50 Shades of Gray... Door Edition

It has been a long time since I have posted... starting school two weeks early has been super hard on my life! It has felt like being a new teacher all over again. Plus the extra teams and work I have taken on... its put some house projects on the wayside a bit. But! I am finallllyyy able to reveal to you my beautiful doors!

Remember what they looked like before? The one on the left was the old, dated, and ugly door. The door on the right was the new and improved wonderful version!

I love the detail and character it adds to the house. Plus there is no wood grain that clashes with the flooring. Thank goodness. That is so ugly.

Now here are the two new doors together on the secondary bedrooms! Storage is still limited in our style of home so we utilize over the door hooks quite often but even so they are so much better. Plus the new handles really coordinate quite a bit better with the other fixtures that are in the house. Mmmm.... pretttyyyy.

Let's not forget the bathroom door! That one received a wonderful and beautimous update as well...

Clearly there's still some mild fixes to do and a couple of adjustments as the hinges get worked and the house settles a bit between the seasons. I am hoping to get those fine tuning details done before the holidays when we start having visitors come and stay with us. At least now they know that when they close the door it won't fall off the hinges in the middle of the night.

We like to make sure that guests are as comfortable as possible around here. hehe.

Remember my bedroom door where all this excitement first began?

Well here is a long distance shot from the hallway. Ahhhhh. I love it. Sometimes I stand next to it and say sweet things. I'm sure everyone does that to their doorways right? Oh! And I added a new handle to the front entry door too. I couldn't replace that door because I'd have to special order it, the door is in good shape, so at this point I'm not looking to spend the extra cash on it yet.

One final BEFORE shot of the ugly old 80s doors... for nostalgia's sake.

And the new! Yayyy! We love them! Pretty sure that's one of the features in the hosue my sister and I get the most compliments on. It's fun to add some extra color and appeal to the doors since the rest of my tones are pretty neutral. Art and doors are what pop around here!

What do you think of the new doors? 

Total cost:

• slab doors from Lowe's: $32x4=$128.00
• ORB handles from Lowe's (Gatehouse brand, not good for keyed locks though): $10.97x5=$54.85

Outdoor Happiness

When back in the day when I first bought my house the back "yard" was a very sad and terrible looking space. Since the dryer sat in front of the door just enough that you couldn't use it, I didn't give much attention to it. I would just cringe and pretend it wasn't there when I saw it. Here's an original angle:

A wondrous "before" shot of the door of doom:

The weird cheap light fixture that has never worked in my recollection:

Overall, I wouldn't describe it as a pleasant area. The cheap lighting, the scary door, the cheap tiny piece of gutter above the door, broken steps, and peeling paint. So this year I decided it was time to step up the game on the entire exterior. Last summer I replaced the light on the front of the house:

The lovely gentle that gave me the light for the front, also gave me another for the back! So after one year of having it around the house, I decided to finally install it:

The new stark white door looks so incredible and keeps the house so much cooler. I love it! But it did make the peeling paint look that much more terrible...

Here's a full range view, ignore the lumber and debris, that should be gone soon!

Every year I repaint the front porch, so it totally makes sense that I should repaint the back porch. Finally. After six years. I used the same paint from the front porch to keep costs down and make it look cohesive.

Ah fresh paint how much I love you! Here's another view from the same angle with the light and paint. The new steps also look fantastic! There are still a few things to do, for instance; clean up the rubbish, paint the new step runners, and fix the mulch and rock leading up to the steps. 

 

I feel like it looks a thousand times better! It makes the back of the house much more in line with the rest of the house. Plus it helps increase the resale potential, if I ever get to that point of course. Maybe next year I can build a wood fence along the chain link to create more separation and visual appeasement from the neighbor's yard. Hopefully before the summer is out I can get you a full updated image of the space with accessories and everything! I hope you like it as much as I!

Team Should-Finally-Fix-That

It has been so long since I posted! The end of the year is such a busy crazy time for a teacher, especially a first year! But now it is officially summer (6 weeks of paid vacation!) and I have finally the time and energy to get things done. So I have made a simple list of things that have to get done. Mostly things I've put off for about five years. No rush right?

First things first: I need paint this outdated light fixture and make the light actually work. It has worked since 2009, whoops.

2. I started this project last summer. I think I should probably go ahead and like... I dunno... finish painting the beam...

3. My bedroom needs to have all the trim updated and painted out. It looks so tacky being the outdated 80s faux wood.

4. On that same note... I should probably install the trim I bought for the door in March.

5. Oh and this other randomly not updated light fixture in the master bath. Should do that too.

6. I exploded a bottle of nail polish on my wall... my favorite new color. :( I need to repaint the wall and the trim. 

7. Within the next couple weeks I am going to replace these doors just like I did with the master bedroom, that is going to be fabulous! Fully updated trim and doors! Amazing! Fully updated and no more ugly wood!

8. I am also thinking about replacing this door to make it coordinate with the others in the house, though it is in the best shape of all, so it might be one I can postpone for a bit.

9. New backdoor! That is actually happening this week! Finally. It is going to be great to have a secondary entrance that is fully functional and safe. 

10. Though it is hard to see... I am also getting new gutters this week! Super expensive... but it will be nice to have a fully functional system on the house. Then I can actually repaint the porch and beams without losing all progress from rain the next day. 

Operation Get-er-Done has officially begun! Here's to an excellent summer. :)

Doorable!

Way back in December I posted about the most obvious remaining ghettofabulous thing in my house... the doors. (Find that post {here})

Well! For once instead of just making a list of crap to do and then not ever doing it... I have for you my lovely readers... PROGRESS!

Okay so here it is. The old ugly door. Well... it fell out in the night. Truly terrible. Luckily I have a protector, he may be small but he's fierce. Just kidding. He hid under the blankets and barked from there. 

Anyway. My door! It had a hole in the front that the previous owners had simply covered with contact paper (like shelf liner) which had begun to peel because well. That's not really what it is for.

Here's the old:

I didn't think it'd be a huge deal to fix the door and for my first one I suppose it wasn't but I went ahead and a bought just a slab door instead of one that was prehung... there was definitely some damage done on this particular frame...

Yup. Totally blown out at multiple points. Perhaps why it fell? Hmm.

So I patched and filled those holes (I didn't take pictures because that is not exciting) and brought my new baby door home! I purchased it at Lowe's for $32.00 and brought it home in my Honda Civic. Oh heck yes. It fit! It is just an interior door so I was able to move it myself pretty easily.

Originally I was going to paint the doors all white but I thought "hey! I'm not going to recoup any of my costs on this when I go sell my house so why not give it some sass and character?" I'm glad I did! I'm sure it would have been easier to spray the door but I hand painted it using paint I already had, a mistint from Lowe's for $7.00 that I used on my stools and front door already. Reduce, reuse, right?

The paint I used was a Paint+Primer by Valspar so it only took two coats for full coverage. Now that the easy part was over... I had to manage to fit the dumb thing into the spot.

The previous owners were rather... well... crafty? with their improvisation and doctoring on the house. For instance instead of using solid shims that they sell mega cheap at the store, they used chunks of wainscoting from the rest of the house. #notsturdy #notconsistentthickness

Meaning essentially that when I measured the top and bottom of the frame and got 30" the middle was actually 29 3/4" which sucked. It took me many swear words and destruction of the frame (as you can see below) in order to get the entire thing one even 30" measurement. I'm still considering taking out the one side and replacing it with a more solid piece and using REAL shims. Maybe when my parents come back in the summer. Hi Dad!

I had to replace the casings, which I planned to do anyway, but when I tried to remove the old stuff it snapped into multiple pieces. So. That's great But here is the door finally hung! Looking beautiful and wonderful!

I put my door mirror back on because I have to be able to look at my outfits you know but hopefully I can get a mirror somewhere else and lose this one so you can just see the awesome door. I even replaced the handle ($10.00 at Lowe's) with a cool Oil-Rubbed Bronze look, which coordinates with the handles and chandelier in the kitchen and dining room. Plus it is actually a bedroom lock rather than a keyed entry lock like the old one.

Here's one last look at the awesome new door. How's that for detrashing the trailer?

So the total cost for this project:

• Slab door: $32.00
• Door knob: $10.00
• New casing (not installed/shown): $14.00
• New hinges (x3): $9.00

Total Cost: $65.00

One door down. Three to go.

Want to follow? Google Reader is gone? Try 

Linked to: Addicted 2 DIY Remodelaholic Domestically Speaking Savvy Southern Style Kammy's Korner Dream to Reality

That's ADoorAble.

****If you are seeing this content on http://manufacturedhomefacts.com/ please be advised it is there without permission! thismessybusiness.com is the OFFICIAL and only site I publish on!***

Back when I first bought my house in 2008, there were a number of things that I didn't quite care for about the joint. For instance the abundance of faux-wood paneling, because if you're going to fake it. Fake wood. 

Ew.

Clearly the house is a far cry from what it was before...

The faux paneling has either been replaced with bead board or just repainted with white to make it fresher, and more modern. Heck even some of the doors have been updated!

Still crushing on my blue-gray front door. So classy...

And the front entry closet... okay well only closet, got a nice white a couple of years ago.

However... most of the doors and the jambs have remained the same faux wood style. Same as the day I moved in.

It's ugly.

However this crap is hard to paint. This is two coats of white semi-gloss (even after primer) and it's sort of like painting plastic.

It just classes so obviously with the upgrades I've made throughout the house. For instance here's the secondary bedrooms with their original ghetto doors.

I really think it looks odd. All the other trim, ceiling, cabinets, counters, and walls have been updated with neutral modern colors. Except for the doors. The reason? Well. Largely because the individuals that owned the house before me covered each of the doors in contact paper. Seriously. Like the kind you put on your shelves to line them. Why you ask?

To cover gigantic holes. Indeed. Lovely! I'm pretty sure the door on the right in the above picture is the only one that did not receive this particular, er, treatment. I know for sure there is one door that I will probably have to replace.

I would love to get pretty paneled doors for the entire house, and it wouldn't be horribly expensive, but one thing I have learned with home ownership is to make sure you can get a return on your investment and if (such as in my case) you can't, at least don't over spend.

Here's what I'm thinking:

{photo found via google search. I couldn't find original source.}

I absolutely loveeee how my front door turned out with doing a darker color on the inside. I think that I want to continue that on the bedroom doors. Doing a darker color on the living room facing side, and a white on the bedroom facing sides of the doors. Depending on the damage. I think it would add a lot of character!

My father would probably disagree, good thing he has accepted the fact that I am far trendier than he. Plus he lives a few states away. (Hi, Dad!)