Making Over the Money Pit

It's pretty safe to say that I always want to do something to update our house.  Unfortunately, I have unrealistic expectations when it comes to home renovations.  I blame HGTV, Young House Love, and Pinterest - they make it look effortless and fun, and there are so many ideas.  I get so inspired, and then reality sets in - home renos are hard work that I'm not remotely qualified to do, they cost money that we don't really have, and it takes a lot of energy and motivation to convince the husband to update things and even get started on house projects (he'll deny this, but it's true ... mostly.  He's not a fan of doing handy work type things and he hates messes, but he wants us to have a nice house, so it's complicated.  He's usually reluctantly agreeable).  To help get focused on which projects are actually within our range, I've been putting together a list (YHL Listy VonListerson Style) of all of the updates I'd like to complete on our house (I included things we've already done, because really, who doesn't like seeing things crossed off the to-do list?), and we've been slowly tackling some of the more manageable projects for the last couple of months.

We started with the garage entry to our house.  We have lived in this house for almost 4 years (and my in-laws lived here for 20 years before that) with ugly blue trim featuring stenciled dogs and hearts.  Not my style at all (is it anyone's style?  I mean, anyone under the age of 80?  Yikes).  I hated those damn stencils.  Four years went by with them mocking me until I finally had enough.  On a Sunday morning, I was talking with B's dad about the shoe storage cubby we'd like him to build for us, and the conversation turned to my hatred of those stupid stencils.  B's dad demonstrated how we could just use white spray paint to paint over it, but I wasn't happy with the amount of toxic fumes being sprayed into the air, so that option was out.  B hates unfinished projects, so we bought some primer after one of our afternoon doctor appointments and then spent the following Sunday morning painting the trim around the garage door, the door to the kitchen, and 3 storage spaces.  We haven't finished this project off yet - we need to fill in some of the trim seams with caulk, and we need to put the final coat of paint on the trim (I even have the paint, just sitting in the basement stairway, waiting to be used), but even incomplete it looks so much better.  The plan to completely finish it off is to paint the yellow-ish walls (this will probably be happening fairly soon, as we'll be using the same paint we used for another recently completed project), replace the crystal ball light fixture, build a shoe storage system, and re-finish the steps (probably by covering the existing steps with laminate or vinyl flooring).  The paint, light fixture, and shoe storage are all part of our phase 1 plan, the steps will have to wait until phase 2.

Close up of the stencil & a look at our handiwork

My next project came about kind of accidentally.  B was outside grilling and told me I should stay outside to keep him company, and that turned into me hacking up and ripping out some of the bushes in front of our house.  Once those were mutilated to my satisfaction (and I was scared away by two of the biggest, ugliest toads I've ever seen in my life), I moved on to the tiger lilies around the back and side of our deck.  I hated those stupid flowers (not really the flowers, I guess.  Those were fine.  It was the long, out of control leaves that really bugged me).  We're going to attempt to kill them off with weed killer when they die for the winter, and hopefully they won't come back next spring.  I'd like to finish tearing out the bushes in front of our house - completely uproot them and everything, but I have a feeling that's not going to happen until next spring.  I also want to remove all of the stupid lava rocks and replace them with mulch, but I haven't really completely thought out my plan for the foliage around our house.  That's a work in progress that I'm not really looking forward to finishing.  I love looking at nature, but I don't really like being in nature.  Landscaping is not high on my list of things I want to do with my free time.

Sticking with the outside of our house, we moved our attention to the peeling paint on the moulding around the garage door.  B's dad attempted to just sand the chipping paint off so we could save money and repaint it, but that didn't go so well.  We ended up buying new PVC brick moulding so we won't have to worry much about long term maintenance, which was the best option for us.  While we were at Menard's buying our garage door moulding, we browsed around the front doors, and I found one that was on sale that I really wanted.  We went back to Menard's Labor Day weekend to buy the door, and my father-in-law installed that the same weekend.  I'm really glad that we happened across this particular front door - it really wasn't what I was initially looking for, but after sleeping on it, I knew it was perfect (and the fact that it was on sale didn't hurt either).  The glass lets so much more light into our front entry and part of the living room - it's a welcome change.

Old door with forest green screen door vs Beautiful new door with no screen.
Huge improvement!

Of course, replacing the door meant we'd need to replace some of the wood trim in our front entryway, and that snowballed into our most recent project.  B and I decided we wanted all of the trim in the front entry to match, and we figured with all of the trim off, it was the perfect time to paint the ugly wood panels.  I started priming the room when B was in Iowa for work on his most recent trip, and a couple of weekends ago, we finished painting the room.  It took forever for me to choose a color for the room - I was very particular about what color I wanted (Requirements: not too brown because I'm sick of brown from all of the wood panels in our house, not too gray because B keeps making fun of my passion for gray rooms, light enough to make the room feel bright even when there's not much light out there, goes well with the colors in the living room and kitchen, also works in the garage entry of the house).  We ended up with (what I think is) the perfect color - Creamy Mushroom by Behr.  It's a really light taupe - in bright sunlight, it looks really gray, and later in the evening (or on cloudy days) it's a nice light beige.  The best of both worlds.

The "after" picture shows how gray the paint color can be -
it really is taupe with beige-y tones, I promise!

Once we get the thick wood trim back in the room, I think the brown tones will really come out.  It's going to look awesome in our garage entryway also.  Paint success!  After our Menard's rebate money (from the door) arrives, we're going to buy wood-looking vinyl flooring to cover up the ugly 1970's brown on brown linoleum, and we're going to remove the doors of the entry closet.  Phase 2 will be turning that closet into an entry nook, which will be painted Mesa Taupe by Behr (it's in the same family as Creamy Mushroom, and should help the trim in bringing out more of the brown-ish tones).  I'm really starting to like this little room.

We've barely made a dent in my list, but the few things we've taken care of so far have made such a huge difference.  I'm really happy with the progress we're making on this money pit (now if only we could win the lottery so we could completely finish the place off ...).