Finally! I can finally do my happy dance because my dream for the last three years has come true! We finally live in a white house. In fact, we joke with our kids because now they tell people they live in The White House.
So as I have mentioned before, we bought our home for the LOCATION (perfect), not entirely on the apperance (iffy). We could see loads of potenial in our house, but we knew we had to take it a project at a time. Our house was built in the 70s and has a bit of a modern look to it. You know, asymmetry and floating staircases. Me? I’m a cottage-paint-it-all-white girl through and through. So as soon as we bought it, I envisioned painting it all white and giving it a cottage style makeover.
It’s not perfect yet, we still have projects to do (tea drinking front porch you are coming someday-I promise!), but here is what we did to give our house some much needed loving. See if you can grab some ideas for yourself!
**P.S. These aren’t professional photos, they were just snapped in my slippers on my cell phone, but you’ll get the idea!
ONE. We replaced the front door. The old front doors were heavy and had a faux paneling on them. We got no natural sunlight and it just seemed a bit despressing. As I wrote in an earlier blog post, sometimes owning a remodeling company has some SERIOUS perks. A client’s door got misordered so they had this gorgeous stained door just sitting in the garage needing a home. Free, beautiful door? Sold!
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AFTER:
Here’s our new front door! A little more homey isn’t it? I actually kind dug the existing lantern style light so I kept it, and just added a simple planter and welcome mat to the front door.
TWO. We also replaced a side door. When we moved in, we had sliding doors everywhere we turned. Practical, maybe? Pretty, not so much. When we re-did our mudroom, we replaced a giant six foot slider with a much more proportioned stained fiberglass door to mimic wood.
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AFTER:
After finding my dream door on Pinterest, it was hard to find this elusive 8 lite half door, but after talking to a lot of grumpy lumber guys, I finally found it! It is a fiberglass door that we had stained, so that it looks like real wood, but zero maintenance.
THREE. We changed our door hardware. Everyone knows what I’m talking about when I mention 80’s brass. Yep, so we jumped into 2016 and put on some matte black hardware for our two new doors instead. HUGE difference.
FOUR. We painted! Our house was a neutral, but boring, beige, and all of the trim was the same color. With one decision we changed the whole look of the house by painting it a soft white. It let the doors pop and gave the house more of a cottage style. Our kids were thrilled to have a crew of six guys to watch and ask a million questions every day!
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Of course the BIGGEST difference was painting the whole thing! We went from blah beige to a crisp new white. My dream color!
FIVE: We added new light fixtures. Above each garage door and our new mudroom door we added barn style door lighting. I chose oversized black lights, and they just added an extra layer of interest to our house. Plus, we live in the woods, so extra lighting at night is always a plus.
AFTER:
SIX: I made over my garage doors. If you missed the post, check it all out HERE. But I took our boring beige carriage doors and gave them a wood-look makeover for just $17 worth of Miniwax Gel Stain. After two coats of stain, they looked just like the real thing. Then I dressed them up with $40 of carriage door hardware. For $57 and three hours of my time they went from drab to a totally high-end look knock off.
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Check out the blog post for details on where everything came from, and the whole tutorial!
As a remodelaholic and interior designer the projects will NEVER be finished, but I’m pretty happy that at least the outside of our house now reflects the inside. We have big visions for an addition, front porch, and new windows someday. But as this shows, sometimes just a few little things make all of the difference.
So before summer ends, here are some easy breezy exterior make-overs you can do in a weekend (or less):
-add flower boxes
-add shutters
-paint your front door
-new address numbers on your house
-swap out your exterior door for a new one to bring in some sunshine
-add a planter with flowers
-add a new front door mat
-paint or stain your garage doors
-add a brick paver front walk
-find a pretty new wreath for the front door
-add some crown molding to the tops of exterior windows
-add (or bulk up) columns to your front porch
-pick out some front porch furniture that makes you want to hang all day while the kids play in the sprinkler
You get the idea. Now go…and make your houses a little more beautiful!
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