This was our front door. A 70s turquoise... the first Winter cold air came in around it. And then the wood on the bottom started to splinter. We were telling Ellie our next door neighbor that we also needed to get a new front door. To our surprise and delight she mentioned that she had a door original to our condo. And we could have it.

It even had our numbers on it. But it was 70s orange. So this became my Summer project. I sanded the orange more than likely lead paint. This door was orange on both sides but we were very pleased to get it. It is really heavy and solid. They had to reinforce the door frame before they put it in. I learned to use wood epoxy and to paint without creating too much of a mess.

And then Scott our fav contractor chiseled out for the old lock, and door handle (which had been on the old door backwards), put in a peep hole and a door ringer. Not a door bell but a door ringer to match the other 2 condos. Unfortunately people don't seem to know that they need to ring the bell. Seems obvious to me. This last weekend we were home and my brother and niece cut the lovely vinyl numbers for me. Nice that I didn't have to mask and paint the numbers myself. I did have to crawl up a 12 foot ladder to get to where they cut their vinyl. But that is another story.

John has taken out the fireplace and patched the hole in the roof, the hole in my closet and the hole in the ceiling of the living room. Next year the fireplace will be our outdoor fire pit. Next we need some storage solutions from IKEA and then we are going to get the finished basement room made into a cozy TV room...

And then we will be snug as a bug in a rug...

(Thanks again to Ellie for the door and Bill and Kc for the vinyl numbers. I couldn't have done it without allÂ your help.)