Front Door Redo on a Budget

 

Our front door:  not the most impressive. 

It’s a standard metal door, which the builder dressed up with wood trim.  (Don’t you like how this Arrow points at the rusty spots on the lantern? 0 We discussed replacing the door with something new, but kept hearing about problems with hanging a new door in the old door’s place, and the cost to rip it all out and replace the unit was not in the budget. Plus, this door works great!  I absolutely hate replacing anything that isn’t broken. 

So, we decided to give the existing door a makeover.

 

First, Ryan used a razor to cut through the paint between the trim and the door.

Next, he pried the trim off of the door.  It had been nailed and glued on, but came off quite easily.

He then patched all the holes with Bondo body filler.

And then sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded.

The end result was pretty cool – all those layers.

This is how it looked from the street after he finished sanding it.

Next, he took leftover beadboard from our Laundry Room makeover and cut to size.

Then glued that directly to the door.  Initially, we were going to center this piece, but luckily realized that the bottom of a door will typically have greater width between any decorative elements than the top of the door. The piece is centered horizontally, but has much more space on the bottom than the top.

He then added decorative trim around the beadboard, caulked, primed and painted.

The BEFORE.

The AFTER.

Now wait until you see what he did to the inside!!!!

And yes, I also painted the rusty lantern.  Door swag from Cameron’s in Downtown Lee’s Summit.

Shower Time!

The Office is getting so close; I might cry. (of happy excitedness!)

So! Back to a what I consider a remodel success - the Master Bath.

Funny. RD and I spent a part of the evening discussing the merits and drawbacks of the daily shower with our kids. Is it my unconscious inspiring this post?

While I plan on letting the photos drive the story--I must remind, the shower had one glass block wall, which had not been properly sealed, causing rust of the corners and inside the block. There were also two doors - like a car wash. You could enter dirty on one side and exit clean on the other. Sweet!

That was the before and afters. This is the new niche Ryan built into the formerly glass-block wall. For blog-sake, I tried a picture without all of our crap, but was so happy with how the "Crap"-one still looks good, decided to go with it. (And we're about honesty, right?)

That travertine FRAME around the edge? Isn't that fantastic? Regular price? $29.99 for a 9-inch section. I am not kidding. Found it CLEARANCED for $5.99. I've said it before and will say it again...It's important to be flexible when remodeling.

Another thing. Don't be afraid to mix items. While we chose some high end finishes for the bathroom, the main tile in the shower is a middle-priced porcelein. But, we chose to install it in the brick battern and then apply the vertical border on top with the inlays for more interest.

And we did use the more expensive diamond travertine on the floor, in the niche and on the bench, but those are 'impact' areas.

The black accent tile was very inexpensive, but gave us exactly the contrast and tie-in to the granite we used on the floor of the bathroom proper. And then that fabulous travertine trim! We used it in the shower as a trim on top of all the tile, as a frame around the niche, and also as an accent around the tub surround.

And, no longer in the shower, but I love the beautiful mosaic polished Crema Marfil...that was a job of it's own! More on it later.

Linked to FIF #21!