Staining the Fence!

My wonderful brother came up from Austin and stained my entire fence for me!

Before:
Very weathered, gray old looking wood.  I have always hated the fence but I didn't know how easy it would be to fix!

After:
The grass doesn't look as good right now, but the fence looks fabulous!  We pressure washed the fence then used semi-transparent deck stain from Sherwin Williams and sprayed it on with a paint sprayer (also from Sherwin Williams).  The total cost was only about $250 ($90 to have it pressure washed by a guy from Craigslist and $160 for 5 gallons of stain) plus the cost of the sprayer, but hopefully we can use that again ($40).  The color is called Riverwood, and it's a little more orange than I was hoping for.  I think stains are supposed to start fading after a few years... if we still live here I'm going to go for a darker chocolate brown next time.

Tubular Skylights

My wonderful husband installed two 10-inch tubular skylights in our previously dark master closet.  I am absolutely in love with the results.  We were planning on only installing one, but it seemed almost like a spotlight in the back of our closet.  After adding a second one to the front of the closet, the room looks just as it would with the light on.  In fact when I walk by it, I keep thinking I need to turn off the light!  The first one took almost 6 hours to install, but the second one (a week later) took about 3.

They were $153 each at Home Depot and I think the results are worth WAY more than that.  Hopefully it adds some value to our house!!!  The brand we went with is ODL but I know there are a couple of other main brands out there - Velux and Solatube I think.

Yay for free natural light!!!

Guest Bath Cabinets

Before:

 After removing cabinet door and painting white semi-gloss:

While I guess we're technically getting rid of storage space, which sounds like a downgrade... I think there's enough storage in the drawers and cabinets under the sink that these weren't really necessary for storage anyway.  Plus, with the ugly mesh cabinet doors it wouldn't have been practical to use these for storing toiletries anyway.  So now they are for decoration only, but I think it's an overall improvement!

How would my house look in gray?

I do love my house, but it probably has the ugliest exterior in the neighborhood!  Would it look nicer with a charcoal roof and gray paint?  Maybe with a red front door and red lawn chairs to give it some color?  The house across the street has a gray roof, light gray paint, and navy accents, and it looks fabulous!

It's the little things...

Sometimes the smallest changes are the best!  When we moved in, although the air conditioner worked just fine, it was a pain having to adjust it several times a day.  Dan and I both like it to be really cold at night, but it is just not worth it keeping it that cool all day when we are at work... and I am way too forgetful to remember to reset it when I leave the house.  So, Dan upgraded me to a Filtrete 7-day programmable touchscreen thermostat a couple of weeks ago and I am LOVING it so far!

More importantly, when we moved in, ALL of our outlets only had 2 prongs!  We had to have an electrician go under the house and run a ground wire to every single outlet.  You'd be surprised at how many of your own gadgets wouldn't work with a 2-prong outlet.  Didn't they stop using that kind of plug in like the 70s?  Well, it's definitely something most people take for granted, but I am very thankful for my white (not ivory) 3-prong outlets now!

 

Storm Door or Naked Door?

Is there really a point to having a storm door?  Let's vote... yay or nay???