the space between

upcycle, repurpose and reinvent your space

why do we have an outswinging door?

This post could also be titled “proof that we’re not that observant”.

Because we didn’t notice that our front door opens out, instead of into the house. But you guys noticed it the first time I posted a picture of the front of the house over a year ago.

curb appeal ideas

I had forgotten about the Buddha. 🙂

And we also didn’t notice if that was odd at all. The door opening out, not the Buddha, we knew the Buddha was odd immediately. But, how did all of our other front doors open? Other than Curacao it turns out that most front doors open into a house.

But I feel like you knew that already … because that might be the most frequent comment about our front door.

It’s not about the glass door panels, or the colorful new look inspired by Key West, or the hand crafted painted etching. Or even the blue painted beadboard on the ceiling.

front door complete with new glass panels

The most frequent comment is about the security factor with our door hinges on the outside of our door. That the hinges are easy to remove making our house easy to break into. I didn’t like the sounds of that at all so I did a little digging on the topic.

Key West front doors

Turns out that the doors opening out here, and in other hurricane prone areas, is in itself a security feature. It is by design to prevent the doors from being pushed into a home during heavy winds or flooding from any type of tropical storm or hurricane.

Key West front doors

And the hinges are special outswinging door “stud” hinges like these.

Key West front doors

And this discussion brings us full circle back to when I first posted about updating the front door and proclaimed “when something looks good in a photo doesn’t mean it really looks good in real life”.

installing glass door panels from thespacebetweenblog.net

We had every intention of updating the door hinges when we did all of the little front door upgrades, but we couldn’t get the darn old hinges off. Ummmm, I guess the security feature works. 🙂

So I just sprayed a bit of ORB spray paint onto a paper plate and used a small craft brush to paint on the look of ORB, like I did when I updated our old door hardware without removing it. They are very imperfect up close, but we’re still holding out hope of one day installing the new hinges we already bought. One day when we’re more mentally prepared to be outsmarted by a small hinge. 🙂

In the meantime I say thanks for all of the concern for our safety, and for being so observant that it only takes a few photos for you to realize something we didn’t notice … about a door we walk through about a dozen times a day. 🙂

Have you ever had an outswinging door? Heard of any other reasons than the old wind/water problem?

And if you want to take a virtual vacation this weekend click on over to follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter because I’m heading off on a girls’ weekend with some of my favorite gal pals and we’ll be sharing all of the fun in the sun as we go.

Happy Weekend!

easy upcycling idea – old post turned lantern

Hey hey! Happy Hump Day!

Just because it’s one of my favorite parts of the new look on the front porch I wanted to show you a quick upcycling idea.

upcycling idea - old post lantern

I took part of one of the posts that we replaced a few months back with a chunkier, 6 x 6 post, spray painted it aqua and put a lantern on it.

Couldn’t get easier. Really. The lantern was a lucky $6 clearance find at IKEA.

Here’s a look back at the old porch with the old posts, that quite frankly look a little puney compared to the rest of the porch.

key west house exterior before

I used my miter saw to cut the post to a good height and I just set the lantern right on top. I worry with the wind around here sometimes that it will blow over so I didn’t adhere the lantern to the post. But the Elmer’s ProBond that I used when we added glass door panels to our front door would be perfect for this application.

creating curb appeal

How’s that for an easy project idea? And how about that potted bonsai looking plant that isn’t doing so well? I didn’t realize how much “less lively” it is today than it was a few weeks ago when I took the first front porch pictures. :/

The chippy, old window I found on the side of the road works great to round out that corner without blocking the view. The hanging star is something we found at Kmart and has a little LED light in it. And the aqua is the same Rustoleum spray paint I used on the chair at the other end of the porch.

creating curb appeal with some front porch decorating

Joel and I both found ourselves sitting out there to call our moms on Mother’s Day. Comfortable surroundings and good cell reception. Bonus!

You reusing any old posts lately? Have any new upcycling ideas to share?

If you’re looking for more you can see more DIY front porch makeover details, how we’re trying to stay organized during the full house renovation or check out our outdoor up lighting … which got a little upgrade the other day, too. Joel added another light under a new palm tree without me even noticing, that’s how easy it is.