Well, the weather here in Central Texas has put a damper on my plans. I started work much earlier than usual yesterday, determined to get all of these final little tasks done so I can spend the afternoon prepping the cedar porch boards for staining. I still had to apply the wood filler to the screw holes and then give the entire porch another quick sanding before the first coat of pine tar/linseed oil could be applied. I had high hopes that I would apply the first coat either last night or today.
The weather had other plans for me. When I went in for lunch it was started to rain. My plans were ruined. And it didn’t just delay me by a day. It’s cloudy and it looks like it will rain again today. And rain is forecast for the rest of the week. Here’s the bad news. I can’t just jump in and stain the porch the first sunny day we have. It needs to be sunny, dry, and hot for a few days to allow the cedar boards (which have already been sanded and soak up rainwater) to dry thoroughly before the stain continues. As of this writing, the final project to renovate my porch has been delayed indefinitely. To say I’m disappointed would be a huge understatement. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to finish the very last project to renovate my porch and have it delayed indefinitely because of the weather – weather that is very untypical for Central Texas in July.
But obviously I have no control over it, so I just have to go along with it. Yesterday afternoon the sun came out again and even though everything was soaked, I was still determined to get there something Completed. So I decided to tackle a project that has been on my list for a long time.
When we originally had the new siding installed on our house and then had the house painted, all of the vertical trim boards at the corners were painted white. But since our house isn’t all siding, it’s very wide, and half the house is made of stone, these vertical trim boards painted white seemed really strange to me. I painted the vertical trim on the porch the house color – Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray – very early on, and then when we finished and painted the carport, I had them paint the vertical cornice on the back gray instead of white. And when I had my workshop built, they wanted to paint those vertical corner pieces white, but I insisted on gray instead to match the house.
That left these two vertical corner trim pieces at the front of my studio that were still white. They were literally the only white people in the house and they looked so out of place. Painting this neat gray has been on my to-do list for years.
After the rain stopped yesterday, I decided to finally cross this project off my list. I think it looks much better in gray.
Of course, it will look even better when I finally get those window planter boxes built and installed under the windows (another project that’s been on my list for a long time) and take care of the landscaping around the studio. I really hope I can complete these projects in the fall. But for now, at least this corner trim isn’t fighting for attention in bright white.
Once I was done, I turned my attention to the outside door of the bedroom. We had this door installed during our bedroom remodel because I wanted a door in our bedroom for my own safety so I could get out quickly and easily in an emergency. If it was just me in the house, a window would have been fine. But there is no way for me to get Matt out of the house through a window, so I can rest better with a door in the room, but the only way was to put the door at the front of the house. I really love the look of the door from our bedroom.
But from the outside it’s chaos. To attach the frame for the door, they had to cut through the stone, and then their only option was to decorate the door with Hardi panel. I started painting before I started working on the porch, but then for some reason I stopped (probably the weather) and didn’t get back to it until yesterday, so this is what it looks like now.
Obviously we still need steps. This is another project on my list and I plan to do it in the fall as well. Right after the door was installed, I had ChatGPT make a few models for me of what this door might look like. One of them contained shutters on the door. I liked this option because it obscured the trim. And until yesterday, that was the direction I was going with that door.
But I went back and forth in my head about the idea of ​​the clasp. I like that this transfers the blue color of the shutters to this part of the house. I also like that it makes the door blend in with the windows and doesn’t look like a front door. I plan on keeping this door white instead of painting it the pink color I have on the front door and studio door. I don’t want this door to draw too much attention in the front elevation of our house.
In this sense, I also really like this ChatGPT model. It’s simpler and less attention-grabbing. And with a few flower pots I can still bring the blue to this end of the house.
But you can see the problem. Look how nice the stone looks around the door on this model compared to what I have to work with. I just can’t get past the wide Hardi trim around the door. Honestly, I hate it. And while I know I could just paint it gray and move on, I also know that I will never be satisfied with that.
I want the door to look like this…
I just created this quick mockup using my photo editing software to show the difference between what I have now and what would look with stone instead of the Hardi trim. Look how much cleaner, nicer and more intentional it looks!
And now that I’ve seen it, I won’t be satisfied until that door looks like this. So I came up with a plan, went to Home Depot to buy everything I needed for this, and started it last night. This will be another concrete faux stone DIY project, but this time no silicone molds or anything like that are required. If my plan works, it will be a much easier (and much quicker) project than my porch baseboard. I’ll share the details once I’ve made progress. And who knows? It might end up being a complete DIY failure and I might just have to put the Hardi trim back on and live with it. But I won’t be satisfied until I’ve at least tried out my plan. So stay tuned to know more details about it!
