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!

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!

Time to ReStore Some Light

One big issue with our kitchen and laundry rooms is that they are very dark. The kitchen has no windows (the laundry has one small one), so not much outside light gets through to them on a regular basis. Even after painting and cleaning them both up, they still needed some sort of connection with the outside.

Originally, the kitchen was the back of the house. There is a large window-sized opening that now opens into our addition. Before the addition, the window would have been a nice view into the backyard. We love the giant addition and the space it gives us, we just kind of miss what could have been a bright element of the original space.

To remedy this, I have been searching for a replacement for this guy.

That kind of dirty looking door is the back door out of our kitchen/laundry room. It is a dull space that lives on the same wall as our washer and dryer. This picture might help orient you.

That little window is the same one that has the two bright yellow curtains on the inside of the window. 

This is obviously not a space we use very often. It is on the opposite side of the addition then the porch, meaning it gets kind of left out. Honestly, if we didn't have the hose over there, we would probably never go over there at all.

Thankfully, the door itself could be very useful. It would be a perfect area for a door with a window! For the past six months, I have been visiting our local ReStore looking for just that. A 31.5in x 72in. door with a window that would brighten up our kitchen and laundry room. I even bought two doors... they ended up not fitting and we had to return them. I had almost given up hope.

Then, as it happens, Mom came to town. Mom is really good at walking in somewhere and going, "Oh, would this work?" and it's totally what you've been looking for for six months. We stopped by the ReStore on a whim and guess what.

The first door she walked up to.

"I bet this would fit"

Of course it did.

The door was then quickly purchased for the exorbitant price of $15, loaded into the car, and brought home.

Scott began by taking the old door down.

We then had to line up the new door and see how difficult it would be to hang. We ended up using the old hinges to make this part of the process a little easier.

 

There was old weather stripping at the bottom of the door which would make it too low for the frame, so we took that off next. It was well past it's prime, so it would have been replaced anyway.

We then attached it to the hinges that were already hung and checked it for fit. It was actually level and fit really well the first try. Huzzah!

I took the door knobs off of the old door and brought them to Scott who started to assemble them again in the new door. As he worked on that, I observed that the door needed a little bit of love. The windows were kind of dirty and there were a few dents in the metal. This little guy cracked us up, though.

Obviously a little past it's prime.

After one door knob was assembled, he re-drilled the receiving hole in the frame because these fixtures were going to be higher than they were originally. He then added the other knob and repeated the process. 

When it was all together, it felt like a breath of fresh air in the kitchen. It doesn't seem like it would make a huge difference, but this is what the kitchen felt like the next day with no lights on.

I know, it still looks dark, but it's really a huge step in the right direction for lightening up this space (because think about how dark it was before the window. It was a cave kitchen). One of the best parts is that it acts as a viewing window for the birds nest that is built into the soffit of the roof. We can check on the bird family any time now!

Since it's been up, I have also given it a nice, clean coat of white paint so it doesn't feel so second hand. It really does feel like a new door! Eventually I'll paint the outside of the door, but since that isn't something we can really see on a regular basis, I'm going to leave it how it is for the time being.

This is not the only door adventure we have had lately. Stay tuned for more updates!

A Whole New Wooooooorld

We are feeling like we are a little more connected with the outside world as of a few weeks ago. When we bought the house, the large window in the now-dining room didn't open. It was apparently painted shut and the last owner of the home decided that she didn't need them to open, so she never really fixed it. Amusingly enough, she did purchase new locks for the windows that wouldn't open.

Anywho, as it happens, I was bored in early May and decided to try to get them to open. It actually ended up being a super simple technique. I just used a metal spackle putty knife and wedged it between the windows.

Then I just lightly tapped it with a hammer so that I could see it in the window below.

Continuing this all the way around the bottom portion of the window and the frame loosened it enough to push it open (with a little effort). It only took about 15 minutes of hammering and pulling on the windows to get both sides to open, though. Not bad!

That's when we realized that apparently there is no good way to get behind the window and paint the little bit of exposed wood at the bottom of the top window pane.

Oh well. Hopefully one day the whole window will be replaced anyway (especially since we don't have any window screens for the now open windows.).

Scott actually did a little preventative maintenance once we had them open. He took some White Lithium Grease and coated the window tracks with it.

This is a better lubricant than WD-40 (which was actually originally created as a cleanser, not a grease. We recommended people use it to clean up their bicycles all the time when I was working in a bike shop.), so it will last longer and work better over time. He just used the little straw and got right into the tracks with it, careful not to over coat it.

After he had gotten both tracks for a window, he would open and close the window to work the lithium grease into the enclosed part of the window track. We wiped away excess that was on the molding when he had finished.

We were so excited to have working windows that we put this picture up on Instagram!

Huzzah! Spring! Do you have any older windows that won't open? Give this a try and let us know how it goes!