A little paint makes a new door.

Our front door – well, really all our exterior doors – were in pretty rough shape when we purchased the house. We’ve since updated our garage door, but our front door & screen door were still in for a long-overdue make over.

Yuck. I bought some indoor/outdoor black paint from Lowes, and a new screen door from Menards.

I was feeling brave, until I made the first brush stroke. Then I started to have second thoughts. Black seems so permanent to me, but I managed to keep painting through the knot in my throat…

And voila, big changes in the front door area!

I knew it would be a big change to paint the door black, but it’s even better than I imagined! I love love love the black exterior. Looks brand new, but it’s the same door as before! Ten dollars brought big impact!

I took an even bigger risk and painted the interior black also. I’m still not certain how I feel about it, and the pics are awful with the lighting, but in keeping with my “keep it real” motto for this blog, here ya go…

My mom & sister like it, and I think I do too. I’m still deciding though. I really just liked the glass image reflecting in the photo frame in the photo below…

Oh, and our door that goes from the garage into the house – disgusting. Totally disgusting. And that’s after I scrubbed and scrubbed it!

So how about this $10 transformation?

Sooo much better!

House tour: little one’s room.

In continuing with the virtual house tour, let’s move onto another bedroom. The bedroom we converted into the little one’s room started out yellow…

And there’s a small half bath attached to this bedroom. Here’s the “before”…

For a while, pre-baby, I turned the room into a guest room without painting or anything…

And then we found out the little one was coming & I got to work creating a happy, colorful spot for her. This included lots of DIY projects: button light, button adjustable crib skirt, orange fitted crib sheet, colorful mobile, & orange changing table.

The half-bath’s still “in progress,” but it’s come a long way with beadboard walls, new flooring, new toilet, & new sink…

It cracks me up to compare these to when I first revealed the nursery {before the little one was here.} These have so much more real life clutter – toys, and towels, and diaper bags. I wouldn’t have it any other way!

I really love how bright and crisp this room turned out. I realize not everyone loves color the way I do, but I think the room shouts joy when you walk in…perfect for my joyful little one. :)

House tour: kitchen & dining area.

I’ve done a lot of posts lately about my kitchen update, so this part of the “virtual tour” might be a bit redundant. {You can see the first post – the living room – here.}

Let’s take in the awesome before shots…

This duck head with the red eyes freaked me out so much…even worse than the rusted sink!

And now for the after shots with all the updates we’ve made including: removing cabinets for new appliances, enlarging the doorway, buying stainless steel appliances, painting cabinets, leaving some cabinets as open shelving, painting & stenciling the floor, cutting/sealing/installing Ikea butcher block countertops, buying low-divide undermount sink, creating a glass mosaic backsplash, sewing some curtains, and putting up a vintage plate wall. {Whew!} That all brings us to what our kitchen and dining area looks like now…

I love this sink. It’s so easy to wash big pans and cookie sheets. Love it.

{We still have to figure out the best way to fill in the missing floor boards from when we opened doorway. We’ll probably get new floors for the kitchen someday and carry it a bit into the doorway.}

And two comparison shots to conclude…

Lots of hard work went into this space & I’m really please with the end result. :)