Investing in your home

 Reading all about Rhonda's remodelling efforts over at Down to Earth made me realise I very rarely talk about the things we're doing here to upgrade the house. There's always something being done. I've seen relatives lose tens of thousands of pounds when selling their properties due to them being out-dated and/or poorly maintained (on one occasion a £40,000 discount). Most of it was being due to either not having the energy or time to do everything needed, often putting things off for so long the task became a mammoth proposition.

I'm like my father in that I completely decorate at least one room/area a year to keep the place up-to-date as it adds value, but I take it one step further and freshen up paintwork and other bits and pieces throughout the year as it is needed. With water-based interior paints that are touch dry in 1-2 hours, painting is a much quicker job to do and clean up after than it used to be.

I had some annual leave a couple of weeks ago so decided to paint the front door. We have a very old white uPVC front door, the type that dulls with age and no amount of uPVC cleaner can bring up once it gets scratched and dirty. As I didn't want to spend £1000 plus on a new front door, I decided to try painting it.  

In the old days, painting uPVC was a no-no but there are brilliant specialised products to do it now. As long as you prep the door exactly as instructed on the tin it will look fine. I decided to use Sandtex's uPVC primer and 10 year exterior gloss in Bay Tree. I washed the door thoroughly with washing up liquid, left it to dry and then started painting. You don't need to sand the door at all, just put the paint on. 

However, round here the second the weather is good enough to paint the exterior of a house the thunderflies descend. As we've spent weeks battling thunderflies, I unearthed some old decorating polythene from the tool barn and stuck that up at the door. It certainly did the job catching them before they stuck themselves to the paint work. It took the full six hours to be touch dry and was recoatable in 16 hours, which is a little irritating. I'm so used to using water-based paints I forget the time required to cure oil-based ones. 

I think it looks amazing to be honest. The only let down is the handle and the knocker, which are both quite tatty. As a chrome replacement handle is £60+ (big nope!) and the knocker will not come off, no matter how hard we wrench at it, both will have to be cleaned up and maybe painted with something to make them look better. I still have the frame around the outside to do, as that is similarly tatty, and now features a paint drip on it (oops!), but that's task for when I have some annual leave in August. I already have some exterior paint for that so there's no paint to buy. We also need to find a bell so we don't have that ugly wire hanging down.

Finally, yesterday I decided to finish a job that had been outstanding on my list since I started deep cleaning - painting the lobby wall by the front door. All the coming and going had left dirt and knocks all over the wall. I had already painted the skirting and windowsills in June, which made everything else look tatty! 

I didn't know the original colour but purchased six different testers and found one that was almost identical. Of course, it looked completely different once up on a larger area and I could see the difference immediately. The colour I chose was a cool lilac while the old colour had a softer rose hue to it. You can just about see the difference where I made my slight booboo below. 

I accidentally painted part of the next wall instead of cutting into the internal corner. I am hoping once the curtains go up you won't see that but if it is visible, I'll take the paint round onto the next wall. It may end up a complete redecoration job of the lobby. 

It only took 90 minutes to paint. Later today I'll put up the curtain poles and curtains at the windows. I bought new chrome curtain poles to replace the gold ones that are there as I'm not keen on gold (I blogged about that here). I have a third curtain pole to go above the front door so we can put a heavy duty curtain up there during the winter to keep the heat in, but that can wait for now. 

The cost of all of this?

I got the Sandtex primer and topcoat for the door from a Homebase closing down sale for a 40% discount, which reduced them from £19 to £11.40. So total cost of the door overhaul was £22.80. I still have tons of paint left so may do the two sets of patio doors at the back of the house later this year. 

The two little bay trees either side of the front door were £10 for the two in the local factory shop and I planted them up into pots I already had. 

The three curtain poles were purchased from the same Homebase closing down sale for a 50% discount, so cost £11.19 each instead of £22.50 each. Total cost £33.57. 

Finally, the lobby paint was Homebase period colour, which I bought full price from another store as I couldn't find it in the closing down sale. That was £19. 

So overall, the cost of this lobby and front door overhaul was £85.37.