Curb Appeal

Over the weekend, Adam and I decided to take on painting the front door. It was a faded burgundy color with ugly numbers, so I was eager to change it. I picked a brighter red color and last Thursday, we headed over to Home Depot to get the paint. When we got there, the guy at the paint counter explained to us that it is hard to match a red Martha Stewart paint like the one I had chosen to a Behr exterior paint, which was the brand we wanted. He suggested that we pick a Behr color that was similar to the original red. We picked one, he mixed it and off we went with our paint and various painting supplies.

On Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early (8:00) to get started because I knew it would need time to dry before we could close the door. We taped plastic up over the open doorway and Adam got to work removing all of the old hardware. He hit a snag when he got to the deadbolt and had a difficult time removing it. An hour later, all of the hardware was off and we were ready for the next step. I sanded and cleaned the door while he worked on patching the holes left behind by those ugly numbers. Unfortunately, the patching material we used required one to five hours to dry….cue Adam standing in front of the door with a hair dryer.

Finally, we were ready to paint. I opened the can and to my surprise, the paint was not barn red, but hot pink. I began to paint it on the door, thinking the color might change once it started to dry, but no such luck. Off Adam went to a different Home Depot to get another color of paint. Luckily, the paint desk at that Home Depot was able to match the original Martha Stewart color. Once he returned, we got to painting. Three coats later, the door was a beautiful barn red.

After about three hours of drying, we decided that the door was ready for the new hardware. Unfortunately, we forgot to get a kick plate that matched everything else. Trip number three to Home Depot to pick up a new kick plate. Once back, we installed the kick plate and the deadbolt. When it came time to install the handle however, we realized that the lock was not configured for our door. After two hours of taking the handle apart and putting it back together again, Adam was able to install the doorknob.

Twelve hours later, we closed the door and walked out into the front yard to admire our handy work. After all of those hours, three trips to Home Depot, alot of frustration, some red paint on the carpet after Adam got it on his shoe and quite a few profanities, we are going to admire that front door every.single.day.

So, if you’ve made it to the bottom of this extremely long post, here is the before and after of our beautiful front door…

Before:



After:

The Move

Whew, life has been extremely busy lately, but we are now in the phase of settling into home ownership and residency in Delaware. Last Tuesday was my last day of work in Baltimore, Wednesday we closed on the house, Thursday we moved all of our stuff and Friday, Saturday and Sunday were spent working like crazy to get lots of little jobs done around the house. Luckily, we both have amazing families that helped with all of those little jobs. We couldn't have done it without their help. Now, all of the boxes are unpacked and the house is already looking much, much better! I'm hoping I can take you all on a tour room by room as we make them our own.

We have already made some changes to the outside....can you tell?

Before:


After: