One pervasive problem in this house is the doors. The hardware is outdated, they are hollow-core luan panel style, and there are several doors that have holes in them. They are also stained a darkish walnut color which is not horrible but really shows the years of wear. At first I was thinking I would replace all the doors but when I calculated how much that would cost I decided to see if I could make these doors good enough to keep. I went through the house to list all the doors including their width and whether they are right or left opening. It turns out that after we do our remodels we will be eliminating enough doors that I can shuffle around the ones with holes and maybe only have to purchase one door. So, what to do with them?
My thought was to do something similar to the trim which is a whitewashed cedar. Since the doors are originally darker I wasn't sure how this would look. I used one of the doors with a hole as a guinea pig. I tried a straight whitewash paint, and did the other side with the paint rubbed away. I am not happy with either. At this point I am thinking that I will either leave the doors as they are but with a fresh coat of poly and new hardware or I will paint them a color, not sure which though.
So, no progress on the doors. On to the outdoors. Since the weather has turned to spring here in central Texas, my husband and I were thinking we should go ahead and do any outdoor work before it gets too hot. That could be very soon the way things work around here. So while we were spending the weekend at the house we started to stain the deck. We decided to use two different colors - a dark brown for the railing and a medium cedar color for the decking. We have a deck at home that is dark brown and it really shows the traffic areas, so we wanted to stay close to the natural color of the wood where there would be heavier use. Anyway, I thought we would do the railing that afternoon and I would come back to do the decking later in the week. Wow, was that way off. Painting the railing, while not hard, takes a really long time! Between the two of us we only got about 1/3 of the way through with one coat after a whole afternoon of work. I am hoping that the decking goes faster since each board doesn't get hand painted individually like the railing. Anyway, here are some shots of our progress so far.
I have also been working on getting outdoor seating. Have you looked at the prices of outdoor furniture lately? OMG, it costs more than indoor furniture, and it isn't going to last as long! So I have been scouring Craigslist for cheaper options. I was able to find this set for $250 which is fairly new. It is a World Market set so I do not expect it to last terribly long but it will do for a while.
I also found several papasan type chairs which should do well in the covered area. Off my neighborhood list serve I got free a loveseat (not shown in the picture), chair and footstool. And from Craigslist I got the two swivel, rocking chairs and another round chair. They are surprisingly comfortable and for a total of less than $100 will do the job! Once the deck is stained I will pick up an outdoor rug and coffee table somewhere.
The last thing on the list for outside is to finish the half wall above the stonework and below the patio cover. You can sit the area in the picture of the papasan chairs above. Originally I planned to install cedar shingles, but lately I have seen a number of pictures on Pinterest showing walls from scrap lumber. They are finished with wood of varying widths, finishes and thicknesses. The end result is pretty cool. Some of them are made with pallet wood. But we have an old playhouse in our backyard that is about to fall down. We are thinking we might dismantle that and use the wood for a wood wall. (You can't beat free!) There is no issue with making the wall weather tight since it is going over the existing wall and is under a roof so this will be simply decorative. I don't think I would use this treatment for a true outdoor wall due to all the seams. We'll see how this progresses.
That's all for now!
