So here are the before and after pictures of our façade.
1 - Here's our boring white front door. It had brass trim around the glass etchings that we didn't like. It also was hung incorrectly, so the deadbolt never really lined up with the door jamb well. In the winter, we'd get a 1/2 inch gap between the jamb and the door that we would stuff towels in so the snow didn't blow in and melt on the wood entryway. One time the door even blew open during a blizzard! It really needed to be replaced.
2 - This picture is also perfect to show our hideous lamp post. The top was leaning and only balanced precariously - no screws - and one panel of glass was cracked. It's cross-beam was NEVER centered correctly, and the little white balls on the ends were dried out and cracked. You can't see it in this picture, but the base of the post was also all dented and scratched from the weed-wacker and lawn mower.
3 - And our blah shutters. Driving up to our home was so depressing. There was no focal point or energy. There was no contrast. We also live in a cookie-cutter neighborhood, so everyone else has the same white door and faded shutters.
4 - Yikes, that mail box! It was never cemented into the ground, and after 10 years of the mower bashing into it, it was very tipsy. The box was rusting at the screws, and the wood base was rotting so it always seemed like it might just fall off. It had lived its life for sure.
Okay, and now the moment you've all been waiting for...
Ta-Da!
1 - New door: spray-painted with Krylon's Catalina Mist, fiberglass instead of steel, chrome accents instead of bronze, geometric window panes. Gorgeous.
2 - New shutters: designed and built by my engineer from rough-hewn cedar, stained dark brown. So much class. So much life. So awesome.
3 - New outside lights (best seen in front door pic above): lantern-style lights in a rubbed-bronze finish. Simple. Classy. Clean.
The lamp post's light needs its own story. Apparently you can't buy matching lamp post lights for every outside light you find. Dumb, huh? So my ever-awesome engineer made one! The outside lights we liked came in two sizes - small and medium. We bought three small ones for the porch and either side of the garage. Then we bought one medium-sized one for the lamp post. But all the electrical wiring and mounting was for the back instead of the bottom, right? So we bought another style of light (that didn't match but was made for a lamp post), and Ryan took it apart and mix-and-matched parts to get OUR unique lamp post light, which TOTALLY matches our house lights. Yeah, he rocks again!
4 - Fixed up lamp post: spray-painted with Rustoleum's Oil Rubbed Bronze. No more dents. No more off-centered cross-beam. No more cracked white balls.
5 - New mail box: post designed and built by Ryan, post stained to match the shutters, new numbers down the post, CEMENTED into the ground correctly, new oil rubbed bronze box.
6 - New flower bed: little mulched bed around the mailbox to prevent further lawn-mower damage.
There are a few more things on Ry's list, but I didn't want to wait any longer to share.
- Our current house numbers (seen next to the garage under one of our new lantern-lights) are currently bronze, and I think they needed to be sprayed with the oil rubbed bronze spray paint that he did the lamp post with.
- We need to do a little mulched-bed around the lamp post too. The mower is just going to trash this post too unless we protect it.
- The little round attic vents also need to be painted brown. Spring?
- The other thing we want to do is paint our garage door brown, but that'll have to wait until Spring for sure.
The list never ends, huh? Okay, well, for now, we're done! Doesn't it look so much more welcoming? We love our "new" house! Hope you enjoyed my photo montage...
