I’ve always been a blog ‘reader’ as I’ve been inspired by so many amazing blogs out there.  However, I never thought of myself as a ‘blogger’.  After spending a year and half on Instagram documenting our house projects and my love of all things home decor, I decided to take a leap into the blogging world where I feel I can better express my design thought process and make even stronger connections with my followers.  My fall front door was gaining a lot of interest on Instagram, which prompted me to want to explain more about how it came to be.  The front door is the first impression you perceive of a home.  The door we were rocking had been suggesting that a crazy family moved in, a change needed to be made.

 

First, a little bit about our house, it is a charming 1930’s New England Cape Cod style home.   We fell in love with the original details, wood work and farmers porch off the side.  As many of you know It’s not all rainbows and sunshine with older homes, they tend to need a fair share of TLC.  I’ll share more about that on upcoming posts.   Let’s start with the color combination of our home.  From these original photos we were given by the previous owners it appears to have been white and black, which was lovely.  Down the line it was changed to warm beige siding and red/orange toned shingles, not the amazing combo we would have chosen but we didn’t plan on redoing a brand new roof and rip off siding just because we didn’t like the color of them.  Instead, the first step we took to improve the exterior of our home was to paint all the exterior doors with a fresh, fun, matching color that would enhance the whole look of the house.

We were hoping to do this ourselves, unfortunately there was too much wood damage that needed repair, so we hired professionals (Thanks Tonal Painting!).  However if you wanted to do it yourself, and just had a door to paint it would be super easy.   Start by finding a good quality brand of exterior paint and have your color mixed with that.  Continue with edging any detail in the wood work and then use a small roller for the larger flat sections.  Start with a light first coat and then add another coat once first is dry.  We chose Ben Moore, St. Lucia Teal and we haven’t regretted it for a second.  I know you must be thinking “she picked a bright-crazy-colored front door, named after an island?”.  I know it sounds intense, but it actually brings our house to life!  It’s a beautiful blue/green that changes in different lights/photos.  Best of all it makes me smile every time I pull into the drive way.  OH, it also happens to work perfectly with seasonal decor which you’ll see shortly.  Have I sold you yet?

 I added this vinyl decal as a door number.   I went on etsy.com and searched vinyl decal house number.  You wouldn’t believe all the different options, colors, styles and vendors that make these.  So have fun with that process.  They’re also very affordable and mine has stayed put for almost 2 years.

Now for the fun part, decorating our spruced up door!  I picked up two big lanterns from Pier One that were on sale.  Unfortunately they only had them in a dark brown.  I quickly gave them a coat of black mat spray paint and they fit in perfectly.  I added some birch logs from and faux leaf branches from Michaels craft store.    For Halloween I’ll add some orange sparkle lights that I picked up at the Target Dollar spot.

 When planting our mums I selected three little mums and mixed them in one pot for an ombre effect.  Ombre is when a color goes from light to dark so red, orange to yellow… Notice how these colors, which are warm, really pop against the cool colored door.  It has to do with the relationship of these colors on the color wheel.  I’ll spare you the color theory lesson (going back to my art teacher days) trust me, they look good together!   I found some funky ghourds and stacked them to add some height.  This adorable wheel barrel  is from home goods that I filled with pumpkins and will keep out until Thanksgiving.  The architecture around our front door is what we love the most.  So to bring attention to it I perched the baby pumpkins  above the metal welcome sign.

 This is another one of our exterior doors, under our farmer’s porch, painted in the same St. Lucia Teal color.  The exterior of our home looks much cleaner and pulled together.  The cool blue/green color off sets the warm tone siding and roof.  It’s been a great investment for our home.  Yay for curb appeal!

 Thanks for stopping by and I hope you’ll continue to follow along on my Blogging Journey.