Curb Appeal

The words "curb appeal" didn't hold much meaning to me until my husband and I owned our first home. While there are many benefits about living in an urban setting, I've found that being in the city poses serious challenges when it comes to creating home-front appeal. To start, there is only a tiny amount of real estate to work with and you don't want your house to look like every other one on the block but you certainly want it to stand out. Taking that into consideration, I decided that three crucial elements would set us apart from our neighbors. Here they are:

                          1. finishing with a great front door and frame color that are classic but still stylish

                          2. having a door knocker that no one else within a 2 block radius already has (not an easy task)

                          3. a great wreath and surrounding greenery that can withstand any weather conditions

      HERE IS WHAT WE DID

This was our door when we moved in. Understanding that it would take some time to find and install a new one, we started by picking out plants to sit on either side of our front steps. It wasn't a new door but it helped to dress up the house for the time being. I did a lot of research but we finally settled on the Holly Steed. This type of tree stands upright, are great in any weather, prefer sun and only needs a little shade to survive making them the natural choice and they look amazing framing our entryway.

We knew that we wanted to keep the integrity of the house intact by replacing our current glass door with a wooden craftsman style version. After scouring every salvage yard in Baltimore each weekend for months without finding anything, we made the decision to purchase a brand new one. After looking online and visiting our local Lowe's, we decided on a 4-lite wood door from Home Depot. This specific door was not sold in the store or online but after a quick chat with the door manager, they said it could easily be created for us using one of  their many partners. ALWAYS ASK!

Picking colors proved to be one of the most challenging parts of this project. After weeks of back-and-forth, we finally settled on using Sherman-Williams's oil-based wood primer in Clary Sage for the front door and Accessible Beige for the framing.

                                     

We wanted the door accents to help modernize the craftsman style so with that in mind, we picked newer hardware from Overstock. We originally bought a crab knocker to fit the Baltimore theme but it just didn't look right so we went with this cast iron anchor knocker from eBay instead and the wreath is a DIY project that can be found here.

 and finally, the finished product!
(minus a new outside light, which is next on our list once the weather breaks)