a winner and a door reveal

Happy Valentine's Day!  While Mia is cuddled up with her man in bed all day, I will be taking care of two little boys, sick with the flu.  It's a good thing I love them so!

  The winner of our February Giveaway 

 

goes to our biggest blog fan......

 

Entry #53, Mommy!

 Can you believe this?  Mommy is my very own mom!  She is one of the people I love the most on this planet, and today is Valentine's Day!  I was so shocked that she won, to prove it wasn't rigged, I called Andrew upstairs as my witness.  This is the first time she has been able to figure out how to enter one of our giveaways (we have been blogging for 18 months), so I think it was totally meant to be.  Congratulations Mommy!  I'm so happy you won, but I'm even happier that you are my mom. I'm excited to help you find the perfect place in your house to hang the sign.  Love you!


Remember close to a year ago when there was a major {transformation} on the outside of my front door?  Maybe you haven't been with us that long......if that's the case, let me just show you.  This is what used to welcome me home every time I pulled into the driveway.  It's a wonder I ever came home.

It made my stomach turn every single day.  So, with the help of some moulding, paint, numbers, flowers, and a brother, I turned it into something a little more appealing.

Sadly, what has been staring at me from the inside of the house for the past two years is just as appalling as what the outside used to look like!  A faux oak stained door, orange-ish shellacked trim, and cream colored honeycomb blinds.  I have averted my eyes every time I have walked by it since the day we moved in.

While Jeff was here revamping the outside of the entry, I very sweetly asked him if he wouldn't mind adding some new moulding around the door inside, as well as a nice bulky header on top to give it a little more of a statement.  I was sure to wait until after I served him his favorite dessert to ask, and then he had no choice.  All 4 of my brothers are really handy and helpful.  I'm lucky.

And that is how it stayed for almost a year.  It really looked awful because it was so unfinished.  I just didn't know what to do with those sidelights.....  I hated the blinds with a passion, however we needed some privacy, as well as some protection from the sun during the hot summer months. But I still wanted plenty of light.  I know, I was asking a lot.

I finally came up with the idea to add some wood panels in the bottom sections. My super-smart woodworking friend Melanie and I headed over to Stardust Building Supply in Mesa to see what we could come up with.  After searching the store and mulling over our options, we finally decided to get this solid wood door that very closely mimicked the panel design on my front door at home. 

Stardust is a DIY girl's (or boy's) dream store.  It is packed full of cabinets, light fixtures, doors, windows, mouldings, and all sorts of other stuff that girls like us want and need. The prices are really reasonable because it's all donated.  Kind of like the Goodwill of building supplies.  If you live in Arizona, look them up!  They have a store in Mesa, and another in Phoenix.  Lucky for us, when we got the door home we knew it was going to be perfect.  At long last, things were starting to look up for me.

Now for the pesky top windows.   I had a couple of decent ideas, but when I saw what smarty-pants Ashley from {7thhouseontheleft} did with one roll of contact paper, my sleepless nights were over.

She put up a great {tutorial} on how she cut a pattern out and applied it to her glass door.  I knew this was the perfect job for G, and she was on her way over with my other gal pals the very next week for a day of helping at my house.

Melanie got right to work on adding the wood panels.  She's a perfectionist, and I knew they were going to be just right.

G also got right after her task of covering the top sidelights with contact paper cut-outs from the pattern I chose.  She kept referring to Ashley's informative tutorial, but found that wearing a pair of surgical gloves when peeling the contact paper up was super helpful because it eliminated the fingerprints she kept seeing once she applied the pattern on the glass.  So keep this little tip in mind if you are ready to splurge on a roll of contact paper ($5) and try this super awesome technique on a window at your house.

By the end of the day, I was pretty much ready to caulk everything really well, prime and paint.  I painted the door a color I mixed up myself from three leftover paints I already had, and painted all the trim out in a white semi-gloss.  And here she is, all ready for her "after" pictures.

It's like being in a whole new house every time I pass by the front door now.  It's really quite thrilling! 

Just in case you were wondering what Mia and the other girls were up to that blessed day, a couple more reveals are well on the way!