Curb Appeal & Front Porch Makeover on a Budget: 7 Easy Ideas!

it's just so gross it's like dead skin it's like peeling it off it's kind of gross but you have to do it well we're gonna fix this on today's episode we are doing a curb appeal makeover my front porch and a little bit beyond so let's get started [Music] welcome to design to the nines i'm natalie callahan and if this is the first time we're meeting welcome to my channel today we are taking care of this front door as well as giving the front of my house a little bit of a makeover [Music] a little more than a year ago we had the entire exterior of our home professionally painted but this is definitely a project you can diy yourself depending on your budget almost all of it looks fantastic the one area that it doesn't is this front door from the research that i've done it looks like there might have been like some moisture issues so i didn't know if it was just too humid the day that it was painted but it's gotten really bad but the rest of our house looks amazing the paint's holding up fantastic i wasn't really sure what to do with this door because i didn't know if like stripping it would even work if there's something wrong with the door if we just re-paint it and then it would look like this in a month or two what i've decided to do is we are getting a brand new door i decided to treat myself this time i called in a professional i pretty much diy everything on this channel i've even built my own fireplace but it's an affordable price that i'm okay with we don't have to diy absolutely everything all the time before he gets here we need to go in and paint it i want to paint it indoors so that we don't have a repeat of that i just wanted to play it safe i'm going to paint it indoors so i've got this on my dining table i know crazy right but i laid down a blanket first and then i covered it up with a painter's drop cloth i've got everything taped off including the glass that will be in our brand new door isn't this gonna be pretty though and i've decided to paint it in this modern masters front door paint i read the reviews seems really good i've done a full tutorial on how to paint a door basically we're going to start with the inside and then we're going to roll it honestly i thought about spraying it but again i'm running into the humidity factor and i don't have a basement so i tried the modern masters paint and it was just absolutely terrible this is what it looked like after two coats streaky blotchy and just absolutely horrific and it was giving me nightmares of a repeat of our current drawer situation i honestly don't know what all the fuss is about because this just might be the worst paint i've ever used so then i took a trip and got some sherwin-williams paint at lowe's one coat of this and we were absolutely back in business and the door is ready to be installed while he's installing the front door we're going to head up to my studio we're going to work on some diys with the help of cricut to make this front porch really special and really inviting for our first project we are going to be making a stenciled door mat that just simply says hi it's very friendly right i wanted to do something that was really simple so you can see just how easy it is to do so i go into qriket design studio and add a square and then i change that squares dimensions to the dimensions of our door mat this is just so you can kind of have an idea of what it's going to look like on the mat then i type in the word hi or whatever word you want i used the font bromello which is a font that i downloaded from dafont.com and after you download it you can just find this under the system section under font i hope that makes sense i do have like a full step-by-step tutorial on how to use cricut design space so if you need something a little bit more detailed make sure you check that out then you're just going to want to size it how you like and then we are not going to need the rectangle anymore so we're going to just make that disappear and then we're going to cut it out on a 12 by 24 inch mat in permanent vinyl [Music] then you're going to weed it just like you would a stencil now this next part a bit tricky so just be patient with the process now normally when you transfer vinyl you're going to put on transfer tape and then you peel it back it was just not having it this time around so this texture is a little bit challenging to work with so i just decided to pull off the transfer tape and then just place it on like a sticker for this next part i did this in my craft room but i would recommend you doing this wherever you plan on spray painting it because sometimes when you transfer it it can get a little bit messed up i took my discarded transfer tape that i didn't end up using and i put that next to the stencil to kind of cover up some of the door mat and then i take out my blow dryer and you could also use a heat gun and this kind of helps shrink wrap it onto the door mat kind of creating a tighter seal so feel free to use your hand to kind of press it down into place while it's warm then we take some blue painters tape and tape off the edges or anything that you don't want spray paint to get on and then we take it outside or hopefully you've already had it outside and then spray it in truck bed liner spray paint i couldn't find the stuff that i normally use but my husband had this in the garage and so i gave it a whirl and it seems to have a good outcome then once it's dry peel everything back and it's simple as that now stick with me to the very end if you want to see the final stylized look because that is coming next we are going to be making a welcome sign for just left of the door and i knew i wanted my sign to be pretty substantial so it is going to be 24 inches tall by 36 inches wide so i can make a rectangle in that size and we can kind of see what we're doing then i write welcome and then to the and i just stayed with the original cricut font and then i made the to the smaller that sounds kind of confusing and then for the callaghans we are using rostilla and i separate all of the letters that i could so that i could make the c larger and kind of space it how i like and then when we are happy with the overall look of the sign we are just going to make that rectangle disappear because we don't need it and we are going to cut this out on my cricut maker in wood now it needs to be a wood that is designed to be cut on a cricut machine i will link what i used in the description box beneath this video and depending on the length of your name you may need to separate it into different sections to fit on the wood pieces which are not the standard mat sizes now this will probably take about 12 to 24 passes on your machine you can kind of just check it as you go hit the pause button see how it looks and then keep cutting it if needed [Music] then once we have everything cut out take it outside and spray paint it in a glossy black spray paint and now it's time to build something to put it on and we are going to be using up some of the scraps for my scrap pile so this is going to go bye-bye real soon here but do you see all this wood this is like gold right now because wood is so expensive but i've got plans for it coming soon today i'm going to be using up some of this faux brick paneling that i had left over from my recent bathroom renovation if you haven't seen that video it's awesome i'll link it down below i thought we could turn this into a cool sign now this is kind of made out of like an mdf type product and that's okay because it's gonna be in the covered porch area plus i'm gonna frame it out in some real wood and i think it will be okay we'll see how it holds up over time we are going to cut this down to 24 by 36 inches since our brick is kind of thin and i want to put a frame around it we need to kind of lift it up and give it something to support a frame so i'm just gonna use this one by three for my scrap pile i'm gonna do butt joints because it's gonna be hidden and then we're gonna miter the frame [Music] for the frame i'm going to be just using this lightweight inexpensive 1x2 and we're going to miter this before we install the frame i just take some white spray on primer and do two coats with that my original intent was just to use it as a primer but it ended up looking so good that i just left it then i used some antiquing wax by folk art on the frame and let that dry then we lay out our lettering as we did in design studio and when we're happy with the layout we go ahead and use gorilla clear gel glue or you could use e6000 as well i wouldn't recommend using hot glue in a hot humid environment as it probably won't withstand the elements [Music] after that dries we're going to add some wood glue to our frame and nail it into place finally we add a d-ring hook to hang it on and for our last diy for our front porch is a wood round monogram for the middle of a wreath i start by searching in design studio for c monograms in the cricut axis area i select this one then i take two circles and slice out a ring about a half inch thick around and you'll see why this is important in just a second [Music] then i place our monogram over the top of it and then weld it together this kind of acted as a little bit of a buffer for a frame i made this seven and three quarter inch wide overall and then we are just going to cut this out in the same wood we used for our lettering in the last project then i take an eight inch embroidery hoop the part that doesn't have the clip on it and i attach that to our monogram using wood glue and this kind of acts as a frame and kind of finishes off the edges nicely then i add some clips all the way around to kind of hold it in place as it dries [Music] after it's dried we're going to take some gel stain in the color kona and give it a good coat and then let that thoroughly dry [Music] now how we are going to attach this to the wreath is i just took a couple of paper clips this is what i use you can use whatever you want and i glued them with hot glue on the top and the bottom of this monogram and then i took some twine and tied it to our wreath now i would advise against using the hot glue because as i mentioned before it did not withstand that long and it popped off pretty quickly and so i had to go back in and use something a little bit stronger so use something a little bit stronger and let it thoroughly dry before tying it to your wreath my new front door is in i love it it is so beautiful i need to still paint around the casing because this is a different color and you know from installation there's like some fingerprints we'll clean that up now to address this window i love the light that's it's bringing into the inside and also the detail that it brings to the outside i love this door but even though we're putting up a wreath we like our privacy so up top i had frosted that and i used like a spray on frosting but i'm not convinced that i want permanent frosting on this window but i've got a really fun hack that uses contact paper to kind of disguise and filter the light but without the permanent feature to it and best part is it's going to cost us one dollar because i picked up the contact paper from the dollar tree so very affordable i like that so to do this just cut out your one dollar contact paper just a little bit larger than the window pane lightly mist with a water bottle and then stick your contact paper to the window and smooth it out using some kind of flat scraping tool then you're going to take a razor blade and cut off the excess as close to the edge as possible now my water bottle went a little overboard and was pretty blotchy with the way the water sprayed out and a few days later the water bubbles are still dissipating but should be gone really soon so don't be alarmed if this happens to you as well this might take a few days to fully look right but it does give a nice beautiful frosted look without the long-term commitment and the heavy price tag so we had a little accident on our driveway how many of you have had this happen we just kind of thought that we're left with this know that we might need to rip out some of these pavers and replace them well before we do that i want to try degreasing it and try to see what we can do so i got this off of amazon it's a decreaser it had really good reviews so we're going to see if this works i also got this little brush so what we're going to do is we're going to pour this on our grease spots scrub it really good let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes and then i'm going to break out our power washer and power wash our driveway [Music] after two treatments i would say this process gave me about a sixty to seventy percent improvement over what it was before so i am really happy with these results but i think that if i give it a couple more treatments i can get it all the way removed because this has been sitting on our driveway for months now and it might take a little extra effort to get it all the way out so one day my husband surprised me and ripped out some garbage-y looking bushes that i've been complaining about for months and it revealed some sandbags that we had gotten for a hurricane that almost was but never happened so i'm going to relocate those out of my front garden bed this is going to be a good workout so it's about 90 degrees outside and we've been working really hard so i'm on my way to home depot to pick up some plants some mulch and some other odds and ends that we are going to need to complete our makeover so let's go shopping okay so i'm going to get some jasmine because it smells good and i think it's pretty easy to grow i'm kind of going for an all white flower theme and now i'm gonna go try to find some gardenias because i i'm filling gardenias and jasmine it's gonna smell amazing and have that white and green look that i'm looking for all right i found our gardenias they're beautiful some black mulch and a few more flowers and we are all set to go now it's time to unload our goodies and lay them out in our garden bed it has been 91 degrees today but we've got a little bit of a cloud cover right now and a little bit of a breeze so i am so grateful for that because we are about to plan up these i kind of have it laid out how i want i'm not a master gardener but i do have a little bit more success having it in the ground versus the pot where i consistently kill things i've got gardenias jasmine and i did end up getting some lavender because i thought we needed a little something else and i thought it was like a nice soft pretty color that i'm gonna just dig holes and then i've got some black mulch so we're gonna mulch all the beds [Music] when we bought this house there are no light fixtures here well it's a wired for it i see the electrical spots for on either side we are going to add some new lighting on either side of my garage door i am going to do this myself and i ordered these light fixtures off of amazon really excited about that they're really cute you may want to call in a professional to do this this is something that i'm comfortable doing on my own and one of the cool things about these light fixtures are that they have a sensor that automatically turn them on at night and turn them off at dawn now after all of our hard work to make our house look really beautiful it would be a shame to leave something as unattractive as this yellow doorbell now we decided to upgrade to a google nest doorbell device but you don't have to spend that much on a doorbell to make it look much more finished there are some beautiful black ones that you could get for around twelve dollars as for this one it's an easy install and the app walks you right through the process basically holding your hand all the way i can't vouch at this point for how much we will like the nest doorbell but so far so good plus it just looks pretty darn good don't you think now it's time for all of the finishing touches i'm so excited this is gonna be great do you have a pot that looks a little like this black but it's kind of dull it's plastic well i've got a hack for you this is another use for wd-40 this won't be a permanent fix but it should last you a good while what we're going to do is just spray this on and rub it all over and it will give us a nice like new shine how awesome is this seriously gotta love wd-40 after letting the wd-40 dry we drill a couple of drainage holes into our pot i believe this is why the previous plants did not do well because of poor drainage a little potting soil some carefully selected perennials that should do well in full sun and an old diy which i will link in the playlist complete this look next i add some solar powered led spotlights for accent in the garden i also ordered some garden lights for by the pathway but they showed up the wrong color so i'll have to add those later and of course we add all of our fun diys so one last touch for all of my longtime viewers you might recognize this i thought it would look cute at the end of my pathway here and now it's time to show you the final result and voila the finished look i can't believe we finally made it all the effort was well worth it in the end [Music] [Applause] how about this door isn't it so beautiful i love it i want to thank this episode's sponsor cricket if you enjoyed this episode here's another one that i think you'll like as well if you haven't already done so consider hitting that subscribe button right there it's super easy to do and i would love it if you joined the diy niner family and to all of my diy niners i just want to remind you that you are more powerful than you know we'll see you next time bye

Channel: Designed to the Nines

Views: 357,592

Keywords: curb appeal, curb appeal before and after, curb appeal ideas, curb appeal makeover, decor, design to the nines, designed to the nines, do it on a dime, front door, front door makeover, front porch, front porch makeover, front porch makeover on a budget, front porch transformation, glue guns & roses, home decor, home exterior makeover, how to, liz fenwick diy, lone fox, natalee callahan, outdoor, porch decorating ideas, porch makeover, porch makeover 2021, xo macenna

Id: Vl0XuOuO3iw

Length: 20min 17sec (1217 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 04 2021