No worries

When we last spoke about my front door, several people commented that the color might be too dark to go with the overall color of my house.  Don't worry, my house is NOT staying baby blue and ugly pink forever!  (I love me some pink, but hate the pink of my house, as a side note!)  Eventually, when I win the lottery, the vinyl siding will come down and be replaced by Hardi Plank.  The entire house will then get a coat of taupe/grey paint and trimmed out in black and cream.  My front door is painted to go with that one day color scheme, not the tackiness it's currently rocking.  Just bear with me until I win the lottery, which is going to be quite difficult since I don't play the lottery, and it will be BEAUTIFUL!!

Winters in Texas

Winters down here can be bad, granted not nearly as bad as those in the upper part of the nation or in Antarctica, say, but bad nonetheless.  We usually have one or two freezes a year and rarely snow, but we do get icy rains.  This ice doesn't usually bother the power lines or even shut down school for long, (darn) but it can and does wreak havoc on tree limbs. This is why I took a slight detour this fall after the ground landscaping work. I have a tree that is basically a junk tree on the corner of my property. It has a rotten heart and a broken limb that taunts my roof every time the wind blows.

So, digging in, I called B&B landscaping back and asked them to come and take a look and give me a bid. Jeff came out and looked not only at that tree but also at the rotting 5 foot stump on the other corner of the property.

After giving me a bid i couldn't say no to, I gave the go ahead for the stumps to be removed. What's sad is that you can't even tell they were ever there. The yard looks great and the eyesores are gone!! I know its not a big difference to anyone else that passes by on the street, but its made a huge difference to me! What do you think?

(This post was originally typed on my iPad, so please forgive any text that looks more like it was texted than typed!!)

An orange explosion...

I am addicted to Pinterest and discover lots of ideas i think I'll have time for (ha!) and want to try. One of those ideas was a faux wood door. I have a plain white Fiberglas front door with great potential. After seeing Rachel's post on Lovely Crafty Home, which I had pinned and thus reminded myself daily, I decided that I needed to bite the bullet and go for it.

I started with a freshly cleaned white door.  While I was at it, I scrubbed the siding and windows as well.  I figured that it had been at least five years more or less since it had been cleaned.

I took my freshly cleaned door and promptly painted it burnt orange.  Home Depot assured me the color was really "glazed pecan," but I'm not buying it after seeing it on the door.

I doubled coated the door, letting it dry between coats. Rachel didn't mention this that I recall, but my one coat was super streaky and messy.

It was holding the quart can for the 2nd time that caused a slight mess. Apparently my hand was cramped more than I thought and all of the sudden it spasmed and let go of the almost completely full quart of paint.

My first thought was d@mn.  My second thought was, can I reach the camera without moving?  Score!!  Believe it or not, this isn't the biggest mess I've ever made with paint. Ha!

(In honor of all my friends who support the Texas Longhorns, I left the orange door for a whole 24 hours.  Let's not mention the fact that I had to because A.) the paint had to dry and B.) it was dark outside and I was working on an exterior door...  Sic 'Em Bears!)


The next day, yeah, patience isn't really my thing, I taped off sections of the door. My door has panels but doesn't have any line where panels would have been joined to make it look like real door.   So, I fauxed them in with blue tape.  I then used a chip paint brush to brush on Walnut gel stain.

Wow! Even after one coat of stain, it gets two, it is amazing the difference in the look. I am in love!

After a week of good weather and another coat of stain, all my door needs now is 3, count them, 3 coats of poly and some custom door numbers.  Does it ever end???  ;)

 

What do you think?

Taxes...

Several people have commented via email on the absurdity of the fact that our local county taxes on concrete.  While I agree it's nuts, the county looks on my basketball court/holder of branches as an unimproved patio, hence the taxes.  Now, I'll be the first to say that the added value of my "unimproved patio" is little, but I'm in the world that every single penny counts!!  So that sucker is gone and my world is looking greener.

 

Thanks to two very precious rains, new grass is already starting to poke it's head through the dirt.  I am also pleased to say that after the two heavy rains, my carport was much, much drier than before the re-grading.  It did collect some rain, but nothing compared to the  pre-grading mess.

 

My latest addition is this huge pile of concrete remains.  Because the original pourers of the basketball slab used a cattle panel to reinforce the concrete, my debris cannot be dumped at the local dump.   So, my poor landscaper is scrambling trying to find a place to dump it.  Anyone need any fill dirt???

Clearing the decks

As I mentioned recently, I have hired B&B Landscaping to do some pre-pre-work on my lawn in preparation for an irrigation system.  We have been suffering from a HORRIBLE drought since early last spring.  It is to the point that I am very worried about my slab. Knowing myself well enough to know that I need a sprinkler system because I won't remember to turn off the water or water regularly, I turned to B&B.  They worked miracles in less than 2 days.  (Please note that they worked much, much faster than I type and post...)

In short order, less than one day, I was down one too-narrow front sidewalk.  I was also down half of a side sidewalk.

If anyone, anyone knows why in the world this sidewalk was here, I'd love to know!

The next day I had a new tractor (aka bulldozer if you're my 4 and 1 year old niece and nephew!)  from B&B that worked wonders removing the huge front yard bump and the basketball court.  (Big yay for that, around here they tax on concrete, so that sucker being gone saves me money!!)

I have current pictures taken, but they're on my camera awaiting downloading, watermarking and titling.  I will say that the change is huge.  In a very blessed downpour this weekend of over 1 inch, my formerly heavily flooding carport was dry within 24 hours without me vacuuming out or removing any water.  Wahoo!!

Changing Outlook

Giddings Lane is getting a new outlook, literally!  After two years, my house, all in all, hasn't changed nearly as much on the outside as it has on the inside.  The changes on the outside have been very minor.  A new roof, trimmed trees and removal of TONS (literally) brush, all big things, but if you look, nothing that says WOW.  See??

  

All of that is about to change.  Thanks to an awesome local company, B&B Landscaping, Giddings Lane is about to start getting a whole new look.  Now, keep in mind that I'm saying that we're "about to start."  This is going to a LONG time process, which is fine.  Everything that's good is worth waiting for, right??

First up on the agenda is removing the excess brick and concrete that the original owners were so fond of.  

So long old basketball court!!  Hopefully it will soon be a thing of the past.

Next on the to-do list is to remove the bricks from the walk to no-where.  If you recall, after HOURS of work, my dad uncovered this brick path in the backyard.  

If and when, I mow, this random brick layout is a pain and is half buried.  The brick is going to be pulled up and moved to the corner of the yard for future use.  I'll let you know what kind of future use later, in the future.

When I first moved into the house I knew there was a front flowerbed because they had the straggling remains of bushes of some sort.  (It made a great play place for mud pies.)

After more hours of work, we found this, more brick, this time bordering the bed.

While it looks pretty in the picture, reality was more brutal and it looks pretty pitiful now.   The brick is also broken and jacked up too, so out it comes.  It will join the pile in the back for future use.  As will the very, very narrow, cracked and and uneven walkway to the street.

 

The biggest thing that's scheduled to happen, will most likely be the least noticeable to everyone else, I'm guessing.  In digging out the front flower bed, the dirt was tossed to the side for simplicity's sake.  Due to a poorly timed nose break, (but then again, is any nose break ever nicely timed????) the dirt was never moved to its permanent home, so there it sat.  Over the past year or so, it has become a mountain of dirt.  B&B is going to remove the dirt, leveling it for proper drainage and fill in the holes left by the concrete/brick removals.  I CANNOT wait!! Instead of a huge mound, I might possibly have the beginnings of a real front yard!

Summer's a Comin'

One of the things I have had the most fun with is constantly changing my front door's wreath/decor.  An afternoon of crafting and finished in a day, LOVE IT!!  A couple of weeks ago, I was cruising Michael's with a friend and noticed their Gerber daisies on sale for 60% off.

Couple those with ostrich feathers in blue and lime, sparkly lime tulle, a grapevine wreath (all 50% off at Hobby Lobby) and just a bit of glitter (I had already) and I had a great craft project on my hands, my couch, my table, my floor, my face, just about everywhere. 

I used a brush glue and applied it somewhat messily to the tips of the petals and the centers of the flowers.  I then dusted the edges of with matching colors of glitter. While those were drying, I gussied up the grapevine with my Glimmer Mist.  It added just the

right shimmer to the background.

The final result was fun and summery, and just a little bit over the top.  In the steamy days of summer, looking like a popsicle is a blast!

 

 

a fitting wreath...

My front door Christmas wreath was gorgeous, but I don't want to be known as one of "those" neighbors, so down it came on January 1. That left me with a blank white door, not exactly my style. I know that ornament ball wreaths have been all over the internet for some time now, but for those of us just joining the party, it's new to me! So, after gathering tons of silver, gray and white ornament balls, most covered in glitter, I went to town with the glue gun. By the way, no one mentioned how many sticks of glue you use on the projects! Granted, I may have been making it wrong, but I was thinking it was kinda self explanatory. I will stick in a personal note here, use the shatter resistant balls and yes, I speak from experience. After an evening of shows, whichever you prefer, and a bajillion glue sticks, you'll have something similar to what is shown below. I added a silver mesh ribbon to hold it up on the door and called it a day.
Thoughts?

Front Door Decor

Last year, in a fit of pique, I declared that I was going to hang up a Christmas wreath on my front door. Now, what you have to remember is that my house was still in a huge state of shambles. I had literally no place to sit, no door on the bathroom, and wasn't even living here, but darnit, I was going to have a wreath. So, off to Michael's I went. (love those coupons!!) I purchased a wreath form, a plastic garland and some jingle bells. Combined that with gorgeous ribbon and I came up with this...


By the time I actually got this made, it was well after Christmas and there was no point in hanging it up. So, I carefully put it up in a plastic bag on the top shelf of my closet until this year. Now, as soon as Christmas rolled around this year, I pulled the wreath down and took a long hard look at it and decided I didn't like it. (I know, big surprise there huh?)

It was boring and annoying me, so I pulled the whole thing apart. Don't get me wrong, I love the elements of it, just not how it was put together. While I was shopping in November, I fell in love with some glittered hydrangea at a local wholesaler. Unfortunately I didn't love their $6 per head price. So, I found some other less glittered hydrangea on clearance for $2 per head. Add a little Martha Stewart glitter and some Glimmer Mist in Santa Baby and perfection. After adding my new flowers and some glittered oak leaves, I came up with this and I have to say I am MUCH happier with it now!

The glitter doesn't photograph well, but I promise it looks good!