front door

Now that the other house is finished and sold, it's time to get back to the small house.

Liam graduated this year (What??!!) and it's time for a party. So it's time to get back to our yard. There are a few things we want to give our attention to, and actually made quite a list, but we had to pick just a few - We have way more dreams and ideas than money and time at the moment.

Here are a few links to previous yard work:

back yard

the shed and the bushes

the most unfortunate looking tree

fort

So, here is a sort of before photo. We did paint the door blue and pulled out some really ugly bushes in front of the porch.

So much brown and tan. And we have never really loved that blue. We had high hopes for it and it just was not singing to us at all.

Then I spent a few hours painting the posts and the trim at the top. We knew we wanted to do this for the entire house, but I got it in my head to do a preview. Oh, yes. We would love white trim, thank you very much.

But as you can see, we have so much more to do!

We have done a few things - We updated the landscaping big time (Post on that soon.)

And Hero put in a new door!

I really cannot tell you how much of a difference this door has made to the look of the house. I am just so in love with the rectangle window instead of the half circle.

I think this suits the style so much better. And I could not wait to get some color on it.

We were going back and forth on a few color choices 

We decided to go bold!

First things first. Prepping to do a paint job can feel like such a hassle, but it is totally worth skipping all grief that comes later from an unprepped  project.

So I taped. And the only tape I had on hand was plain old masking tape. But it totally did the job.

Next I painted a thin coat of white, the color of the trim and close to the color of the weather stripping. This really helps keep the edge nice and crisp.

(I did this with the stair painting project, too.)

Here is the potential! A brand new can of paint and a fresh clean brush. :)

You know how when you decide on a color and then you start painting and you wonder, "um, I really hope this is not a big fat mistake"?

Sometimes I think that, too.

But I was totally not fearing the red!

Even though it looked like this at first.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Love.

Okay, the problem with a color like red going on a white unpainted door? It takes more than one coat.

It takes five.

When I started to peel the tape off, It was tearing a little bit. Not surprising with five coats of paint. So I just took my exacto knife and "cut" the paint.

Definitely one of the best moments in a paint job.

Look how amazing this is! 

We for sure made the right choice for this door. It is just what the front of the house needed.

Plus a ton of other things.

Before:

After:

We have plans for that little mailbox, too. 

We have lots more coming up, including spraying all the brown and tan trim white, painting the garage and building a pergola.

Party is in three and a half weeks.

Yikes.