Old and New

Usually, we get the bulk of our house projects done over the summer but this year, we had a very productive winter.  We had our long-suffering kitchen ceiling redone, finally banishing the cracks and peeling - the guys that did the work were great and we are really pleased with the results.

One of the many cracks and peeling paint spots on the ceiling.

A work in progress.

The finished product.

We also redid the girls' room, and the transformation was dramatic.

The old blue room.

   

The end result.

We turned our hall closet from a non-functioning bureau-behind-a-door to a totally functional and much used hall closet.

I don't have a photo from when the drawers were still in the lower half of the closet, but you can kind of get the picture.  Who puts a bureau in a closet?

Lee replaced the door handles on every door in our house.  This change was prompted after Aunt Denise got locked in the guest room when she visited last October and Lee had to crawl through the upstairs window and take the door off its hinges to get it open.  Although we were sad to see our beautiful old crystal knobs go, the new knobs all work and look nice.

We also replaced the baker's rack in the kitchen (which I inherited from friends when I was in law school) with a more functional bench (that opens for shoe storage) and coat hook.

Most importantly, we replaced our front door.  Of all the changes we made, this was by far the most necessary.  The front door was original to the house (more than 60 years old) and for the last two summers, it has stuck completely, making it virtually unopenable from the inside of the house during the summer months.  For more than three years, the door handle has been broken, meaning that if one were to turn it from the inside, the door would stick and then it could only be opened from the outside.  And as if those reasons weren't important enough, the cold air virtually pours in around the door in the winter.  This was a long time coming and we are more than pleased with the change.

The old door.

We love our new door (and storm/screen door, below).

Finally, Lee built a compost bin for us.  For more than thirty years, my dad has shared his gardening secrets with me and year-round composting is one of them.  We are fanatics about composting but because we live so close to the river, we often find our yard covered with seagulls in the winter, looking for a meal.  Lee built a bin so that we could continue to compost, but keep the scraps covered up and out of reach of neighborhood animals and birds.