, when I had this gallon mixed, I chose to go with Sico's colour Storm Belt.  I was hoping to get that slight green hued grey that the doors are.  I was hoping to trick the stain.  As you see in the above picture,  it still came out looking blue-ish.  I KNOW that Storm Belt is supposed to have a slightly green hue because I had done a cabinet door with it (using Sico Cabinet paint) at work one day.

Anyway, forgetting all that mumble jumbo, the moral of that story is that going from a paint to stain may not result in an exact match even when using the exact same colour name.

The last part of the process was to put sod in the areas we didn't choose to put back into the landscape beds.  Ryan purchased the sod from my cousin who owns an excavating business locally, called Mountain Movers.  And we bought grass seed from . . . . Kent!

Isn't it beautiful?  Once the grass grows in there, it will be so pretty.  We are pleased with the results!!  Ryan's choice of going with mulch . . . I am so glad he insisted!  I love it!  (I was only concerned about spending the money which is why I had to be talked into it.)