A Grand Entrance

We haven’t been doing much house hunting lately (yep, we’re moving soon-ish, in case you missed it) because we’re still spending every free minute finishing up some big projects at our current house. But there has been a little bit making this post possible.  This next house I’m about to show you, we didn’t really even physically see at all.  It was on our list of houses-to-see but was already under contract when we found it so we were just keeping an eye on it in case that contract fell through.
I loved it based on what I saw on the inside in pictures – good-sized bedrooms, a big kitchen, a big entry way, a double car garage, and ugly as heck.  Every single room had wallpaper.  The fixtures and cabinets were all dated and the curb appeal was non-existent.  But, unless a home inspection proved otherwise, it looked like any updates that needed to be made were just cosmetic and therefore, DIYable and fairly inexpensive.

Its only downfall was the small backyard.  It was on a corner lot and the so the attached garage extended into one corner of the backyard leaving a small corner of grass (maybe a 15’ x 15’ space in) the back far corner.  I was almost willing to overlook that though just because I loved the house so much. 

My favorite part about the whole house was the shape.  I loved the big porch in the front that jutted out with the two mirror-image sides set a little farther back.  The house was screaming for a paint job (orange and maroon anybody?) and I think I would’ve went creamy white with either a black or charcoal gray front doors and matching shutters.  And then, what would quickly become my favorite part of this whole “dream” house, would be the chippendale porch railings that we would attempt to DIY.  (I’d keep the double doors but I couldn’t find a picture I could squeeze in for a visual that had doubles so, even though the above front door is beautiful, those double doors I heart even more.)
I’m determined to get those railings on any house we buy so stay tuned on that.  (There’s a detailed tutorial here and a simpler one here if anyone is interested.)  They’re gorgeous, no?  I’m not certain that we’d paint the brick sides but it was fun to do a mock-up to see what it would look like with different options.  The above picture shows the brick unpainted and here’s what a white-wash or smear might look like (though a little more roughed-up in real life):

And then of course, here’s what painted brick would look like:
I can’t decide what I like best.  What would be your vote?  Either way, we wouldn’t stop there.  If the roof needed to be replaced (which it hopefully wouldn’t because $$$$), I’d maybe try a metal roof on for size though I can’t decide what color we’d go with for that either.  I know it’d would highly depend on whether the front doors and shutters were gray or black but for simplicity’s sake, they’re black with these options:

Light gray?

Medium gray?

Charcoal?
Which would you choose?  Or maybe you’re not a metal roof person which is cool too.  :)  I sway between the light and medium grays.

HOWEVER, these are all only thoughts and dreams because the contract on this house did go down iron-clad apparently and it is now in the hands of it’s new (very lucky) owners.  But you might be happy to know, as was I, that there is currently a big ‘ole swatch of white test paint flanking the doorway that I noticed when we drove by the other day.  I’m so happy it’s getting the pretty paint color it deserves and I’m excited to see where the new owners end up going with it! 

More house hunting later!  Happy Thursday!