…but for us, it’s coming this weekend.

A few months ago, the folks at Home Depot contacted us about taking part in their inaugural Style Challenge: Holiday Edition. The deal was, they were going to mail us a curated selection of Christmas goodies handpicked especially for us by their blog team. The catch was we wouldn’t know what was in the boxes until we opened them, and we’d be assigned what area of the house we are to decorate. For my planning-way-in-a-head-slightly-control-freak-especially-when-it-comes-to-the-house self, this was indeed going to be a challenge. However, it sounded like a fun challenge and the type of project we hadn’t worked on before, so we were game!

We were told to expect a large delivery on our doorstep, including a Home Depot gift card for purchasing any DIY materials or extras for propping the space. Greg and I have until October 29th to complete our challenge assignment and use as many of the mystery products as possible. Last Friday, we got an email letting us know the packages had shipped and we’d be tackling… drumroll… the front yard! Last year, our first Christmas in the house, we didn’t do much Christmas decorating outdoors (aside from a wreath), so we are particularly pumped about this.

In a few weeks, we’ll be sharing our finished project over on Home Depot’s blog, The Apron. But we thought it would be fun to share the process with our own blog family as we went along. After all, we try to share what we’re doing around the house on a week-to-week basis, and this project will definitely be a part of the house happenings over the next few weeks. We checked with the powers that be at Home Depot, and they said it was cool as long as we didn’t share any “after photos” until they were posted on The Apron.

And yes, we hear you. “It’s barely October!” Hopefully this project will spread a little early Christmas cheer and help everyone get geared up for the holidays. After all, they’re going to be here before we know it! I have to say, I’m a little tempted to put out a sign that says, “I promise we’re not crazy! We’re working on a project for Home Depot!” Then again, it might be more fun to leave the neighborhood wondering if we’ve lost our marbles.

Last week, five big boxes were delivered on our doorstep. I think we’re supposed to be getting more more in (not completely sure yet), but when we find out everything we have to work with, we’ll be sure to share the challenge with you all next Friday. Maybe you can help us! This weekend, we’re going to be getting the front yard spruced up (trimming the bushes, getting rid of some weeds, etc), bringing down the Christmas decorations from the attic and playing more than our fair share of Christmas music to get in the holiday mood…. in October. In my book, it’ll be a great way to spend my birthday weekend!

For now, I’ve got to at least share a curveball they’ve already sent our way. Knowing Greg is a big fan of Star Wars, they also sent along a special bonus mystery object…

Yes. When I saw this written on the outside of the box, I literally said to the UPS guy, “No way!” In all honesty, my mind is BOGGLED as to what to do with him. Hopefully with all of the gearing up for Christmas we’re planning to do this weekend, something will come to mind. Fingers crossed!

Before I get into today’s post, I want to tell you about a new little feature Greg added to the blog over the weekend. I personally think it’s pretty awesome, but I don’t know if that’s because I’m code-stupid (and therefore always amazed by Greg’s ninja coding abilities) or if it’s the best thing since sliced bread. Or I’m just biased. So, here’s the deal: If you hover your mouse over a photo in a post, a Pinterest icon will show up in the bottom-right corner. To pin the photo, all you have to do is click the icon. Like this…

Pretty cool, right? We know we’re not the first blog to have added this feature (there are a lot of blogs out there that are way cooler than us), but we hope it will aid your Pinterest addictions and spread more Pinterest love.

Alrighty, back to today’s talk… Last week, in this post, we talked about how we’re planning on sprucing up the front porch. Now that we got rid of the old storm door, we had five things on the to-do list: install a new doorbell button, install a new hanging light fixture, hang a door knocker, install a peephole and buy a new doormat. Over the weekend, we kicked off the to-do list with installing the new doorbell button. Well, Greg did the work, I just stood patiently by with the iPhone taking pictures (my Canon charger hasn’t shown up in the mail yet. Grr!).

He started out by turning off the power to the doorbell. Even if what you’re working with is low-voltage, like a doorbell, it’s better to be safe than sorry. It probably doesn’t give you a jolt but you could accidentally cross some wires and fry the whole system. After it was safe, he removed the old doorbell button to where it looked like this…

Then he attached the wires to the screw terminals on the back of the new doorbell button and screwed them in place…

After that, he just screwed the whole thing into the door molding. Yeah, super easy! Two minutes and ten dollars later, we had a nice, modernized button…

I really like how it coordinates with the door hardware…

Now, time for the door knocker. This was an even easier project, since the new door knocker covered the holes from the one that was hanging on the door before (which the previous owner took with him). All Greg had to do was drill two holes into the door and attach the new door knocker with some dark screws we already had around (the knocker didn’t come with any).

We took one of your suggestions and named him Woodrow (thanks, Dee!).  The details ended up being a tad lighter than I’d imagined, but I don’t mind it. Maybe down the road, if I decide the near-white detail paint is not what I want, we’ll give him a ultra-light coat of some ORB spray paint.

After those changes, the front door is slowly sprucing up little by little…

The real project of the day was supposed to be the installing the new light fixture. When we took it out of the box, the quality was pretty good, but it looked a lot smaller than what I thought it would be. The one we ordered was supposed to be 19” tall, but the one we received was only 13 ¾” tall. Womp, womp.

I was so excited about changing out the light fixture that I tried really, really hard to like it, but truth be told, it was too small. It just didn’t make the statement we were aiming for. Unfortunately, this is where the front door makeover came to a screeching halt. Well, at least until we get the right light fixture in.

As far as the doormat goes, we finally decided to go with the chevron one. We placed the order on Friday, so hopefully it will be coming in later this week or the beginning of next. Fingers crossed.

For now, we’re enjoying Woodrow’s company and trying to make him feel like a part of the family to help him get settled. If you follow us on Instagram, you might have seen that Bentley is beginning to get a tad jealous…

I love this picture because it looks like he’s making a mean face at the door knocker. That, or he’s trying to squint his eyes really hard so he’ll look like a door knocker too. I love our little guy…

While we’re still working on the plans for the back door / carport turned patio area, this week we’re turning our focus on the front door. Way back in the day (almost 2 whole years ago!) we conquered Phase 1 of our curb appeal makeover by painting the shutters and doors and removing a gangly tree from the middle of the yard…

Its due time for Phase 2, don’t you think? As we mentioned last week in this post, we bought two faux topiaries for the front porch. We love the tailored look, but they are really showing up the rest of the porch, so it’s time to get moving on Phase 2.

First on the list: removing the storm door. Since we bought the house, this thing has been a thorn in my flesh. It’s rusty, loud and ugly. At one point, it was red (parts of this original color are showing) but then painted hunter green back in the 80’s (or at least that’s how it looks). It had to go. At first, we were kind of worried about this being a bigger project than DIY newbies such as ourselves could handle because we didn’t know what we’d find under the storm door frame. Greg was pretty certain it was attached to bare wood, and we were concerned it may have been rotted. So every time we talked about doing this project, the idea of having to get new trim and possibly re-framing the outside part of the doorway made us pause. However, there was only one way to find out…

First of all, sorry for the nasty iPhone photos. Forgetful me lost my “big camera” charger and had to order a new one. Thankfully, it will be delivered tomorrow. Okay, back to what I was saying… Greg got up one morning and found the courage to start taking the frame of the storm door apart to see what was back there. No harm in looking, right? As it turns out, the storm door was just attached on top of the molding around the doorway. There were just a few screws holding the trim on, and about 10 more holding up the door. So he decided to give it a go and ten minutes later the door was off, there was no rotted wood and the front porch was already looking better. All of that and Greg was still in his pajamas, ha!

The only problem was that there were several unsightly holes left behind from the screws that kept the storm door in place. After a bit of Googling (a DIY newbie’s BFF) Greg ran to the hardware store and got a tube of natural wood filler. He filled the holes, scraped the surface for a even finish and let it sit for a few minutes. Lucky for us, the filler ended up being an almost perfect match to the almond paint on the trim. That’s when we got all excited and  patted ourselves on the backs. Yeah, Greg did all of the work but I got a pat for moral support. The color isn’t a perfect match, well, not perfect enough for my slightly OCD self, but it will do until we get around to painting the door trim to freshen things up.

And here it is…

Pretty easy peasy, right? All of that fuss over nothing. I guess you can say this taught us a lesson for future DIY projects. In the words of Nike, just do it. With small projects like this, there’s really not much to lose.

Now that the storm door is out of the way, we’re able to get a better visual of what we want to do next. With this new perspective, we’ve started shopping around for other porch-related upgrades. On our list of things to upgrade are the overhead lighting, the doorbell button and a spiffy new doormat. As for the list of things to add: a door knocker and a peep hole.

The planters (which we spruced up here) and door hardware are ORB (oil-rubbed bronze). I’m usually a fan of mixing finishes, but since this “space” is tight, we’re going to stick with ORB for everything. This, with the red door, black/brown shutters and leafy green topiaries… ah, yeah. Our kind of front door… finally!

So, here’s what we’re thinking…

Lighting – Greg and I both really like this light (from Wayfair) because it’s lantern-ish but not too expected. The curved glass panels on the top will help cast light towards the ceiling of the porch, not just the ground. Coming in at just $42 plus a 10% off coupon code, it’s a great deal! I clicked the “Buy” button on it last night, and we can’t wait for it to be delivered.
Door Knocker - I’ve been in LOVE with this Woodpecker door knocker from Anthropologie for what seems like forever. It’s quirky, fun and the oil-rubbed bronze finish will tie in with everything nicely nicely. I seriously can’t wait to get this little guy on our door! He needs a name… 
Doorbell – For the doorbell button, we went back and forth between the one pictured and a more detailed one (here). We ultimately decided to go with the one on the mini mood board because it was simpler, and we didn’t want it to take away from the freaking awesome Woodpecker doorknocker.

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As for the doormat, we want to go with something modern and graphic so the whole set up doesn’t look too traditional. These are the ones on our short list. I like the two on the left and Greg likes the two on the bottom and we’re both “ehh” for the one on the top right. Which one do you think will look the best? We can’t decide!

These improvements are what we’ll be up to this weekend. Once this is done, then we’re gearing our focus back on the carport-turned-patio. After all, amazingly awesome fall weather is just around the corner!

PS Check back here later today for a bonus post!