So my last blog post I mentioned how I added New Panes in my front door and picture window. I just loved the character that it added! And since I felt like I had a whole new door, I wanted to give the outside a bit of a face lift too! The last time I did anything with the front entry was when I painted my stairs.
And although the painted steps helped to spruce it up a bit, there were still issues. See that little light there? First of all it’s TINY. Thank you Menards for the 4-pack of lights for $15. The hubs doesn’t understand why good lights cost a little bit more than that:) But it was an improvement at the time. The second issue is the placement. It’s off in no-where-ville. This is because when we bought the house, they had the black plastic shutters on the sides of the door. When we put in a new door it was bigger, and the plastic shutters just looked a little cheap. So we never hung them back up.
I do love shutters though…and after watching a few episodes of fixer upper, realized that they were totally do-able to make…for cheap!
I used 4-8 foot 1×8″ pine boards, 2 for each side. Most shutters are about 15″ wide, and since boards aren’t true to their name, like an 8″ board is more like 7 1/4″, together both added up real close to 15″. I cut them to the height of the door and stained them with special walnut, by Minwax. Then I cut 4, 6″ boards the 15″ length for the cross bars on each shutter. I stained those as well and screwed them onto the two boards from the back so you wouldn’t see the screws. And this is what I came up with…
I haven’t touched up my stairs since I painted them three years ago and they are holding up okay. The tops of them are wearing out the most, just on the black…but it doesn’t really bug me. Just adds patina:)
I also updated the landscaping to the left, added mulch, a few rocks, and spruced it up a bit..
I love how the shutters make the door look a bit grander..
I added the shutter hardware as well. I was hoping it would be a bit longer, but this was the best I could find. I found it on Amazon and I think it was about $12 for all the pieces…
and my $8 ferns from Home Depot have held up fabulous!
Take a picture of me Mom!
And since I was taking pics outside, I grabbed a few more of the guest house…
We’ve had so much rain this year that the landscaping has taken off. I love it!
and although it was super sunny, I wanted to show you these huge planted I got at an auction. I also found hydrangea trees at Menards for $25/piece and they made the perfect filler! I ‘m going to plant them this fall so they continue to survive.
Take a picture of us mom and put it on your blog! They say:)
I love country living:) They ate lunch in their fort too:)
