Nothing says welcome to our home like a new door...

Okay, so maybe the door isn't exactly new. But I vowed to make some changes this summer and changes I did make!

Remember what things looked like before?

Oh my god, awful & embarrassing...right?! I suppose when you don't use your front door and you don't welcome guests through it, you just kind of cast it aside and pretend that it doesn't look so bad. But it does.

So anyway, after the new front steps were installed, I decided the mangly (not a word, I know) storm door had to go. We had no plans to install a new one...which, come to think of it, is probably something important to have in Buffalo. But after surveying the neighborhood to see what others were doing, it was about half and half--some had storm doors, others did not. I prefer the look of the original door (sans storm door) anyway, so I don't know why I bothered with my informal neighborhood "survey" in the first place. My mind was already made up. Okay, enough with the rambling...let's get to it Katie!

First step was removing the door. I was on my own here, as the husband wanted no part of this process. After several stripped screws & try as I might...that damn door was NOT coming off. I was able to remove a screw here & there, but the door was not going anywhere. And that's no exaggeration...the thing was literally painted on & stuck to the molding. I swear, I think it was installed in 1909. So I gently begged asked the husband for help, tearing him away from Die Hard 45 (or however many Die Hard movies there are out there) and he very patiently removed the door for me. People, this was not an easy task! And I would know...I was watching!

So WHEW...the door was finally removed and I put it out to the curb (just in time for our Thursday morning garbage pick up), and I'm not totally positive...but I'm fairly certain it was gone by the time I left for work in the morning....and garbage pick up hadn't happened yet! The husband is super perplexed by this & wonders why anyone would want that stupid, ugly door. But hey, another person's trash is another's treasure! Even when it's a 100-year old storm door.

Okay, so much better, right? Bye, bye storm door! I don't miss you!

So then came the task of filling in all those holes. Which, for the most part was easy, minus a few larger areas that needed some help.

I'm no expert when it comes to this stuff, so I just did what I thought would work in this case (I learn as I go!), and that was to completely wood fill the larger gaps. I'm sure there is a better looking way to have taken care of these areas...but oh well. It's not perfect, but then again neither is our old house.

So that's where things stand as of today. I'll be back at it this weekend sanding & painting and ready to reveal the final results next week!

TGIF!