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Our walnut stained front door is the new star of the show. I’ll be sharing what I used and more updates too!
Hello wonderful friends!!
How are you? I’ve been a little absent from here lately. Or well, not much, have I?!
We took a short trip to the mountains of North Carolina where my husband goes to college to celebrate his wedding anniversary. (His fraternity) It was the second week of August. As I have mentioned several times, we are doing some work around this house again!! Haha!
We’ve lived here twenty years and this is just what we do!!
But no, really, there were some things we’d been wanting to do for years. However, when you have a whole 1970s house to renovate, you do the major stuff, not the “fluff” or extras. And that’s what we did.
Twenty years later, well around year 16 or so, we started looking for a new home. We always knew this wasn’t our “forever” home but it might end up being that way! LOL No, I really want to move but I’m very picky about where etc. Maybe build? But it’s also hard to find land in this area unless we want to go further afield… which I really don’t want to. (We really don’t want to do that 😉 )
Anyway, with that said, we decided to do two things that were on our “long” wish list.
Close off the covered porch and create more living space downstairs for us. (My husband’s wish list since we moved here) Add a new wood/glass front door. (My wish list for years)
This is what I will share today.
Okay, these aren’t the things we needed to do to get our house ready to sell. But the next things I’ll talk about are:
We are repainting our house. We painted it ourselves a year or so after we moved in, so the house is about 20 years old at this point and is in dire need of a refresh or repaint. So we are painting it. (I think… we are getting quotes… if they are crazy we might do some of it ourselves and replace the upstairs because we are getting too old for that mess these days, haha!)
Next, we’re going to remove one of the things that was on my husband’s wish list again, the front sidewalk. We’re going to remove it and add a curved stone sidewalk with a larger flower bed in its place.
Finally, a professional landscaping plan to truly renovate the place!
We have two huge trees in our front yard, they are very pretty, but they make a huge mess (leaves and stuff falling all year long). They also make it impossible for grass to grow, and even though we thin them out and remove loose branches periodically, we still have at least 6 or more branches knocked down by cars (damage, some worse than others) over the years. This has nothing to do with anything except that I hope gardeners have better luck growing grass than we have over the years because the trees are here to stay. (I would like to remove one but my husband loves it more than me, so it will stay haha) By the way, yes, we have tried just about everything to get good grass over the years. Unfortunately, nothing works in the long run.
Once all of that is done, we will have a brand new home with a great yard to live in. And one that shows up so well the day we finally put up the “For Sale” sign in the yard!!
Okay, let me show you what we’ve done so far. I’ll keep you posted on new posts as they come out so you can keep up!
front door
“before”…
It’s beautiful and classic, yes, but I’ve always loved (and wanted) the new door we put in!
Here’s what’s new.
Before I color it in, this is it!
I used our new Walnut Stain and Finishing Oil for this purpose.
Although not necessary, I did use a moisturizer before dyeing… just to be safe.
I love this new color! Walnut in general is one of my favorite colors.
I love our dye and finishing oil. It’s so easy to use and the results are amazing. Plus, it’s a dye and finish all in one.
Unlike products like PolyShades that I have used in the past that are mostly applied over the wood, this stain actually absorbs and stains the wood but includes a finish coat as well. So easy! And beautiful.
My husband built this stand to put it on once it was delivered to make it easier to move and paint/finish. (He’s pretty handy, isn’t he?) Ignore the garage mess, please! It’s a work in progress too… Would you believe I painted the garage floor gray when we moved in? You wouldn’t know it now! Boo. But we have plans for the garage too. Step by step!! LOL
I applied three coats of dye for extra color and protection.
My husband and son moved it (it was very heavy).
Now you see it…
Now don’t do that!! (And no, it didn’t fall, they just put it on the ground like that… it looks like it just “splattered”, doesn’t it?? LOL)
Tada!
My dream door.
This doesn’t fit in with the rest of the house right now. Well, I don’t think it does anyway. But I’ll get to that in a moment.
I added this film because the glass was clear and we wanted more privacy from that.
You can see above where I added it and where I didn’t.
Isn’t the color of the spot beautiful and rich looking??
It looks dark in this picture, but this door lets in so much light! I love it!
Oh also, this is the door handle we bought for the door.
This is the lock.
It’s kind of fingerprint-less and we love it so far! Super quick and easy.
house painting plans
Just a reminder, here’s the house the day we came to see it in 2004. (See the for sale sign at the bottom of the photo?)
And here he is now…
Here is a quick sample of the plans…
This exterior design and colors will fit in better with our interior design, decor and colors. (Not to mention the coastal city we live in)
We’re not sure if you can tell from the picture above but we are also planning on putting in straight, square columns to replace the traditional columns we currently have.
Here are the paint colors we chose:
The top of the shutter is Acacia Haze, which is a shade above the Sea Salt paint. We have Sea Salt and Oyster Bay in various places throughout our home. The bottom is a color I mixed between Fusion, French Eggshell, and Coal Black. I don’t think I’ve come up with a solid shutter choice yet, but it’s somewhere in this general area anyway.
We don’t want a stark white for the house, we like a soft white.
I’m looking for a nice gray or blue/green for my curtains. I love the shade Acacia Haze… but I think it needs to be a little darker. Maybe somewhere in between. I love what you did in the sample house picture but I have no idea what color it should be!! Haha!! Just something I came up with for the photo. Hmm… maybe I could print it out and have you scan it and make me a sample? What do you think? I think I’ll give it a try! Stay tuned for more.
Balcony to livable space
This process is slow because we do it ourselves. But we are getting closer! We are almost done installing the windows.
Follow us as we get these things done, as well as landscaping!
I will share with you where to start and the plans they have for our garden. And of course the “after” once it is all done! I am so looking forward to having a beautiful new garden.
I’ll be back next week with some new projects. I hope to be able to start working on the two large dressers I have in my garage right now. Both are for our house here. One I bought for a specific purpose/use and the other was my grandmother’s china dresser that she inherited from my mom and dad, and since my parents have passed away, it passed on to me. I can’t wait to work on this dresser. It will be a true labor of love.
Have a great weekend my friends! The weather is cool here in the mornings and evenings now and I love it! I’m not quite ready for fall but I sure don’t miss the intense heat wave we had in the summer!
XO
