Fall is undoubtedly my favorite time of year. But the impending months of cold and rain lit a fire under my butt to get outside and finish up some projects.
First up, I painted our previously white door black. Behold the transformation!
***Note that the house is being painted grey soon, so ignore the tan siding.
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| Before |
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| After |
Next up was probably the most exhausting and horrifically tedious project of my life: the garage door. Just typing those words is upsetting to me. So this door is aluminum, and whoever painted it originally did a piss poor job, because the paint was chipping everywhere. We knew we'd have to get all loose paint off of this thing, prime it, then repaint it. Here's the deal... It peeled like crazy, but was surprisingly difficult to strip. After maybe 12 total hours of me scraping at this thing with a metal edge, we thought to try a power washer. Prepping involved hanging a tarp around the door on the inside of the garage like so:
Nevertheless, lots of water still made it in. No big deal though. Thankfully, the day we power washed was almost 80 degrees... a strangely Summer-y Fall day, which normally I hate but not when soaking wet. The washing took a few hours, but was pretty effective. It removed about 85% of the paint, good enough. A few days later I primed with a rust-inhibiting paint, then painted a few days later.
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| Action shot of power-washing. Drenching wet underwear/shirt/shorts and paint chips covering every square inch of skin not pictured. |
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| Primed... |
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| And painted! |
It needs one more coat of paint, and soon we'll be adding faux strap hinges to give it that carraige door look.
***Also, you can see paint samples in the last pic. Those are our grey samples for the house. We're going with the top grey, in case you're curious. But more on that in the coming months...
The back-breakingest part of this update was when I tackled the front flower beds. They were utter messes. Crappy dirt, tons of weeds. But no longer! In the weeks prior, I have moved old plants to their new homes around our yard, weeded, edged, pruned. Two weeks ago I finally laid weed cover and mulch!
***Future plans include adding decorative edging, transplanting the canna (left side) and roses (right side) elsewhere, and replace them with 2 rhododendrons on each side with annual flowers up front.
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| Left side before. |
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| Right side halfway done. Cardboard was laid and soaked to help kill existing grass, then I laid weed cover. |
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| Right side with weed cover finished. |
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| Garage walkway flower bed before. |
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| Left side after. There's those paint samples again! |
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| Right side after. |
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| Garage walkway after. Spring bulbs (crocus and daffodils) are also planted here. |
Next up: Painting the house grey, installing the black shutters we ordered months ago, installing the strap hinges on the garage door, and more flower bed work.
I hope everyone had a lovely Halloween! Love, Coach Taylor and Tami Taylor.
