Evolution of a Door

The back door off of our kitchen has gotten quite a little makeover since we first moved in. We recently completed a tiny project that's pretty much a temporary fix to hold us over until the back door area evolves again (next year?).

Here's a little summary of the changes this little door has faced.

2009. This is my Emma-baby at only 15 months old. In the background you can see the yellow-ish/beige house and an arrow showing the door off of the kitchen. During the renovation we actually moved the door to where the window in this picture is shown by my lovely arrows.

We had some great helpers in the summer of 2010 as we actually moved the doorway. The door used to only be accessible if you opened another door inside the kitchen. (it was pure door craziness - 3 doors within a 4 foot space - one to the outside, one to the kitchen, and one to the garage) It was a very poor layout and the doors would always hit each other, had steps right by them, etc. Moving this door let us have lots more counter space in the kitchen and a much more functional layout. Plus, we ended up putting the new air conditioner/heat pump by the old door opening and had plenty of room. It was a lot of work...but totally worth it!

Here is the door in its new spot, and ready for new insulation and eventually (a year later), siding.

 Ahhh...looking much better with the new siding and paint color!

Then I decided to freshen up the color of the exterior doors. Remember this post when you all gave me great suggestions about colors? 

Yellow it was! But we still had a big step down to the ground to deal with...errr...actually it was a LACK of steps we had to deal with. Recently my wonderful hubby fixed that problem by piecing together some scrap wood and making a couple steps. Yay for FREE and functional projects!

Then we painted the steps the same color as the house so they look pretty seamless and the kids have a MUCH easier time getting in and out without having to scale up the side of the house to get in! It also means that they can open the door by themselves since they can now reach the doorknob. That's good...and bad. :)

We cleaned out the hostas for the winter and are letting our minds wander in planning a big deck for this area. Not that we need more projects but next year I think there's a grand deck plan and I can't wait!

Here's the evolution of the door from the inside:
Below is the window BEFORE the renovation. It was over the sink. If you look closely, you can see the cracks in the ceiling above the window caused by the water damage.

DURING the renovation. All the cabinets had been removed and walls had been punched a little to see the extent of the damage and amount of mold growing in the walls.

Here is the door to the backyard during the demolition. The wall separating the kitchen and the staircase was removed, both doors you see in this picture were moved, and we got rid of the staircase.

 The door has officially found its new home during the renovation.

A year (or two) later and you can see what a difference moving that door made to the kitchen.

I really love looking at progress pictures of the house like this. Sometimes we sit and think "why has this project taken sooooooo long?" This is why. The house has changed SO much thanks to the hard work of my husband and some generous friends and family along the way who have helped! We are super happy now with seeing little changes like the steps to the backyard because they can be done in a weekend and get us ever closer to being DONE with this house craziness!