It has been almost a month since the last update and my
house barely even looks the same. Last
post showed that I had started painting and had started the arbor above the
garage door but a lot has changed since then.
One of the first projects I completed was the arbor over the
garage door. As you can see below it
turned out real well. After trying six
different colors of stain, I couldn’t find one that looked real good with my
other house colors. I wound up mixing multiple
stains together until I found a color I liked.
I then took that color to my local home depot and had them custom color
match a gallon of it since my testing was only a few ounces at a time. I feel I found the perfect color. In the last post I had not yet placed the top
boards on the arbor. These boards are
all cedar so they will hold up better outside.
In this whole project there was a little over 120 linear board feet of lumber
used. The entire arbor including the
stain cost under $250 to build; so I got a lot of bang for my buck! Below is a
picture of the completed arbor.
Another huge change was the new roof was installed. This picture was from a couple weeks ago
since there is snow on my roof right now, but it made a huge difference. Here is a reminder of before:
And here is after:
The next project that my brother and I completed was
adding new shutters to the house. These
are made out of cedar as well and stained the same color as the arbor. It took about 20 8-foot long boards to make
all 10 shutters (8 upstairs 2 downstairs).
Total cost for the shutters with stain was about $120. As you can see, the shutters really finished
off all the other little pieces we were working on. You can also see that I started the Christmas
decorating.
One of the last projects was adding the windows to the
garage doors. Many times you have to
order your garage doors from the factory with the windows already
installed. This can cost around $1,500 a
door. Obviously this is out of my price
range, and my doors are already new, so I went with a different option. My brother found this online company: http://addingcurbappeal.com/garage-door-windows.html
The total cost was about $200 for both
doors and it made all the difference in the world. These windows are actually plugs so people
cannot look into your garage, which is more secure, and you do not have to cut
holes in your garage door. The windows
are made from black acrylic with white vinyl moldings so they will never
rot. They simply screw onto your
existing door and my brother and I installed all of them in about 30
minutes. After having them on my garage,
I do not think that I could go without on my next house. From 5 feet away you wouldn't even know that
they are not the real windows.
So here is an overview picture of what the house looks like
now. Because of the snow and it getting
dark it threw the colors off, but it really shows how things are coming
together. It is turning out even better than I ever expected.
If you need a reminder, here is what my house used to look
like:
Lastly, here is a look at my Christmas decorations. Anyone that knows or worked with me knows I love Christmas
decorations. Now that I finally have a house
I was able to decorate the way I really wanted to all those years I was in an
apartment. The penguins (doubie and
doubie dos) and polar bear have made a comeback as they have been with me at
every school I have worked at for the last 8 years. At every place that I have worked I had the scarves on
them match the school colors. Even
though I now work in student housing that primarily houses University of Denver
students, I don’t really have any allegiance to them (sorry DU readers – I went
to UNC and OSU). So because of this I
changed the scarves to brown and tan to match my house. Now before anyone thinks I spent hours knitting
scarves for them (which I have no idea or interest to do) I made them by
cutting felt and then hot gluing them together.
It only has to last about 6 weeks and it works. You can see the chains in the picture but that is because I really don't want them stolen. I anchor them to the ground with 14 inch steel spikes.
Here you can see them outside after all the decorating is
done.
I also put together all the garland and trees for the front
of the house. I added pine cones,
lights, and burlap ribbon to all of it –
after all a dude lives here so it really needed to look that way. You can see my trees in the new pots for the
front door below. The pots are all metal
and fit a little better than the old ones I had that were made if wicker. Those will be re-purposed for the back
yard.
If you know me real well you know that I cannot stand glitter. To me glitter is the herpes of the craft supply world – once you get it, there is no way of getting rid of it. So there is no glitter on the outside of the
house and the few ornaments I have inside that have glitter on them were
encapsulated in a clear coat before it even made it in the front door :) Well I think that is all and I will leave you
with a picture of the house with all the lights on. On to the next project…..
