One Room Challenge // Exterior Week 4

Hey friends! It's ORC Week 4...I'm past the half way point (time-wise, not work-wise) on a curb-appeal project updating the exterior of our house on a budget of $5000. If you haven't been here before, you can visit the before tour (eeewwww), the plan (mmmmm), and the new garage door (aaaaaahhhh) to catch up.

It's hard to describe how I'm feeling at this moment. I am equal parts World's Most Exhausted Woman, and World's Most Pampered and Relaxed Woman. Lately, I've been hustling on my to-do list. I'm in a season that's busy in a good way, and we were making great progress on this makeover. Great rhythm. So naturally, we hit the pause button and stole away to a resort in San Diego for 8 days.

He was all like, "It's cold here, let's leave..."

So for the last week, instead of crossing off the endless tasks swirling in my head, I spent the vast majority of my waking hours here:

It was like the world's BEST prison. We were trucking when we left, and couldn't wait to get home and keep going. And then we got home and were like, "Why did we leave the beach again? Everything is dead here. I need another nap." PSA: October is not a good time (mentally) to vacation.

See how hard it is to recover from that?! Alright. Head back in the game. Here is where we are at in our ORC progress.

The new shutters arrived! All we have done is take them out of the box and hold them up to make sure they fit (whew!) so I can't really count that as "progress," but it does make you feel better to have them safe in the garage and out of the whims of the postal system.

Other arrivals during our trip were the exterior lights (love them) and a few pretty things for the porch. ;)

We decided to DIY our planter boxes, and they are a giant pain in the rear, but will be so worth the savings. (Says the woman who doesn't have to spend her Sunday afternoon cutting 88 planks of wood).

Hey, I'm helping a little bit with the gluing. That counts.

My biggest set-back so far, if only mentally, is that everything is nearly dead here now. When I left it was the high glory of fall, and now it's cold, rainy, grey, cold, brown, and gross. I went to the nursery, hoping to procure something lovely for our new planters and beds, something like this:

And it all just looks like this:

I managed to pluck the last few remnants of color from their selection, and I hope I'll have something alive to show off how beautiful these planters are going to be. It's not looking good so far.

Is it odd to anyone else that I live in a place where only cabbage can survive this time of year? What is that? When I got these home and set them in the planter box, they looked like a very weird British hat. Ugh! Where is my mom when I need her? I am terrible at plants.

The only other news I have is that I've been slightly freaking out about the front door. It is still on track to arrive at Home Depot on Friday the 30th (that's tomorrow, for my fellow people who "aren't good with the calendar.") Having never purchased a front door before, I don't know how long it takes for an installer to call you or how soon I can get it in. I was also freaking out because my door knobs from Rejuvenation hadn't shipped yet, because you can't really install a door without knobs, right? (Thankfully they are now on their way). The biggest problem, though, is that my heart has set itself on something called Hollandlac Brilliant.

It's a specialty marine-grade ULTRA high gloss lacquer from Europe and the most glorious of all paints. The paint to end all paints. I came across it in one of my fellow ORCer's blog post (bless you sweet!) and it's EXACTLY the finish I have dreamed of. It's just like that iconic Door No. 10.

What's the problem you ask? Heh, well, apparently no human can apply it. It has to be magically wished upon your door by a wounded unicorn youth. Seriously, I can't even begin to comprehend the instructions, so, OK, not a DIY. Also, it is some sort of hyper toxic blend of oil paint and finely ground particles, so you're supposed to have a wet floor in the painting area to act as a magnet for the paint fumes. WHA?! I mean, I get it, it's indestructible and they paint the sides of SHIPS with it and it's the PRETTIEST THING EVER, but let's just say I'm wildly intimidated.

I texted the link to my painter today and said, "Hi! Hope you are well. Are you able/ willing to work with this stuff?" (Code for "Hi! How about I pay you and you risk your life and well-being and sanity while we all leave the premises, so that I can have a very pretty front door? Would that be cool?") I haven't heard back yet.

Ryan, my super handy husband, was able to discipher the instructions somewhat, and thinks it could easily be a 5-day painting process. Again, for those of us who don't know how to work the calendar, that means it will be really tight-- even if I CAN coordinate all those moving parts-- to get it done in time for the November 12th end of this challenge.

And that's the progress summary! Be sure to visit the other crazies in this One Room Challenge with me and see how their own personal crises are evolving. :) Until next week!