BEE-utiful.

I’m a firm believer that the front door of your house is the most important detail on the outside of your house. It is the first thing that people see and it speaks volumes about the people who live behind that door. It’s not so much the style of the door that matters (although let’s be honest, a steel front door on a historic home does seem a bit out of character), but it’s what you do with the front door that counts.

When we bought our last house, the door was the natural wood color. And we probably could have left it that way, but it was a light wood on a medium gray stone house – it didn’t seem to jive with the house or with us. So it was promptly painted red. What did red say about us? On that house, I think it said – classic, but bold; traditional, yet fun – which is also probably a good way to describe us as a family too.

We knew from the start that The Duckling’s front door needed some oomph – and quickly. The white, although utilitarian, didn’t really say anything about who we are as a family. So until we could pick a color, I put a wreath up there to at least signal a feeling of “we’re home!” to the folks in our neighborhood and coming to our front door.

The front door the day we bought the house.

We get by with a little help from a wreath.

The big debate in our house was what color this front door should be. This wasn’t an easy question to answer because we haven’t been exactly sure whether we’ll paint the brick or not….this is still up for debate. So we knew that whatever color we chose, we had to make it something that would go with the brick as is or the brick painted a light to medium tone gray. And we know we are going to put black shutters on the house, so the color needed to look good with black too.

So, what to do, but I start looking on Pinterest – the ultimate resource for when you need some inspiration. Patrick said, what about a nice yellow? Hmmmm…..let’s see. There’s this, this and this. But those just didn’t seem right. But this and this? Oh yeah, that’s The Duckling. Eventually the whole front door will likely be replaced with one just like this so we can have more natural light in our front hallway. But until then, we paint!

So off to the local Sherwin Williams we go to find some paint chips to see which one we like. In classic paint selecting style, what we thought looked good in the store ended up being putrid when we held it up against the brick. So after a half dozen yellows, where did we land? Sherwin William’s Bee. It’s not too bright, not too pale, just the perfect sunny shade of yellow.

But before we could jump into painting the door we had to take care of the hardware. The top lock was a new brass and we weren’t really sure what the metal was of the 60+ year old hardware below it. We knew we didn’t want brass and that we would probably like black fixtures. But again, we’re going to likely replace this door eventually, so why spend the money now on hardware for a door that is not going to be there in another five years. The solution? We paint! We chose Rustoleum’s Gloss Black. We weren’t sure how this would turn out, but we figured it was worth a shot.

Patrick started by lightly sanding the new brass to rough it up a bit for the paint. Then he started to sand the hardware below – and lo and behold, it was brass! And not the new brass, but a really lovely classic 1950’s brass! We hesitated for a second….should we paint it?

The hardware – before.

The hardware – post sanding – where the beauty of the brass comes through.

But we knew that brass was going to look awful next to the yellow paint and furthermore, the brass up top and the brass on the bottom were no where near a match in quality or color. So we continued on the painting venture and we’re thrilled – it turned out just like we’d hoped! (But I’ll save the big reveal until the end!)

Next it was on to the front door. Patrick wiped down the door and sanded it up a bit to help the paint adhere. It is Sherwin Williams’ Emerald Gloss paint. It only took two coats and went on beautifully. And boy what a difference!

Now that’s a happy front door!

As we suspected, painting our front door added some serious oomph to our curb appeal. Now our front door not only says “we’re home!” but it also says we’re happy to be here!

So now when I pull in the driveway, I look at that door and it just makes me smile! Next on the list will be fixing the front stoop, replacing the pipes connecting our downspouts to the sewer pipes, putting up the shutters, cleaning the gutters and siding and doing some serious landscaping.

And that’s just on the outside….aah, the never-ending work of a homeowner!

Ch-ch-changes….Part Deux

You’ve seen the outside, we’ve teased you with the inside and now its time to make the full reveal of the remainder of the inside of the house. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, I quickly fell off the “before photo wagon” early on in this process of buying this house. So this post will lack the drama of the last one, but hopefully my written word will suffice in painting a picture of what the rooms looked like.

As is the case with most traditional Cape Cods, there is often a bedroom or two located on the first floor. This is exactly the case with The Duckling. The other really cool thing is that these bedrooms have their own hallway that has a door that closes them off from the rest of the living space.

This house was built in 1951, so a la Mad Men, it’s not hard to imagine that there were probably many a dinner party thrown that involved plentiful martinis, Frank Sinatra on the stereo and a wicked game of cards. (Evidently, I’ve written a whole screenplay in my head just based on the features of the house!). The doorway closing off the hallway to the bedrooms is both interesting and ingenious, because it meant the kids could be put to bed and the door could be closed to keep the adult conversations that followed under wraps.

Ok, so back to the tour….the renter who lived here before us used both bedrooms downstairs – one as his room and the other as a room for his children when they visited. Nothing really fancy about any of these spaces, but they are much improved by our furniture and decor.

Here’s the master – we took down the blinds that weren’t sized right for the windows and put up lined curtains. They are perfect because we can close them for privacy, but can also easily throw them open in the morning to let the light in. This room is pretty well done, but there will be some painting for sure. And just for fun, I’m throwing in some “during” photos when Patrick took down the blinds. The fact that they had been screwed in using drywall screws made them almost impossible to get down, but we persevered and it’s one of many “what the h&#l!” moments we’ve had in this house.

Patrick wrestling with the blinds.

Finley being an awesome assistant as usual!

The final product – still a few things to do, but it’s working for now!

And here’s Gavin’s room – still blinds to be removed, curtains to be hung and painting to be done, but it’s a good start. Patrick also hung some of his artwork, but we’ll likely move that around a bit.

His nature theme continues in his big boy room – bedding from IKEA is perfect!

The bathroom downstairs was updated (although not to my taste, it will do). I’ve already told you about how I’ve improved its functionality. There will be some paint in its future, but just the few things that we’ve done have vastly improved things.

It’s small, which is why it’s mostly just mine and the boys are using the larger bathroom upstairs.

When you enter the house at the front door, you enter a small entry hallway that will take you straight back to the kitchen, back and to the right to the bedrooms or to the left to the living room. The coolest part of this entry hallway is the staircase. It’s got this really cool Greek key carving up the side of it and a really cool matching post at the bottom of the railing. It’s one of the things that we thought was so cool about the house.

Love this stairway!

The stairs lead you upstairs to a traditional cape layout – a bedroom to the right, a bedroom to the left and a bathroom straight ahead that was added in the shed dormer off the back roofline. There’s a door (another one!) at the top of the stairs that can close the 2nd floor off from the first floor. I think this was less about wild martini-drinking dinner parties and more about energy efficiency. When the house was first built, the second floor may not have even been finished off. So keeping that space closed off in extreme heat or cold would have been important for the efficiency of the heating and cooling of the house.

It’s one of the doors that will be removed (joining it’s two kitchen cousins – I mean, two doors to completely close off the kitchen, really?!), unlike the first floor bedroom hallway door, which we honestly use every night after putting our 3 year old to bed. (Believe me, the slightest hint that we’re still awake and he might be missing something is reason for him to get out of bed and “have to tell you something”).

So these rooms upstairs were both empty of furniture, although the bachelor renter was using one room as his closet. They are now our guest room and our home office/den.

Our guest room – light and airy!

The home office – it’s cozy and we love it!

There are lots of plans for the office – painting, etc. – and maybe a little to be done in the guest room. But for now, we’re just loving the TONS of built ins and storage. (I have to say, the storage space in this house is AWESOME – so many closets and all are great sizes).

The bathroom was the bachelor’s main bathroom. This is the one that I referred to as a toxic environment that required a hazmat suit in order to clean. It’s vintage 1951 and is now the “boys” bathroom for Patrick and Gavin.

It’s really so tempting to leave this bathroom as is just so we can have a “museum quality” room in the house! LOL

This bathroom will be totally gutted at some point, but in the meantime, it’s CLEAN, functional and gets the job done.

Now, the last room of the house…the basement! We were stunned when we discovered the house had a finished basement – it’s a treat we didn’t have at either of our last two houses. And although there are some concerns with musty smells and whether we might ever have a water issue, we were pretty happy with what we saw when we looked at the house. It was totally empty, it’s finished on one side of the basement and unfinished on the other. The finished space has a bar, recessed lighting, plenty of storage closets and a room that we’re using for storage that probably was a home office when first created.

At first, we weren’t exactly sure what we were going to do with the basement, other than create a family room and some play space for Gavin. We ended up also moving our dining room set down there since it fit and someday we plan to have a “real” dining room again and figured if we could use it, then let’s use it. It actually ended up working really well in the space and we figure it will be a good thing for when we have large family gatherings or as a work space for Gavin.

Cozy basement!

So that’s the lay of the land at The Duckling these days….we’re moved in, but we’ve definitely got some items on our to do list. In a future post we’ll talk about what the plans are.

‘Til then…

Business in the front. Party in the back.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again….we can’t wait to see how this house transforms in the next few years! If you recall from one of our very first posts, there was a whole lotta ugly going on in this house when we looked at it. It was practically a Herculean effort to look beyond that ugly and see all of the potential.

But the good news is…we’re making progress! And it’s always fun to look back at where we’ve come from to where we are today. But we thought we’d ease you into the before and after photos of the house….after all, it’s a lot to look at! (Plus, let’s be honest, it means I can spread the love over a couple of blog posts!).

Let’s start outside…as the title of this post says – we’ve been all business in the front, party in the back. The whole outside is pretty much a blank slate and ready for our divine inspiration (er, intervention?). And the good news is that the investor we bought from had pretty much done most of the hard work with clearing the trees away from the house. But we’ve still got our fair share of work to be done.

We started with limbing up the trees a little more and we’ll be doing some grading of the yard away from the house and hopefully rebuilding our front stoop. But until then, the photos do show some good progress…

The Duckling circa 2010 – I promise, the house is somewhere behind all of those overgrown trees!

The Duckling in May 2013 when we first found her!

A kinder, friendlier version of The Duckling circa July 2013. Trees limbed up, wreath on the door and some planters on the front stoop ready for flowers!

In the backyard, things haven’t changed a whole lot – we’ve put our grill out there and some chairs, but for the most part, she still looks pretty much the same.

This is the back of the house circa 2013 before we purchased.

This is us starting to settle in a little more in the backyard and getting things somewhat situated. This is a VERY temporary solution. There are big plans for this backyard.

The most fun that we’ve had in the backyard is tucking our public art piece in a small grove of trees. It will certainly give folks something to talk about for a while and probably will have the neighbors wondering…

Our friendly snowman hanging in nature.

So that’s the story of the outside of The Duckling so far – we’re making some progress, albeit slowly, outside. This is the interesting part of homeownership – it certainly isn’t always glamorous!

Next time we’ll take you inside!

‘Til then…