Our neighborhood has close, compacted homes which makes it a prime spot for salesman to knock continuously. We get our fair share of people walking door to door throughout our area, especially in the summer. Because of this, I choose to ignore the door quite frequently. James, being a young, curious toddler, always sprints right to the door the instant he hears the doorbell. He moves the blinds to peek out and see who is there. This has made the situation even more uncomfortable when I refuse to answer the door for the salesmen because they see James and wait expecting me to open the door. Yeah, right!
I cherish my quiet time and have made it a priority since becoming a mom. With that being said, I was once in bed reading or possibly napping while letting James watch a show downstairs. I heard the doorbell ring and consciously chose not to answer it. Well, it continued on. I knew James heard it as well because his footsteps loudly stomped across the floor. I stuck with my choice not to answer the door. Meanwhile, I got a text from my friend who asked me if everything was ok. "Jenna, is everything ok? I'm at your house to drop something off and James is staring at me through the door by himself." I don't want neighbors, friends, and strangers being able to tell if I'm home! I also can't have any interruptions when relishing in my few moments of peace!
Recently, someone posted on our ward relief society Facebook page. What they said was alarming to me. "Just a heads up to make sure you keep your doors locked especially when you leave your house. A young man was seen going around our neighborhood yesterday afternoon knocking on peoples doors and if no one answered he tried to open the doors. Police came and questioned him and let him go." This post made purchasing a new door a huge priority. What if that creep had come to our house and James had hustled to meet him at the door?
The new door has turned out to be quite a hassle, but it's finally up! Here are some things we've learned throughout the process:
- Before you start painting a door, make sure you're painting the correct side. I didn't even think about this and started eagerly painting the inside of the door BLACK. Well, it took 4 coats to cover that back up with white.
- Make sure the hinges are on the same spot. We assumed they would be but we learned the hard way they weren't.
- Don't decide to install a front door at 10:00pm on a Friday night when it's pitch black and you don't know what you're doing.
- Make sure the hardware on your door will still fit. (Ours doesn't and needs to be replaced.)
- Be prepared to replace the weatherstrip on the door. Andrew gets to do this possibly today! (The new door doesn't seem quite as wide and there is a fairly big gap that needs to be filled in.)
As you may have gathered, this has turned into quite the project/ordeal. I will say it was worth it though. See for yourself.
Before (Notice that the blinds aren't long enough!)
After!
I emphasized our front door, but Andrew had his eye on something else. Our couches have been old and flaky for several months now. It has been annoying. I find little black specks all over the house because the couches are falling apart/peeling. We didn't want to replace our couches quite yet, (I'm sick of spending money and so is our bank account.) but suddenly it seemed like an urgent problem.
We decided to start our search for a sectional. After looking at brand new ones, we thought it would be best to buy a used couch because we didn't want to spend thousands of dollars. My sister in law is actually the one who found our couch for us. I sent Andrew to look at the sectional one night, and he approved. He has extremely strong opinions about couches. "I'm going to be spending 80 percent of my time on this couch, so it better be comfortable." The couch was sitting in a storage unit 40 minutes away. We ended up having to rent a uhaul to get the massive sectional to our house which was kind of a hassle.
Don't miss this!
Andrew was right! The sectional is extremely cozy and comfortable. It fits the space nicely and the neutral color ties in our decor well. It was a little more worn-out than I expected and has some stains on it, but we do have kids who will just add to that anyway. Our house is almost unrecognizable with these two changes--the new front door and the new couch. Basically, if you ever come by and think we're not home, you might be wrong and I'm okay with that.
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