{Front Door} Welcome!

Hello friends!!! I've recently changed out my wreath decor and I also repainted our mailbox (again and again). You can see the original makeover here in its original sad state and when I brightened it up with yellow paint). The yellow, and then the turquoise, were all a little bright to me so I went with a classic black. Ideally, we'd replace the mailbox with some awesome, art deco (possibly) type but that just hasn't been in the budget. Or even the top of the to do list, so paint it is!

I also changed up the wreath. I guess you can say I try to stay up to date with the seasons but's really just Spring, Summer, Fall (Halloween) and then Christmas around here. Maybe some day I'll do others. Maybe. 

The black and white ribbon was on there for awhile and I kept it because it ties into the address plaque and our mailbox. The star garland lights up and is from Target's dollar spot (although I think it was actually $3). I already had the welcome sign from years ago but I believe it originally came from Hobby Lobby. It helps hide the battery pack for the lights. 

The original wood door wasn't always this pretty. Check out the messy process to get it so pretty here. I also painted the black trim and you can see it here.  

What do you think? Do you decorate for the holidays or seasons? Are you a big burlap or wreath fan? 

{Side Yard} Ivy Control

While working on our bathroom this summer, Doug and I also got one outside project check off our to do list. We seem to do smaller projects at the same time as big projects. Anyone else do this? I think we had done most of our bathroom and were at the waiting stage (paint drying or something similar) and so we completed one small project. I can't wait to see how it looks this year once some more growth is added.

But… we tackled our side porch's ivy issue. I love the English Ivy and have cut it back a few times to control the growth. It's an amazing plant and we figured we could use it's growing power to block out our neighbors. I'm hoping it'll block out some of their smoke but that's more wishful thinking. I can dream, right?? 

So not only do we have a giant patch of the ivy, there's also another, more boring, type of ivy mixed in with a plant that seems to want to take over the world. I think it's Rose of Sharon and it'll be gone this summer. It's a pretty plant but is in my way. And grows like crazy. This is what we had after I chopped the Rose of Sharon a lot. The ivy is growing up and around the white edge to our porch. 

And so with a few boards, white paint, and some clothes line, we created a zig zag like pattern for the ivy to grow up. It filled it a lot more since this photo but I apparently never took another photo. You can see the saw horse and other bathroom related items that we used this summer. 

 And while cleaning out a lot of the ivy, this big (seriously like 5") praying mantis wanted to defend his territory.  

And yes, we need to paint all the white window sills and trim around our house…

Do you have ivy? How do you control it if you do?  

{Front Door} Black Trim

Isn't she beautiful?!?! 

I finally got around to painting the trim around the door black. It only took three years to make it happen!! I've been busy though. 

I also painted the mailbox. I'm not sold on the color, although it's much better than the yellow. I love the color itself but not with the black and wood. I actually have another mail box to hang up but that involves drilling holes in brick and that's not my thing. 

Three years ago, I started the front door makeover by removing the paint. You can read about the fun times here. I remember the day I first took a scraper to the paint (after letting some paint remover do its thing) and my mom was there with me to discover that the once ugly door was hiding a beauty underneath! I scraped and scraped and scraped some more to get all the paint off of it. Then my dad, the super hero, flew in to the rescue and varnished it for me. Isn't he the best?! He also made new trim due to some issues of the original stuff falling apart. 

The front porch is far from over though. The ceiling (bead board!) needs to be repainted, the floor desperately needs painted, and the window sills all need painted too. I'd love to buy a new rug and a new welcome mat. I'm over the Welcome/Goodbye sign as shown in the first picture. 

And as a reminder of how far the door has come, here's a little collage: 

So here's a breakdown of what happened:

1. We replaced the locks (safety first!) when we bought the house. This left a rectangle near the door handle as you can barely see on the far left. 

2. We removed the mail slot. My dad did this. He's amazing.

3. I scraped and scraped and scraped paint. Layers of it. As shown in the middle three photos.

4. I removed the screen door metal pieces. There was never a door there since we've moved in.

5. My dad finished the door by varnishing it. 

6. My dad built a new frame around the door to cover up some issues.

7. And now, I painted it black. 

8. I also painted the threshold black for the time being. It may end up the same color as the floor once it's painted, but at least it's not multi-colored anymore (white, brick red, and bare concrete to name a few). 

Oh, and I never did a post over the actual screen door that my dad BUILT from scratch! That deserves its own post, although I don't have any other photos of it besides what you see above. 

Sharing at: DIY Challenge Party Outdoor Projects

{Curb Appeal} Bushes

As we continue to work on the house both inside and out, we kept looking away from the ugly eye sores shown in the photo below - the holly bush on the left and the two big shrubs on the right. We have already tackled some of the other overgrown bushes that are out of the picture frame to the right and I attacked the holly bush last year. The stump is still there but we'll get there eventually. This time around, Doug focused on the two large shrubs in front of our house. 

When we bought the house, there was a tiny garden on the left and the shrubs on the right. You can imagine that years ago, things looked completely different but the plants took over and became huge (even bigger than what was in the photo). They were maybe 4-5 feet wide, completely hogging up the "path" that was made with a few stepping stones and gravel years ago. 

Well, this year, we are on the list with the city to get a new sidewalk. As the company replaces the sidewalk (the one that runs parallel to the street), we are hiring them to replace the sidewalk to our house and to build one from that one (shown below) to our driveway. The bushes are in our way! 

Doug attacked them, cutting off all the green and hauling them off to the city dump. 

In the photo, below, you can see what remains of the walkway from the sidewalk to the driveway. It's horrible. Once the new sidewalk is poured, we'll have about 2 feet of flower garden between the house and the sidewalk and then a 3 foot sidewalk. We have plans to completely fix our front yard too but that'll wait until after the sidewalks are installed. It'll also help us finish up the remaining part of Lily's Garden, and create the entrance for it! 

Front Door Progress

I did it! I finally did it!

I started on the front door's makeover today! Last week I bought gel stripper and it is definitely the way to go! Look at all that ooey gooey goodness...

OK, so it's not all that pretty. The brownish paint (which is actually way more baby poop brownish yellow in person) is the main color on the door. The white is the base coat and that's all on top of a gorgeous wood door (the darker wood). That oval shape on the right is where the mail slot used to be but we sealed that sucker up last summer.

I was going to paint it. I even own the paint and it's been sitting under our armoire in the front room, basically right behind the door, for over a year now. But as my mom stood by me this morning and we watched the paint come right off, it showed a beautiful wood door. Soooo... I'm going to strip it and varnish it. It's too pretty to paint.

However, of course, there are some snags in this project. One, obviously, is the mail slot section. My mom came up with a great idea of buying a plaque, maybe with our last name on it, to hide it. I loved that idea and instantly thought of the vintage style metal ones that appear throughout Blog World.

Another snag is that the door bell wiring was hidden behind the metal frame from the old screen door. The screen door has never been there since we bought the house 5 years ago (almost!). That was a nice shocker this morning. So, we may get rid of the wired door bell anyway since I was going to have to buy a replacement since the original one was broken (I found that out while painting the hallway).

We do want to buy a screen door for this door to get some cross breeze when it's not 95 degrees outside, but Doug has a certain design in mind and we haven't been able to find it again. When we will, we'll snag that baby up as soon as possible. Or maybe we'll make it.

Issue #3 - the door frame is not the same wood. It's not liking the stripping process either. So it may be painted. Bringing me to the question of what color?

Issue #4 - we need to do something with the threshold. Again, we can paint it but what color? I have thought about painting it the same color as the door frame or the color of the porch floor, which I'd love to change from the chippy brick red color it's sporting currently. Decisions, decisions.

And that may be the only 4 issues I have with it... right now. I'm sure something will come up.

Anyway, break's over, back to stripping the paint off. I'm wearing gloves 'cause that stuff burns!

{Front Porch} The Mailbox

One more thing off the list!

BEFORE

Before with the door that needs painted desperately!

AFTER!

This is a temporary fix until we can find the perfect, more vintage type of mailbox that both the hubs and I want. But have you priced vintage style mailboxes?! Insane!

Anyway... I'm on a yellow thing lately and I figured this would go well with the new pillow, the soon to be painted front door, and some of the other accents like flowers.

I know the pic has a nice glare but I just put it back up and it's almost 9 here.

So for all that mumbo jumbo about painting... I did wash it first as it was really gross and it got the residue off from a previous (really old too) sticker. I then sanded it as there is some rust and popped up paint (but too not too much because I'm lazy and wanted it over with!). I coated it with a few coats of primer and then a few coats of the yellow paint. All in all, I'm happy with the transformation and it was right up our alley with being cheap ... just the cans of paint with some left over to paint something else. The primer was used on something else today too but it's not done yet!

{Front Door} Spring To Do List

Ahh, Spring... it's right around the corner. And you know what that means... my to do list comes out. The same to do list that's been nagging me for a few years. You know the one... it's the one that starts with PAINT THE FRONT DOOR! I always want to do it on one of my school breaks so Lily is at daycare but the weather never coorporates. Or something else comes up. But I am sick of it! Last summer my dad helped take out the mail slot and filled it in so it's really time to paint it. Plus, I've owned the paint for maybe 2 years now. I even took pictures to blog about it... so here's the before... isn't it ugly?!?!

Beware... it's a very ugly door...

Look at the ugliness. The silver frame is one's left over from an old screen door. Long gone before we moved in. Same goes for the hinge on the top left. The mail slot has been removed (see below) but the ugly baby poop brown and red combo has to go! We bought new hardware when we moved in so you can see the original brown of the door underneath where a brass rectangle thing was that had to be removed.



Close up of the hardware. I'd pick a different color if doing it again but we liked it best of all the choices, so it's staying. Everything needs fixed on this door though, including the caulking around the sides.



It's actually slightly better than this as it's been filled with wood filler. But you can see how it needs a lot of work. The previous owners put a lot of screws and hooks in the door to hold various signs (I'm guessing) and none are filled in.

So I am going BLACK. No one agrees with me on the color but I think it'll look nice. It'll at least be better. I may change it at some point but black is what I've wanted for years now. I think it'll look good with the brick and the white porch swing we have. I want to add some personality to our front porch in the form of color, pillows and a few accessories. We have white beadboard on the ceiling which is nice.

We are also going to buy a screen door. It's picked out and everything... just have to remember which company we found it at! It'll either be in wood or I'm thinking white. It'll be nice to have a screen door though so we can open the door to both the front and back porches and get a nice breeze going in the warmer months. We'll just have to put some locks on it so the dogs and Lily don't escape!

Oh, and we're also either going to paint the mail box (already have it too) until we can find a new mail box. We want a vintage looking one but those are either impossible to find or super expensive. I did find a nice option though at Pottery Barn that is a modern version of an envelope that may match the door hardware.

P.S. Told you that door was ugly!

{Front Door} Mail Slot

Ugly door alert!!

I have no idea what was with the previous homeowner and her color choices. You've seen the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the bathroom, and even the upstairs was ugly (before we remodeled it, unfortunately I don't have good before photos).

The front door is no exception. The front is a horrible two tone paint job and the caulking is all cracked around it, she did a sloppy paint job (it's on the bricks in some places) and she never took the screen door metal pieces off even though there's no door. There were random nails everywhere in the door. I only used one when/if I hang wreaths. There are two hooks above the door that I'm guessing held some sort of a sign. AND that's just the front of the door.

The back of the door held more unused hardware (apparently there was a curtain rod over the windows at some point). The hardware for the hinges looks original and has some fun details, so it'll stay. But the hideous brass mail slot had to go. We didn't use it (you can see the needs-to-be-painted-mailbox in one photo) and we had a towel shoved in it for years. Yes, years.

My dad has been wonderful in helping paint the chocolate brown trim in the living room to a bright white and the door definitely got included. The inside side of the door will be white but I have plans of painting the front (outside) of the door black. Yes, black. I know many people don't like it but I think it'll look good with the brick, the white and black on the porch and rest of the house, and with accessories throughout the year (seasonal wreaths, etc).

So, since I've described it - here are the pics.




As you can see above, the baby poop brown color and a red just isn't doing it for me. Do you notice the brown rectangle behind the door handle? We added new hardware years ago when we added a deadbolt. We upgraded to a pretty handle instead of the small, old brass one that was there. However, the brass one was set into a brass rectangular plate that didn't fit the new hardware, so it had to go. And yes, we've been living with it for years. Some things just are easier to live with... especially because we were busy doing everything else in the house, and we can't forget the biggest reason for taking our time - Lily.





Here's a close up of the front of the door. My dad, the wonderful, talented handy man, made the block of wood and sanded it down in sections to custom fit the hole. And let me add that whoever put the mail slot in the door cut it out with a hand saw and was not even, which meant more work for my dad. The white around the oval is from him sanding everything to make it as smooth as possible. You can see two of the four screw holes that held the brass plate in the door. Above the oval was one more screw that my dad took out that I'm assuming held a wreath or decorative item at one point. It's now gone.


Here's the inside shot. You can see the baby poop brown continued but has since been covered up with the white to match the baseboards, windows, and columns. Notice how you can SEE through the door around the mail slot? My dad fixed that with putty. And not just any putty, the dry kind you mix with water and works wonders. He filled it in as much as possible to ensure that the new piece of wood stayed put. He then sanded everything down and put a coat of primer on it.


The door is not finished yet. We don't have a storm/screen door for this door yet and so we don't want to take it off to finish painting it. We want to take it off, sand it where necessary, and let it dry before putting it back on the hinges. We will probably wait until fall as it's over 100 degrees here in Missouri with a super high heat index.