One of the things that I love about having moved, is that my life once again has purpose. I missed having the ability to putter away on my 'projects' as my husband calls them, and I think he missed it too! (He was pretty sick of me wasting so much time on facebook, and frankly, so was I!) The above picture is the 'before' photo of our house; 'after' will have to wait until spring because mostly what it needs is some TLC in the yard. There were a few things that required immediate attention, but we were able to take care of them in short order, and now we just have to wait to begin the yard. The 'lawn' (if it can even be called that) is a complete loss; so many weeds, and old gopher holes that have collapsed and created a very uneven, rock-hard surface so that the only thing thriving is the dandelions. The fence had a big broken spot that Dean was able to repair, and I spent the first day after putting away our household items fixing the mail box. The post was just a 4x4 that had rotted away, and the landlady, though she is willing to let us have carte blache in terms of repairs and amendments, is unwilling to pay for said repairs...But you know me! Never one to let a lack of funds deter my efforts, I reused what I could, (the box itself was like new, just needed a good scrubbing, and a coat of spray paint)and spent 6 bucks on a new post. Even the mailman loves it. I think he was afraid the old one was going to fall into his truck with the next good tug he gave to the door flap. After I finished the mailbox, I tackled the front door(s).
(There are actually 2 front doors, a side door and two back doors, for a total of 5 entrance/exits from this house.) The doors were a hideous hollow-core door, the cheapest thing they could find to hold out the weather, and to top it off, they were painted/stained
I think in an attempt to simulate wood; they were scratched, covered with paint splotches...suffice it to say they were awful, and the kids especially were embarrassed about them, and made me promise I would do something quickly to bring them up to snuff. I went to Home Depot, and bought some small moulding trim and a little mitre box (I have purchased many of these over the years; you'd think I'd hang onto one...) anyway, measured out the door, and applied the moulding with little brads, and gave the whole thing a good coat of glossy black paint; repeated for the second door, and you totally cannot tell that I do not have beautiful raised panel doors, except for the fact that I have crappy little utilitarian knobs, but they'll have to do. Here is the finished product:
and the other door:
Please note the lights along side the doors; three of the five doors have this light, and they were covered in rice paper that I believe was soaked with super glue or epoxy. Hell to clean off! It's a funky little house, with just enough going on to give it character from the street, but it is the inside that is really the nice part! Another post for another day! (I have a list a mile long of things to do inside, so stay tuned!) :)
No comments:
Post a Comment