Project House: Spiffing Up the Mailbox

If you go back and look at the photo of the front of the project house, you can see that we started out with a mailbox with a red post and a decorative floral magnetic wrap on it. We also had a collection of pots at the front of the house. I gave most of these pots and any live plants that were in them to a friend of mine who has a perpetually green thumb. I kept one large one and painted it with Rustoleum Painter's One Touch in the color Seaside. I'm not much of a gardener, so I stuck a rosemary in it because I know I can keep that alive. Then I surrounded it with some colorful annuals. The house is going to wind up being gray and tan and brown, so it needs a little something-something. 

Then I set my sights on the mailbox. I looked into replacing it with something ultra cool and mid-century looking, but after a mild heart attack brought on my sticker shock, I decided to update what I had. After evicting several snails and washing off a fair amount of bird poo, we replaced the rotted support board. I gave the mailbox a couple of coats of the One Touch in the color Lagoon. Then, I painted the post in Dark Chocolate by Clark & Kensington. It reminds me of the color you see in state and national parks, so of course, it is now being referred to as State Park Brown.

Once it was painted and dried, I cleaned out a bunch of leaves and got rid of as much of the lava rock that was around it as possible. I am not a fan of lava rock, mostly because it's sharp and I tend to not wear gloves when I garden. Then I moved in 3 large white stones I had found in the back yard and filled the area in with Ajuga, which I hope will fill in the entire area leaving just the stones peeking out. It's a fairly hardy ground cover and the area gets some shade, so here's to plant survival in Texas!

Project House: The New Front Door

As is the case with many 1970s homes, our front door opened directly into a long narrow hallway featuring a coat closet and not much else. The hall had been painted a dark mauve color and I'm guessing this red door was installed during the 80s renovation. It was a lovely and sturdy door, but it didn't let in enough light to suit me, and it didn't suit the mid-century look I want. Thankfully we were able to find a good home for it with some friends who are remodeling a rental, so it won't go to the landfill. 

I decided to replace it with another steel door. Here in the south, there are pros and cons to steel or fiberglass. In a wet location, steel will rust and in a sunny one fiberglass can have all sorts of issues. This is a shady and sheltered porch, so I went with the steel mostly to save a few hundred bucks.

I painted it with Clark and Kensington exterior satin in Aqua Mosaic which my husband calls: Whoa! That is Really Blue! I need to get him a job naming their colors. I am a big fan of turquoise for front doors. You can go light or dark, bright or muted, but this is a color that never seems to go out of style, and I have yet to find an architectural style that it doesn't work on.

The new door and a coat of white paint are making a big difference to how bright the hall is. In fact, I kept looking toward the hall thinking the door had been left open. I will install a new light fixture soon that will also hopefully add to the lightness of the space. The one that is there is fine, but I'm hoping to bring in a Scandinavian, industrial vibe with the interior. I'm sure I'll find a good home for the old fixture just like I did for the door though!

Project House: Upgrading House Numbers

One of the first things I wanted to do after pulling down the shutters was to add some new house numbers to dress the place up and to start it down the mid-century revival path that I have in my head.

Old house numbers

Conveniently, the shutters had left me with two perfectly spaced holes for doing something dramatic. I commandeered a piece of maple from the husband's lumber collection, filled the knot with two part epoxy mixed with a couple drops of black dye and some glitter, so that now it looks like a tiny universe trapped in the wood, stained it a light brown to tone down any future yellowing, put on 3 coats of exterior polyurethane, and threw on the numbers. 

That is where the fun began. I had purchased the numbers for the style, not the ease of installation. It wasn't rocket science, but I did wind up buying different screws from Ace to make it easier as I wanted them flush mounted. I also added a cup hook to the bottom of the board because I knew that once I had my new door in place I wouldn't want anything hanging on it. It makes a classy first impression.

Project House: Hardie Plank for the Back Porch

Getting started...this is the back porch as it was when we bought the house. It's a lovely quiet space that I know we will get a lot of use out of. However, like all of the addition, it was sided with T1-11 (thank you 1980s) which is not the best product for south central Texas. In a drier climate, it might hold up, but here, if you don't paint it every couple of years you are looking at rot, and this house looked like it hadn't been painted since the 80s renovation: reference the mint green paint with barn red trim.

We are in the process of replacing the T1-11 with Hardie siding. It's a much better product for humid climates and we are told squirrels don't like to chew on it, which is good because they have chewed plenty on this house already. We started under the porch since it was one of the areas with the most rot. As you can see, the first thing we did was add a window because the interior of the house is very dark. We'll be replacing those two horizontal windows at the back with 4 vertical windows as well. I want more light and those old windows don't meet code so replacing them whenever possible is a good thing.

I like this because you can see the before and after in one shot.

 The trim color is Parador Stone by Clark & Kensington, but the hubby calls it Chocolate Mousse. The siding is called Grey Flanks by Pratt & Lambert and he calls it Not Chocolate Mousse. I am very pleased with how these two colors look with the brick, which is a mix of browns, tans, and grays.

And this little guy is the Nibbler.

Ok, it's actually a cement board cutter, but it looks like a fish and nibbles away at the board to cut it, soooo...... 

Cutting the Hardie planks is surprisingly easy. My husband (the engineer) read--and I'm pretty sure memorized--the manufacturer's installation specifications and of course had to buy all the exact tools for the job, so that has made it quite easy. I'm in charge of painting and cutting. I decided to use Clark & Kensington exterior satin as I am super impressed with this brand and it is available at my local Ace. (C&K was recently purchased by Benjamin Moore, so I expect it to continue to be an excellent product.) Obviously the cutter is made by Makita and it is as easy to use as an electric bread knife.

Project House: A 1974 Ranch

This is what happens when I get bored. I go out and find something to do. In this case, I went out and found a house built the same year that I was. It was added onto and redone in the 80s (oh decade of dastardly remodeling deeds!) I love mid-century houses though and plan to take this one back to it's glory days.
My first official act as owner was to rip off the period inappropriate shutters. My husband's was to tear down the garage that was blocking drainage and access to the back yard.

Photo Shoot: Picture Post Card Perfect

The best thing in the whole world is a house that is beautifully presented with no effort from me but to take good pictures. This one was just that, complete with an adorable cat on the front porch.

https://www.har.com/homedetail/12146-frantz-rd-cat-spring-tx-78933/168636