Cheap & Cheery House Reno

There are two things that could make me fall in love with a house, cedar shakes and the colour yellow. I will often see a house and say to my husband, "Oh, look how nice that house is." His normal response is, "Of course you like it, its yellow." or "Does it have anything to do with the cedar shakes?"

He has me all figured out! But it does beg the question, if I really love yellow houses, then why have I been living in a beige house for nearly twenty years?

So this week I painted my house yellow!! Our home is mostly brick (tan coloured), but the front where our verandah is, has vertical wood siding and for the past two decades it’s been painted various shades of beige. Now it is the cheeriest yellow and I LOVE it! The colour is Martha Stewart "Cornbread". It is perfect.

Not only did I paint all the wood yellow, I repainted all of the white trim (windows and verandah), painted a new number plaque, repainted my mailbox, removed the old (red) shutters and instead added a decorative wood trim along the bottom of the windows, installed a new light over the door way (actually my husband did that installation), installed a new thermometer (I dropped and broke the old while removing it) I spray painted my old aluminum storm doors white, and repainted my front door white. In addition I recovered all of the cushions on the wicker furniture to co-ordinate with the new house colour.

I love the look! And I love the cost, a mere $100! Here's how I did it.

4 litres of white paint                    $32

4 litres of yellow paint                  $32
minus mail-in rebate on 2nd can $32
wood trim for windows                $18
light fixture                                   $18
replacement thermometer              $ 6
spray paint for aluminum doors    $26

Total cost before taxes $100.

 I reupholstered with fabric that I had on hand.

 Here are some photos:

number plaque in progress

While I was working on the mail box I did a lot of potential sketches. I was scavenging through my art supply drawers looking for an eraser and found some small plastic farm animals. I sat them on the mailbox and they made me smile. Oh that is just too silly. I put them away. But I found myself going back to the farm animal idea; maybe it is just silly enough.

There's already plenty of boring and predictable in the world, so why not do something silly if it makes you smile? I don't suggest doing something big and silly that might anger the neighbours and bring down the value of all the homes on your street. But having a little fun with your mail box won't bother anyone and it might give the letter carrier a daily smile too.

mailbox with plastic farm animals

What I love about the work I did this week is that I was able to give our home a fresh new look without changing my doors or windows or tearing off the old (perfectly good) siding and replacing it. A lot of people in my neighbourhood have traded in wooden front doors and their screen door for new steel doors. Don't they miss their screen doors? There's something so wonderful and summery about having the wooden door open and the screen door letting in the breeze and the sounds and when people come to the door they don't feel they need to ring the bell, they can just call out, "Hello!".

We tend to do that don't we? I mean, we tend to think we ought to upgrade, even when the "improvement" means we have to sacrifice some of the things we love in order to have the new item.

Those marketing and advertising types are so clever!

For now at least, I may have outsmarted them. You see, I think that if the home renovation advertising executives come knocking on my (screen) door, they will take one look at those farm animals on the mailbox and assume, "These people are not buying what we're selling." .....  And they'd be correct!

Thank you for taking the time to visit My Turquoise Kettle Life today.

Have cheap and cheery day,

Sandra