Boring Before and After

I'll apologize in advance because this topic is soooo not blogworthy.

I got a new roof last week... woo. The $x,000 project might have been more exciting if changing the shingle color would do anything to my (obviously lacking) curb appeal, but we really got nothing out of the swap (other than a more weather-proofed home). With my house being slightly uphill from the street, you can barely even see the thing- and that's only if you try.

We need to do some power washing where I removed a rose bush on the side of the house STAT! 

I actually had to stand on a chair to get this before shot of the back of the roof:

As you can see, the back door had to wait until after I sunk money into the roof.

 And the after:

As a bonus for those of you who stuck around until the end of this post, I'll share how I instantly saved $400 on this sucker:

1. I got more than one bid.
2. I read every single detail of the proposals and eliminated unnecessary costs. Eighty dollars to remove and replace a satellite dish left by the previous owners- I don't think so!
3. I used the competitors' bids against one another. I'm a believer in going with the company with the highest recommendations, but I also believe in paying the lowest price possible. In this case, I simply told the roofer that he was coming several hundred dollars over the other companies and told him to "let me know if [his company] could be more competitive."  Magically, those extra costs disappeared and I had a roof by the end of the week ;).

Anyone else starting off 2011 by spending money on boring home improvement expenses?

PS I have to give some blog love to Lori from Thrifty Decor Mom. Thanks for the award!