Gettin' Fit and Trim

The first thing I noticed when I came to look at this house those years ago was its lack of curb appeal. It did not immediately grab me as an overly attractive or unattractive house from the exterior. Thankfully, the inside had amazing bones and I fell in love with making the inside feel like a home. Unfortunately, the outside was kind of forgotten this year between our high amounts of rain and incredibly hot days.

When we first moved in, I painted the front door to try to give the house a little character. It started out looking like this.

We added a little color with the new red/orange entrance.

Around the same time, we got rid of our old numbers and replaced them with more modern ones that I love.

This was followed by Mom and I attempting to fix some of the landscaping. Unfortunately, it's going to take much more work to get the greenery under control, but at least it became more tame.

It was about a year ago that I was at a friend's house in northern Kentucky who had just worked on the front of their house. Their trim color was a great brownish charcoal gray and I loved it. I asked them for the color name and ended up bringing home the bottom of their last gallon, which was just enough to paint the garage door, large window trim, and around the front door.

This is a color that I had seen on many homes online that had the same colors as our house. The Bedford stone made it a little difficult to color match things, so I had to go by lots of not-quite-the-same reference shots to see how it would look. Overall, they really shared the feel that I wanted to go for. A very modern, cozy vibe that was clean, but welcoming.

I hadn't touched the trim since that day. I put it off because I was afraid that exterior paint would be really expensive and that the color matching would be a pain.

Thankfully, I got a wild hair the other day, when the outside temperatures were very mild and the rain was supposed to hold off for a few days, to continue my exterior trim painting journey. I grabbed the old gallon that was empty and headed to Home Depot. I walked up to the color swatches and within three attempted samples, I had one that fit perfectly. $30 later, I had a paint & primer in one.

It's called Behr Intellectual and it's really dreamy.

 I started with areas that were nearest to that which I'd already painted. For example, the garage door had been painted, but not the surround for it, so I began by giving it some color.

I used a paintbrush for the cracks, crevasses, and gutter and a large roller for the soffit. The painting actually went pretty quickly for me working by myself, and a couple of hours later, I had a first coat on the front. I know that I need to go back and do a second coat to get a richer color and better coverage in some areas, but until it stops raining again, this first coat is going to have to do.

So here is the before.

And the after.

I love it! I think it gives a nice contrast against the stone and really gives the whole house some much needed character.

The darker color also helps our little windows stand out on the ever-forgotten right side of our house. They butt up against the roof and have almost no frame, so the previously tan trim just made them disappear.

Now it feels like we put eyeliner on and really made them stand out as features.

I really love how the yellows and oranges of Fall help bring out the dark, grounded trim color, too. Right now, with our tree bright yellow and leaves all around, the front yard is finally showing the curb appeal it's always needed.

Is it done? No, but this is a really dramatic step in the right direction. I would also love to fix some of our outdoor lighting so it's not so dark. Right now, our front door and garage only have a light that is built into the soffit for illumination.

Yes, I know that the bright yellow bush is dead.

I think that if we flanked them with some modern lanterns, it would really add some nice details to the front. It would also bring more light to our entry area.

Photoshop representation of what it might look like.

But for right now, I'm just happy every time I pull into the driveway and get to see (what feels like) a brand new house.

What do you think? Are you a fan of a bold, contrasty trim? Are you more comfortable with something that blends in or is traditional? Let me know in the comments!

Welcome to the Dead & Breakfast Inn

Multi-post-splosin! I am both out of my mind AND really behind!

Our outdoor presence the last couple of Halloweens has been a little lack luster in the props department. We have our scary windows, but nothing else to really help the spook factor.

Continuing our new tradition from last year, we of course had our zombie hands and green lights.

(Image from last year)

This year, I found some inspiration that looked easy enough to make myself. The blog Daybreak Living had a post about this cool house with lots of outdoor decor. What caught my eye most was the sign post.

I knew that we had a yard light that had been ignored for a while, so I thought I could make use of it for this DIY challenge.

I removed Old Glory before attaching a scrap piece of wood to the light to make a temporary sign post. There was no other way of attaching it other than using zip ties, but this method seemed to work pretty well (I just knew it wouldn't hold much weight).

There was a small nub on the side of the light that I was able to hammer the piece of wood onto to hold it in place, too. I did have to make a hole for it first, though.

Then the wood was painted and attached. Next came the sign itself.

I purchased a $5 piece of pink 2x2 insulation foam from Home Depot and cut my shape into it. I then printed out my design for the words and laid it all out.

I attempted to use some wax paper to keep the pencil from going through the paper, but was less than successful. I ended up just being careful and tracing my words lightly after lining up the paper with the edges.

When it was completed, both sides had been dented with my lettering.

I then used a ballpoint pen to retrace them quickly so they were easier to access later.

The next parts of this sign making journey were inspired by a post that my friend Ann did. She gave me some tips and a step by step on how they created really cool realistic tombstones for her front yard. I used parts of her technique to complete the sign.

She had mentioned using a wood burning tool to carve in the letters (or any images) that you might want set into your foam. I used a wood burner and very carefully went over my words. I followed this up with a paint brush and a nice coat of white paint as a primer. I had been warned against using spray paint directly on the sign for fear that it would eat the foam, so I wanted to try to add a protective layer of an acrylic paint first.

I then proceeded with a stone texture spray that you can purchase at any hardware store. Casey had mentioned that it would probably work since I wanted to use a spray paint anyway, so I gave it a try on a piece of scrap before giving the sign a once over with it. It worked beautifully and gave me a very satisfactory look.

The only thing left were the words.

They were given some detailed attention with some black acrylic craft paint and a craft brush. Being inset already, they were not difficult to color in. This only took one coat.

Remember, all of these steps are for both sides since it's a swinging sign, but one side if you're making a tombstone.

As with many of my projects, this one did not need to be perfect. The imperfection of the letters and numbers gave this an old, worn feel that I was really jiving with. I covered the whole thing with three coats of clear spray poly on each side to help defend it from the weather.

I then used two small eyelet hooks and screwed them into the bottom of my wooden arm. The sign was hung with a couple of black zip ties (that took the form of a chain). This was nice because it was adjustable and it also kept the weight down.

When it was hung up, it really looked awesome.

I was a little fearful at first. What if the wind grabbed it? What if some neighborhood hoodlums decided to destroy it? What if the zip ties ate through the foam and dropped it?

Thankfully, none of those things happened. Here in Kentucky, we get some pretty big rain storms in the Fall, but the sign stood strong. I had a couple of compliments from the neighbors on it and it seemed to do really well all 30 days it was outside.

I feel like a lot of these techniques can be used for all kinds of Halloween projects, from creating a fake foam stone wall to some tombstones for your yard. You could get really skilled and probably pull off a pretty convincing wood grain, with the right paint job and wood burning pattern. The possibilities are endless!

Does this inspire you to open your own Dead & Breakfast next year? Hopefully so! Make your reservations today!

Cheapy and Creepy

Halloween is probably our favorite holiday, so we like to make sure that the house feels just a little creepy to get everyone in the mood. We didn't want to spend a lot this year, though, so here are some of my secrets to a wallet-friendly spooktacular space.

There are a couple of small details around the house that I love. We don't have a mantel, so under the TV acts as a nice decorating platform.

Black fabric draped over stacks of books or blocks gives a nice 'uneven ground' to start with. I then layered it with white spiderwebs to give it a spooky feel. Add props to give it dimension and one more thin layer of spider webbing and you're done! Webbing can be reused year to year if it's stored in a ziplock bag, so we haven't purchased webbing in a couple of years. The props came from the dollar store or knick knacks that were 90% off at Target after last year's Halloween. Keep interesting (and non interesting such as salsa, sauces, etc.) jars and clean them out really well. There are printable fun tags online that you can tape or glue to them. You can even skip the labels and just add water and a little food coloring to add a creepy mad scientist effect.

Our french doors needed a little something more than being strung up with spider webs (like last year), so I decided to take a hint from The Walking Dead and make them look really spooky. I saved up cardboard for a month or so and cut it so that it looked like boards. I then just hot glued them together in layers until it created a good canvas for my signs. Lastly, I sloppily spray painted the words and allowed them to dry in the garage.

Remembering that we had left over wreath hangers around, we just used those to hang them on the door. Depending on if your doors are opened or closed most of the time will depend on what door gets what sign, but when ours are closed they look like this. (They do tend to stay open more often then not).

In the old dining area (which has been dubbed by a friend of ours as 'The Salon'), we just replaced our regular pictures with some smaller haunted pictures that were at Target for $1 each. They're kind of small so I'd like to replace them at some point, but for now, they do the job.

The guest bathroom is always fun. I reused the 'bloody' shower curtain from last year (made with a dollar store shower curtain, some red craft paint, and my hands) and the fake dead hand that I found at Walmart for $2 probably 5 years ago. If you want to make your bathroom really feel like it's from Psycho, unscrew all but one bulb just enough so that they don't glow. It makes it so guests can still see, but it gives it an eerie effect, too.

The most fun we had this year was in the front of the house. I had seen something on Pinterest about silhouettes and decided that the garage could use a little zombie love. I took some of my leftover cardboard and used hot glue to make four pieces the size of our garage windows. Then, I traced my left hand repeatedly with sharpie in different gruesome positions. Once I had a configuration I liked, we cut them out of the cardboard with an X-acto knife.

Then they were painted with some black spray paint we happened to have in the garage.

I then just used some duct tape to attach them to the door. I also placed some wax paper behind each one so that the green-light-bulbed work lamp we hung from the garage door opener would be diffused a little.

The results were pretty amazing from the outside.

It looked great, especially with our larger window harboring a grim reaper large window cling ($4, after Halloween special at Target, but could be made like the hands out of cardboard) and a couple of foam tombstones (dollar store). We just replaced the regular light bulb with a green one in a stand up lamp in our dining room to match both window colors.

Together, they really set a creepy mood for anyone approaching the house.

Later on, we were able to turn on a jack-o-lantern in the bottom left corner of the large window.

On the outside, though, it adds just a hint of a haunting.

We really love the way everything turned out, and nothing says Halloween more than approaching a house that looks either haunted or full of Halloween fanatics!

We hope this inspires you to really spook up your own haunt this October! Do you have any other great tips for awesome Halloween decor on a budget? Let us know in the comments!