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Number 13 on HomeLight’s 2022, What upgrades increase home value? says, “Front porches have come back in vogue since the pandemic began, with rocking chairs or other cozy seating offering a safe way to visit with neighbors or have a quiet cup of coffee. A welcoming front porch can add an estimated $6,000 in resale value, HomeLight’s 2022 trends study found.”

Not that I plan on selling my house anytime soon, it is never a bad idea to try and increase the value of your home. Why not make it a place you will enjoy while you live there.

In my previous blog, We Finally Found a House, one of my hopes and dreams for the outside of the house was to paint the front door. It was just a plain, boring white door that was in need of a fun pop of color. So, what any normal person would do (or at least me) I hopped on to Pinterest and started to look at colors that would compliment the brownish siding that is on the house. I decided that I wanted it to be either a pink or coral color of some sort. You can see of my inspo on my pinterest board here!

**This post DOES NOT contain affiliate links** These are simply products that I used or considered and would recommend! I also do not own the rights to these photos.

Picking a paint color

The next step was to go down the street to the local Home Depot. I looked at many paint swatches BUT the moment I laid eyes on it, I knew it was the one! I ended up falling in love with the color, Watermelon Slice by Behr. By the name of the paint color, you would think it would be more of a red color, after all watermelons are red, but it is actually more of a coral color. It complimented the siding perfectly and I was sold!

Things didn’t go as planned

Painting the front door, sadly, got postponed because it ended up snowing. Who would of expected it to snow, in Texas, in October! On the bright side we found out that there was a very cold draft that came under the door as it was not sealing properly. Since it was an old wooden door we decided to replace it, which meant that I got to choose a new front door. YAY!

Picking the perfect door

The first step to finding the perfect door was online searching of what I thought I would want. I wanted to keep it on the cheaper side so I knew I wanted a primed steel door. Since the room does not have many windows, I knew I wanted it to have a window to let in some natural light.

I ended up liking the style of this door that had a six pane divider over it that would both fit the style and the price range I wanted to stick to. It is the JELD-WEN 32 in. x 80 in. 6 Lite Craftsman Primed Steel Prehung Left-Hand Inswing Front Door w/Brickmould. We got it from Home Depot for right around $500. While we were there we grabbed some composite shims and a can of spray foam insulation to hopefully reduce the amount of times that we would have to go back.

JELD-WEN 32 in. x 80 in. 6 Lite Craftsman Primed Steel Prehung Left-Hand Inswing Front Door w/Brickmould

The chosen JELD-WEN door

Choices 2 & 3

These are a few of the others options that I considered but passed up. The JELD-WEN 36 in. x 80 in. 3 Lite Craftsman Primed Steel Prehung Left-Hand Inswing Front Door w/Brickmould was a nice modern option with the horizontal pane option but it was a little more than I wanted to pay at $650 considering I found another door that I really liked.

The JELD-WEN 32 in. x 80 in. 9 Lite Primed Steel Prehung Left-Hand Inswing Back Door with Brickmould. I briefly considered this one but it was a little too casual as it was a back door and you could see in and did not offer the privacy that I wanted as the front door looks straight into the living room.

The process of installation

The installation of the door was much more than expected. The siding was installed over the door so in order for the door to be removed so did the siding. Luckily, we just had to remove the screws that were holding the siding in place and we were able to easily slide the siding off and access the door. It did make this a much larger task than anticipated which meant more TIME! You can see here we finally had the old door removed and we were making some final adjustments before we could install the new door.

The new door is in

The new door from the inside-Hey It's Maggie Rae

The new door from the outside- Hey It's Maggie Rae

It was so exciting to finally have the new door installed. We used the shims and spray foam that we had grabbed to make sure that the door would not stick or squeak when used and it was airtight. The new door also just greets you with a newness as you approach the house!

The door after painting

A close up of the color-Hey It's Maggie Rae

The view from the outside-Hey It's Maggie Rae

While painting the door we taped off the windows with painters tape just to ensure that no paint got on the glass. Before painting I lightly sanded the door with a 320 grit sandpaper to scuff it up and so the paint would stick better. To paint the crevices I used a soft bristled paint brush and a small roller for the bigger flat areas. I painted 2 coats on just to get a good finish. Here is the beautiful door after it was painted! Isn’t it just such a fun color! It is bright, cheerful and makes me happy every time I see it, which is quite often as I live here. Hahaha!

Products we used for this project

Paint color: Watermelon Slice by Behr

Front door: JELD-WEN 32 in. x 80 in. 6 Lite Craftsman Primed Steel Prehung Left-Hand Inswing Front Door w/Brickmould

Shims: composite shims

Spray foam: Loctite TITE FOAM

Door Knob: Kwikset Halifax Keyed entry door handle

I think all in all I spent about $750 on this project which I felt was pretty was pretty reasonable since I got a new front door out of it!

I am excited to continue to show you the process of making this house my home!

XOXO Maggie

We finally closed on our house! I am so excited to get to live here while I go to school. We will be doing some renovations and updating and I would love for you to come along and see what we have to do with the place to get inspiration for your own homes.

Scroll to the bottoms to see my hopes and dreams for the house!

The search for the perfect house

The search began in April 2020 looking at houses just to get the feel of the market. There were many hours spent scrolling and “hearting” potential houses on Realtor.com. We didn’t do too much looking until the end of May when it was getting closer to the time that I needed a house. We then looked and looked and looked for houses, but as it is in any college town the housing market was CRAZY. We had looked at probably close to 30 houses all over the town that would either sell before we could buy them or that needed too much work. Like a lot of work.

We finally found a house (not this one) at the end of June 2020 and were under contract on it. The inspection came back and…it had major foundation issues, so we decided that it wasn’t probably the wisest choice.

We looked at many more and finally found this cute gem in a quiet neighborhood. We went under contract on this house mid July 2020. It is a small ranch style house built in 1951. It is just over 1400 square feet featuring 3 bedrooms and 1 and 3/4 baths. This house was a well-loved house by a family who had lived here for the past 50 years. They had taken really good care of it, but it has seen better days.

Sooo…before we start any remodeling I thought I would show you what it looked like.

The front with not much curb appeal

When we first saw it — After the previous owners moved out

To start with the yard, there were many old farm equipment pieces throughout the yard, as decoration, that were surrounded by piles of rocks. When the previous owners moved out they took the farm equipment, THANKFULLY, and we were left with odd piles of rock around the yard. The yard is also overgrown and in need of some help to trim back the out of control bushes and weeds.

The front has a built on carport enclosed on three sides which is nice to protect cars from the weather. The house colors don’t scream “WOW” and are just a boring brown. The front door is under the carport which is unfortunate and is also painted a not so beautiful shade of white.

The inside

When you walk in the front door, you are greeted with the living room, with a hallway off to the left leading to the bedrooms/bathroom and a door at the end of the room leading to the dining area. It is a dining/kitchen combo. The kitchen right now is not very functional with the #1 reason being that the washer and dryer is in the middle of the kitchen, yes you read that right the WASHER AND DRYER in the kitchen. Since this is an old house it most likely did not originally have a laundry area when it was built so the kitchen was the easiest place seen fit to put it. It sure does easy make it easy to multitask, though. You could be cooking dinner and doing a load of laundry.

Down the hallway

The hallway features 4 doors. 3 leading to bedrooms and one to the main bathroom. One thing to look at in these pictures is the curtains, as all of the rooms have them. The lady who lived here previously had a curtain and drape sewing business so it only fit that her own home was outfitted as well. The first room was actually her sewing room, hence the weird hanging light. In the master bathroom you might notice the odd shaped tub as the bathroom is only 4 foot wide so this was the mix between a bathtub and a shower.

My favorite picture

This picture just shows the character of the house as in one spot there are 4 different flooring types. In such a small space, there is the linoleum of the entry way, the original hardwood floors, the tile of the kitchen and the carpet of the bedroom. All of this is able to be captured in the one photo.

Four different floors intersect — 4 different floors intersect

The hopes and dreams for the house

For the outside:

Sidewalk and border to the front door
Paint the front door
Fix the spalling of the foundation

For the inside:

Tear down wallpaper (where located)
Fresh coat of paint throughout the house
New floors
New light fixtures
New doors and hardware
Relocate the washer and dryer
Renovate the kitchen
Renovate main bathroom

I am so excited to dive in and make this place a home showing you each step of the way.