New Front Door

 One of the first things I wanted to change when we moved to this house, (besides everything) 😉 was the front door. It's your typical 6 panel steel door, but we learned the hard way with the back door into the laundry room that these doors were not a "standard" size, and the bore holes were different. Wah, wah. 😓

The most offensive part about the existing door was that the frame was installed wrong (not the door's fault) but the fit was not very tight and so there were gaps on the top, bottom and sides. Not very useful for trying to keep hot or cold air out. Cary has tried over time to fix the frame as much as he can, and fill in the gaps with weather stripping,.

I researched around and it became apparent that it would have to go the custom route (semi-custom at best) and I we put that in the "not gonna happen for a few years" pile. 

Last summer I was searching on KSL classifieds looking for a door for our office, and I happened upon a door that I thought would be perfect for our front door. Cary happened to be in Layton, so I asked him if he would stop by and check it out. Long story short, he came home with the door.

It is a wood door, so we are taking our chances, especially with our front door being on the west side of the house. In this case though, wood was perfect because this door was just an unfinished slab so we could cut it down to the size we needed and also router in our own holes for hinges, door knob, and lockset. 

The only pictures I could find of the front door (March 2014)

a close up of the threshold area. (don't mind the cute kid and cat)💖

The front door from the inside (November 2013)

November 2013

November 2016, right after we finished the office

The door is in the top right of this photo. We picked it up in August, but waited until we were done with the office before doing any work on it before staining, sealing, and routing holes. I debated leaving it it's original color, but thought going a more walnut brown with the outside of our house would look better. I did leave the side in the house slightly lighter than the outside side.

After install, but no trim up 

I like the little bit of extra light it lets in.

We're pretty happy with it so far. Cary also replaced the rusting out aluminum that was under the threshold and put some Trex type material there.

We even got a door knocker for practical reasons and for fun. 😁

House Project: Office

I love looking back at pictures and realizing how much I move stuff around until I really decide what I like...

As hard as it is to be patient, I'm now a big believer in living in a space and figuring out what works and what doesn't work before starting any work. When we first moved into this house, the plan was just to leave this as the office/ guest room. (or storage crap room in our case) 😁

It didn't take too long to figure out that this wasn't working so well. 

Stuff was moved around, but the general idea is that one side was where Cary worked, and the rest of the room looked like a bomb exploded. With kids needing to practice piano, 3 kids doing homework, me having a secretary job, etc... this space was not working for us, at all.

Different crap, different day. 😋

Anyway, so we've known for awhile that this side of the house needed to rejigged, it was just a matter of fitting it in the timeline.

Back at the end of July, here was Cary marking out where our new office doorway was going to be.

The new doorway was right in what was the existing closet.

Doorway, and new wall.

The new wall almost cut this room right in half.

Cary cutting out the new doorway from the living room.

I like to put up paint chips for weeks to get an idea of what color/shade I want...and I decided I would be brave and go with a navy.

I had narrowed it down to 3 different shades of navy

I was freaking out about the dark walls at this point. 😁 Not in a good way, in a I just want to paint them white, way.

But then we started on the window seat, 

(Staining office door and soon to be desktops)

and added some cabinets, trim, etc...then I started to love the color again.

All the 💖😍 for my light fixture.

The original plan did not include the cabinets above the cork board, but that's why I have Kenneth around...to come over tell me what I've missed. 😉

We took the closet doors that were in this room originally and cut them down and stained them for our desktops,

On one side of the window bench seat is a desk for me/homework/Clara, etc...

Cary has his same desk, but we did shave 5 inches off the back, and we added a keyboard tray awhile back.

the other desk holds the piano.

We installed a file holder (a very sturdy one 😏) on the wall to hold the laptops for when the desk needs to be cleared off for homework.

We installed another one by the piano for all the kids music.

We added a pull out shelf to put the printer on, so that it can just slide out for when you need to scan or make copies.

I would say that the bench seat is my favorite part, but everything in this room is my favorite. I love everything in here. 😊

It's been really nice having this space done!

We started the end of July, and it took us until November, so it took awhile because there were a lot of complicated things in this room, but it's been so worth it.