I might paint my front door pink.

(Let’s pause briefly while that all sinks in…  You ok?  K.  Let’s continue.)

Yes, I’ve lamented for months now that our house is mauve.

And yes, I’ve previously stated that perhaps a muted plum door would tone down the pinkness of the siding on our house while still looking sophisticated and coordinated.

And yes, I’ve even mentioned (several times) how much I’d really really like to repaint our old mauve house and be rid of the pink altogether.

But (this is where my anti-mauve plans go a bit awry), then I noticed this…

See those geraniums slyly photobombing this pic of my front door (and my beloved new house numbers?)  They’re coral.  And they’re pretty.  And see how nice they look against my (much despised) mauve siding?

Dear Mother Nature: you sneaky fox.  You’ve coyly inspired me.  Big pat on the back for you, missy.  Nicely done.  :)

So I might paint my front door a corally-pink.  It’s absolutely mind boggling, I know.

And don’t get me wrong: we’re not talking fuchsia here.  (Random diatribe: FUCHSIA might, in fact, be the oddest-spelled word in the entire English language.  It always takes me at least three or four attempts to type it out correctly.  FUSHIA looks right, but it’s not.  Fuscia could even be correct, but, strangely, is not.  Nope.  Fuchsia is indeed one of those words that makes me yearn to have a stern conversation with the good folk at Miriam-Webster and ask them what the heck they were thinking when they decided to add so many miscellaneous letters to a rather simple, two syllable colour.)

(Thank you for letting me rant.  Carrying on…)

Nope.  We’re talking a corally pink.  Like this (via ByStephanieLynn)…

Or like this cheery door (courtesy of Marty’s Musings)…

Or even this (the top paint chip is Benjamin Moore’s Glamour Pink, and I THINK it could work, although it’s a bit more pink-ish than coral-ly.)

Please ignore the partially painted screen door – that’s a whole other project for a whole other post.  (But I need it to stop raining first.  Once the rain stops, the door will be painted.  Until the rain stops, it’ll stay splotchy.)  (Sorry neighbours!)

So yes.  This is my new plan.  A coral door for my mauve house.  Who would have thunk it, eh?

Mind you, Sweetie and I haven’t discussed this yet.  He might have issues with the words “pink” and “coral”, so I may call it a “muted light reddish-slightly-orange colour.”  Or perhaps even just “geranium,” since I’m doubting he’d know which flower I’m describing.  Sweetie isn’t much of a flower guy.  But give him some rare weird variety of tomato plant and he’s all over that like ants on an apple.  :)

The newest addition to our create curb appeal campaign?  Pretty new house numbers.

I present to you Exhibit A: the old house numbers…

Brassy and rusted and old.  Gross eh?

And, now, the snazzy new mailbox decal numerals (courtesy of etsy seller WelcomingWalls)…

I never imagined that a set of sticky little house number decals affixed to a plain black mailbox could make me so unbelievably happy.

And, just for comparison’s sake, let’s take a look at a couple of rather disturbing before pics, shall we?  Here’s the picture from the original house listing…

…and here’s what the house looked like the day we took possession, with all the previous owners’ stuff strewn all over our newly acquired lawn…

Yep.  We bought THAT house.  We’re rather brave (or foolish?) peeps, Sweetie and me.

And now the after…

See?  Progress.  Slow progress, mind you (we still need to dig out that ugly stump in the front garden and plant some more appropriately sized cedars or boxwoods and – oh! – some flowers in those flowerbeds would look pretty and the shutters and front door could definitely use a lick of paint and that deck would really look far lovelier if it was stained and gee wouldn’t it be awesome if our entire house was re-sided in any colour except for mauve?)

But, still, progress nonetheless.  :)

So I’m looking ahead!  I’m preparing for outdoor projects.  Because I need something to look forward to right now.  Something more beyond carbs and sleep and snuggling in under the blankets.

Sweetie and I already know that we have several projects looming once spring hits.  We need to critter-proof the house (since we’ve discovered that small four-legged furry creatures – the kind that squeak, btw, not the ones who meow – seem to find our house rather, unfortunately, hospitable.)  We need to re-insulate our laundryroom (since our laundryroom water pipes froze last week, but – luckily! – didn’t burst.)  And we have tonnes (tonnes!) of yardwork currently pending (trees that need to be trimmed, gardens that need to be moved, wild flowerbeds that need to be tamed and made far less wild, bushes that need to be relocated…)

But most important to me?  Curb appeal.  Yep.  The old mauve house desperately needs a facelift.  The burgundy shutters make me cringe.  The weather-worn front deck looks neglected.  The big front window is far too dusty rose-coloured.  And the house just looks… tired.

Which is sort of how I feel in the dead of winter, I suppose.

I did a little Pinterest searching and found a bit of spring-project inspiration.  Because we don’t have a lovely grandiose covered front porch (although I’d really like one!), I looked for similar “front deck”-style front porches as I searched through everything.  Unfortunately, most porches (or at least the Pin-worthy ones) appear to be of the covered kind (and, honestly, with good reason!  Who really wants to fumble with the front door locks in the midst of a rainstorm on a non-covered porch?)  But I did find this house, which, despite also sporting a covered front porch, is now my inspiration for this spring’s big “make the house look pretty” project…

Pretty eh?  I sure think so.  The white trim, the dark gray shutters, the white-painted porch rails with the stained (or maybe painted?  I can’t tell) porch floor…  It all looks so lovely.

And if I squint just a little, and look at the house out of the corner of my eye while chewing gum and folding laundry, I might even swear that there’s a touch of mauve in that siding.

Or I may just be getting my hopes up.

Regardless, I’m now feeling super inspired, and I’m rather anxiously looking forward to outdoor painting weather.  Afterall, there are only a measly 41 more days till the first day of spring.

But who’s counting…  :)

And, over the years, he has truly mastered the finer nuances of decorating for Christmas.  Sweetie’s annual holiday house embellishing tradition goes a bit like this:

-wait for the coldest pre-Christmas day of the year

-get all bundled up (a la Randy from A Christmas Story)

-struggle to secure lights to eavestroughs using highly glove-padded fingers

-heroically throw gloves aside and brave frostbite

-with fingers completely numb and unresponsive, valiantly create a masterful spectacle of sparkly Christmas loveliness

-call it a day, stand back, shiver, proudly admire

-pray that sensation returns to fingertips at some point in the near-ish future

-run inside for cocoa

Ah, yes.  Christmas traditions rock.  :)

And in case you’re unfamiliar with A Christmas Story (one of the greatest Christmas movies ever!), watch this:

I heart Christmas.  :)

The porch at my little 1940s house was tricky.  Because the stairs leading up to the porch were to the side of the doorway, and a rail ran continuously across the front of the porch, it was hard to decorate around my front door (since anything I added to the porch ended up sadly obscured by the railing.)

Here, with no door-obscuring rails and with stairs boldly leading straight to the front door, we have smooth front porch decorating sailing.  See?

No obstructions.  Just a lovely view of my soon-to-be-adorned front door.  :)

Admittedly, this front porch decorating thing is a little intimidating to me.  Perhaps it’s the public-ness of my porch (if it looks silly, our new neighbours will all assume that I don’t know my boughs from my baubles and my ribbons from my wreaths.)  Or maybe it’s because I’ve never truly decorated a front porch before for the holidays, so we’re totally venturing into unchartered Christmas waters.  Regardless, desperately hoping for a perfectly pretty porch display, I chatted a bit with my Pinterest folk to gather a few decorating ideas.  Here are my faves…

I love this simple “wreath + sparkly little trees in urns” option from the lovely folk over at The McLife:

And, speaking of pretty urns, I’d love to try creating something like this this year (although I’m a tad evergreenishly-challenged):

(Original source, sadly, is unknown, but the image appears on THIS website compiling a bunch of Christmas decorating ideas.)

And then there are stars!  I love stars!  (Actually, I’m a bit obsessed with stars, which you might remember from THIS post.)  How pretty is this…

Sadly (again) there’s no source for this image.  So dear gorgeous plummy door starry people: please let me know who you are!  I adore your front entrance!

And then lastly, there’s this one (which is part of an Etsy-listing, in fact, for JustTheFrosting‘s shop):

…the perfect, elegant, simple front entrance (with a super smiley little snowman to boot.)  This is my goal.  :)

So all I need now is some evergreeny-sort of stuff.  And a couple of black urns.  And some pretty red bows.  And a big ol’ green wreath.  And maybe a quirky little snowman too.  Sounds easy enough!  I’ll keep you posted.

But, in the meantime, Christmas?  Bring it on.  My soon-to-be-appropriately-adorned front porch will be eagerly waiting.  :)

And then we pulled up on our ill-fated house possession day (aka the day the previous owners would not leave) and (much to my horror) the house looked like this…

But, a couple of days later, thanks to some crazy amazing gardening efforts courtesy of my awesome parents, the house suddenly looked way better, like this…

But, from day one, something didn’t quite look right.  This:

Yep.  The wonky, too large for the space, perpetually crooked, bargain bin exterior light.

So Sweetie swapped that light for a smaller, updated one.

And now our house looks like this…

Which is way better, if you ask me!

Next up?  The house numbers will soon be getting a wee coating of ORB spray paint.  And then (next spring) a new screen door is on the agenda, since our existing door isn’t particularly cat friendly (and it is very very important to keep the kitties happy!)

Until then, I’ll likely continue to squeal and clap my hands excitedly each time I pull into the driveway.  Progress makes me giddy.  :)

Random fact: I was absolutely fascinated by Three’s Company when I was little, but didn’t at all understand it.

Random fact #2: John Ritter rocked. As did Don Knotts. And I fully support Team Chrissy (a Cindy and/or Terri fan I am not.)

Random fact #3: this blog post isn’t really about Three’s Company (although Three’s Company is truly deserving of its own blog post, if you ask me.) Nope. This blog post is about a door that I don’t yet own.

Yup. That’s right. I’ve been humming and hawing (and thinking and winking) (and obsessing and, um, obsessing) for the past month or so over what colour to paint our (not yet ours) front door at the new house.  We won’t officially own this house until the end of September, which means I’ll likely miss front-door-painting season (aka late spring/summer/early fall) entirely this year.  Which sort of makes me sad, but (happily!) also gives me lots of time to obsess over consider all of my options.

Just as a reminder, here is our (soon to be ours!) next happy little home (in all its mauve-hued glory)…

Yep.  That little pink-y-purple-ly house will officially belong to Sweetie and me in a mere 18 more days.  The porch desperately needs staining and painting.  The front yard needs some serious de-bushing (technical term.)  And I guarantee that there will be a whole lot less clutter in the yard (ie: NONE) once we take possession.  So excited!  Can’t wait!

But, come next spring, I’ll also be (rather enthusiastically) tackling the front door situation.  There’s the obvious (and, admittedly, rather elegant-looking) option: black.  Check out this lovely-looking front door from Melissa at 320 Sycamore…

And just look at this one (with its matching black shutters!) from For the Love of a House…

So simple and so pretty, eh?  Black is definitely a very solid option.

However (yep – this is where my indecisiveness kicks in with a big ol’ kerbang) this picture (from Jen at IHeart Organizing) (hi Jen!) makes me wonder if a contrasting bright-ish colour would help detract from the unfortunate mundane mauve-ness of our siding…

Perhaps our house looks exceedingly mauve because the door and shutters are currently painted a deep-pinky red.  Maybe a little happy tealy-blue (one of my most favourite colours, and the colour of our front door at our last little house) (oh how I miss our little 1940s home!) would help hide the mauve?

Or we could simply embrace (and – gasp! – perhaps accentuate) our mauve-ish-ness.  I found this image of a mauve house with lavender shutters and such on an online forum, and (shockingly!) I sorta like it.

It’s a bit country-cute.  Which I’m ok with.  Will Sweetie be ok with it?  I’m not sure.  (Sweetie’s edit: No I am not.) But in the meantime lavender is indeed in the running as a possible door/shutter hue for my big outdoor-painting-extravaganza next spring.  If you can’t beat (the purple colour family) ‘em, join (the purple colour family) ‘em, right?

Maybe.

But my most favourite colour scheme of the bunch (I think) is this one from Vivaciously Vintage…

Love love love the taupe-y trim with the plummy door!  Could this all work on our little mauve-coloured house?  I’m not entirely sure.  But I’d really really like to try!

With only nine-ish more months until front-door painting weather returns in the spring, it’s going to be a rather stressful front-door-decision-making winter, methinks.  So please excuse me while I resume my humming and hawing.  (And my thinking and my winking…)  (And all of that sort of decision enabling kinda stuff.)  There are some very important front door decisions to be made.  :)