Ittybittybungalow

Guess what! The porch is not pink anymore! Three coats of paint later all the pink is now white to match the rest of the house. I did decide to do the trim in a contrasting color to draw some attention to the windows. It’s a Behr color called Paramount. Its pretty much charcoal grey. You can see that I did paint the trim of the attic window to match but I have not had a chance to get to the living room windows beside the porch. I’m very happy with the color choice for now. In the future I still plan on removing all the aluminum siding and painting the wooden clapboards.

Here is a before picture of the porch:

 Here is an in progress picture:

Here is another before:

…and an in progress:

Later this week I’ll have to paint the floor and ceiling, swap out the light fixture and replace the outdoor plug to a three prong outlet (something I am now an expert at), but I think that it looks great. Here is a look at the whole house:

This weekend I installed a screen on the front door. Everything is fine now, but the process was anything but smooth. I knew the door was going to be a little wider then the opening so I went to Harbor Freight and bought a wood plane for $12.oo. I couldn’t get it to work. The jury is still out on if it was a crummy planer or if I just didn’t know how to use it correctly. That said, I went to Home Depot, which is sort fo becoming a little like Cheers at this point (now that I am there like every other day) and I bought one from there and it worked a million times better, although it was $30.00.  Harbor Freight this is strike three for you, I  think our relationship is over. For instance the drill and the sander I bought from you. The drill is weak and the bits keep stripping and the sander had an odd sized pad and wastes tons of sandpaper. Boo. I did not paint or stain the door yet because I’m going to be painting the house this summer and I am not sure what color. Until then I will leave the screen as is.

I also put together the bench that my mom gave me as a housewarming gift. At first I told her I didn’t like it but, then I found out how much the benches I like cost and figured that this will be just fine for now. It is very close to what I wanted anyway. The only real issue I have with it is that the seat is too shallow and is uncomfortable to sit in for a long period, but all in all it looks good and will work for now. So, Mom if you are reading this, you win.

The coffee table in front came off the curb and so did the white rocker in the right hand corner. It’s all fine for now but, I’d really like a longer deeper bench like the one I have now but with cushions and a rocker to match with lower, wider coffee table. I know the rocker I like is at Lowe’s but its outside the current budget and the benches I like are online, yet also over budget. I’m really holding out and putting a lot of faith in Craigslist at this point. My patience with it has always seemed to pay off so I’ll hold tight for now.

This was the path to nowhere. It went from the front steps of IBB to the middle of the lawn and then that was it. There you were in the middle of the lawn, with no place else to go. I guess there used to be a sidewalk along the street  but it had since been removed leaving a sidewalk which abruptly stopped. So today I began to remove the sidewalk and was left with this:

I wasn’t really sure what to do with all that. I knew I couldn’t put in at the curb and I knew I didn’t have a truck and I doubted anybody else would want it. None-the-less I posted it on the free section in Craigslist and of course nobody replied. I thought I’d throw a little bit out each day and then realized I’d be throwing it out until next summer. That’s when I decided to do this:

They look just like stones don’t they? I don’t know if I’ll keep them forever but I think they are a good solution for now.

genius!

Ugh. Got a speeding ticket on the way home from Easter. Not too happy about it. I don’t really have anything to say. I guess I was speeding. 49 in a 30.  But it was one of those 30 mph areas that don’t seem like they should be 30 mph. I didn’t realize I was going so fast and I thought it was 40 mph.Whatever.

I was not a happy camper about the ticket so I decided to work around the house which resulted in this:

and this:

Moral of the story: not a good day to be  to be a bush, a shovel or a speeder.