Ding Dong. The Red Is Gone.

(almost)

The weekend after our new windows were installed, the exterior of our house got a mini-makeover that we are so excited about! It had occurred to me that though it seemed like the outside of our house had a ton of red, it was actually only on the shutters (just 6 of them), the front door, and the trim around the garage. That's so manageable.

I keep using this old picture from last year and feeling like a fraud, but in this case, it's the one that shows the red looking the "reddest"

The window guys had to take down our old shutters to put in the windows anyway, so I ordered some new ones and pinned some fun repurposed shutter-craft ideas for the surplus that was headed my way. Well, let me tell you, as soon as the first shutter hit the front yard in a mangled twisted mess of rotten wood and cobwebs I knew I would not be needing those pins. Pity...I had the spots for a shutter-mail-holder and a shutter-console-table all picked out. The window guys also wouldn't put up our new shutters because they weren't exactly the same size, so we couldn't reuse the existing holes. Lame. Even though the dirt left from under the old shutters was so thick it almost looked like they were still up, we really couldn't leave the house looking like that, so there was only one thing doing.

Oh, but look at those pretty windows...

Husband had to go up on the roof. Actually, I suppose I could have done it, but come on. It was not easy going-up there (not as bad as The Worst Ever, but close). The plastic nail-like fasteners bent and broke off if they got snagged on the siding and weren't reusable.  Husband was so frustrated with the things, and I was showing my support by passing him supplies through the window and endlessly nagging things like "Are you sliding?" "Why aren't you holding on?" "Don't get cocky!" or, the one I'm most proud of: "No whistling on the roof!!" Don't judge, I know what happens when you fall off a roof, I was really nervous.
It all turned out mostly well in the end.  The new shutters went up. They are very slightly bowed, and didn't quite cover the holes in the siding from the old ones, but I don't think either of those things would be noticeable if you didn't already know.
The house looked totally confused until the next afternoon when Husband switched out the downstairs shutters to match.  I wasn't around, but it apparently went much more smoothly.  I'm not saying those two things are related, but I'm not saying they're not. I can't get over how good they look against the brick! And how the brick looks prettier with the brown to play off of!

So next, we turned our attention to the trim around the garage. Husband took one of the shutter fasteners to the store and matched it to a couple of paint samples, and once we tried them up on the trim there was an obvious winner. I scrubbed down the trim, siding, and garage doors (man, was that satisfying!)...

and then we filled and sanded as many of the imperfections as possible and slapped up two coats of Behr's French Roast in Exterior Satin (that name!), and we LOVE it.

The dark brown is so crisp, and I can't get over how much more I like the color of the brick now than when it was next to the burgundy.

Unfortunately, those rusty gold light fixtures have become even more painfully, painful.

I'm also taking suggestions on what color to paint the front door, the last remaining spot of red - I'm thinking green or yellow.

Single Pane was a Pain

We finally got our new windows! The upstairs of our house was still rocking 1960's single pane wood and aluminum windows which were doing nothing nice to our heating/cooling bills, so we had all 8 replaced with double pane, low-e, argon insulated (no, I don't know what any of that means), vinyl ones. It's amazing - it feels like a whole different house up there. On hot days (uh, all days) we used to get smacked with a wave of heat about 3/4 of the way up the stairs, and oh my god that doesn't happen anymore! It has made the money spent SO worth it to be able to go to sleep comfortably for the past few weeks, and also superficially it makes the rooms look so UPDATED. Hi, new house!

Before the guys came to install the new windows (just 7 hours after we got home from being in California for 10 days), we had to take down all the window treatments.  Should have been fairly straightforward, but remember this?

Our lovely shutters had stumped all of the window sales & measurement folk who saw them. We obviously wanted them removed, but no-one seemed to understand how they were attached.  No obvious nail heads or seams.  At one point we even thought they might be glued. Since no one could find any point of attachment, the only option was to forcefully pry them away from the window frame (and yes, it split and splintered), until we saw this.

A screw (because nails would have been too easy), and then after digging into the wood with a chisel...

...the screw heads CUT OFF. Unreal.
Husband spent almost a whole day prying the frames away enough to fit in a hand saw and then cutting the screws off, and (somehow) pulling out the ends. It left some major carnage on the window frames, but luckily we're pretty handy with the Spackle around these parts.

The window installation itself took about 6 hours, and it was more traumatic than I expected. Turns out it's a little disconcerting to see pieces of your house flying past the window while you sit helplessly and hope the strangers upstairs aren't destroying your home.

Yikes.
Luckily, the end product was well worth the stress and after a little time spent on touch ups, we could officially cross this one off the list.

Now for the pretty (but not so pretty photos) before & afters.

CRAFT ROOM

 

 BEDROOM (yes we do only have one curtain on each window. classy joint.)

BATHROOM

OFFICE

GUEST ROOM

Also, that same day, this happened:

So yeah, we're finding out that committing to a large purchase (windows) pretty much guarantees that everything else you own is infinitely more likely to break down in an expensive fashion or, as Bridget Jones more eloquently stated, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.” 


Truth, indeed.

Front Door Fall Decor

Here comes a confession - don't hate me:

I'm really not into Halloween.  I know it's many people's favorite holiday, but I didn't grow up with it, and really dislike dressing up, carving pumpkins, and awkwardly making small talk with strangers and their children.  I eat chocolate with reckless abandon year-round, so there's no big excitement over the candy surplus, and (and this last one might be downright anti-American but...) I don't like pumpkin spice lattes.

Fall in general is admittedly pretty but, to me, the chill in the air is just a sign that a LONG midwest winter is on its way, and that fact is obviously nothing to be happy about.

Fall this year though, is coming with a certain amount of pressure. I've become obsessed with the idea of making a good impression on our neighbors on the evening of Halloween.  Virtually all of the families on our street have kids, so I'm expecting a significant crowd of trick-or-treaters, and this will be an opportunity to say hello to the many neighbors we haven't yet met - I have to assume they will be curiously stopping by.

So far, the only effort that has been put into the outside of the house is mowing the grass.  This is effort of the husband variety of course, until the mower died and then it was effort of the financial variety - which I'm starting to believe is how everything ultimately ends up.  Anyway, I could go on and on about leaf piles (because there are a LOT), but what I really mean to say is this: we really don't have a lot of curb appeal going on around here, and the front door decor is just weird.

Here's what we're working with:

Awkward red wicker chair, weird red milk crate thing.  Thanks previous owners.  I find these items on the front step strange, but it really doesn't seem worth the effort to get rid of them.  I'm also not convinced that we couldn't make some kind of improvements (can you say, spray paint?) to make them tolerable, and for now, the chair is serving as a nice resting spot for delivered packages.

Here's how we made it work:

Mum gave us the plant the week after we moved in (and I almost didn't kill it), and we bought the rug at Bed Bath & Beyond.  I think it's ultimately probably too small for the space, but I love the "greek key" pattern so it's staying there for now.

The wreath is my very first Pinterest-inspired craft.  We'll call it an attempt.  I'm currently making another because I'm not happy at all with how this one turned out, so I'll post an update on my wreath experiences when I've figured it out.

Overall the decor is basic, but I was on a serious budget and didn't have lots of time to devote to this project.

Now, back to worrying about not having enough candy...