Halloween 2011, A Bit Behind

One of the first things I needed to do before I moved into my little cottage was to replace the front door. This was something I felt must be done immediately! Life had other plans, though, and I'm unfortunately still using the door that's definitely seen better days. While it's still structurally sound, it's a definitely eyesore with years of weathering without protection and well basically it wasn't taken care of - inside or out!

I had a friend of mine who does some construction work look at it a few months ago. He said he would put that on a list in the back of my mind and keep looking for a door to replace it. It's not a standard size door so running to Lowe's would not immediately fix it unless the trim around the current door would be cut (it's a metal siding) and the entire thing would be a very involved project. Mind you, it's not that I'm afraid of a big project or else I'd never have taken on this house at all lol but I do want to try to preserve the cottage feel of the house. While the current door doesn't lend anything to that, I don't want to continue that theme either. So, I worked on both the storm and exterior doors to make them look as good as possible until something else can be done.

Obviously, I'm very very behind on getting posts on my blog and I'm actually currently posting October happenings. I did take a photo of the door when I had put my Halloween wreath up. After cleaning, painting, repairing and replacing the old house numbers, here's what it looks like now (minus the Halloween wreath of course lol):

A peek back at what it used to look like on the day I got the house:

A friend brought some hay bales over from his farm for my front yard display. I already had a few things to use with it, though this year I'm hoping for a larger and more fun one. You can see more of the bottom area of the porch in this photo:

I see that doing this blog helps me see how far I have come. I'm one person trying to do so many things and often it feels like I'm getting nowhere. Then I come here and write my post and actually see my progress. This truly makes it feel worth it!