Guest Cottage Update: The Front French Doors! + Slider Debate!
I know it doesn’t look like much progress, but we are moving forward, and there is a lot of hope (and a very long list of things to do). Perhaps I overbooked myself at the beginning of the summer (WHOOPS), and this schedule has proven to be much too hectic thus far (with personal/kid stuff), which is all my doing. So when I got back from our first family trip, I looked at my list and was overwhelmed by the amount to do to keep moving. I’m trying to give myself space and time on this project, but I also really want (and now need) some rooms to be usable by September, so this lady needs to move. So today, we have an update on a few things that I’m excited about. A few weeks ago, I gave you the plan for the doors and windows here, and I’m happy to say that they are installed and look pretty darn great.
We ended up going with smaller, readymade French doors that we can paint. We lost about 18″ of light on both sides and 10″ at the top, and you know what? I don’t even notice inside. Driving into the property now is so much more charming than even the big barn slider. As you can tell, it broke off and fell, and we almost decided just to leave it off, but since we shot this, they reinstalled it, but put the track on wrong, and it neither fully opens nor fully closes now. They say it’s fixable (we found the missing track link), but it’s so dang heavy that it’s a thing. Brian kinda wants to just scrap it and take it off, but he also agrees that it’s a unique original feature that we might really miss.
See? Once it’s gone, you don’t miss it… Except I would of course now add a window in the “kitchen” to flank the new French doors. You have to remember that we are also going to rip out that concrete pad and landscape it all (with cute paths), so it will look so much more inviting.
Here she is with the door, painted white (which was our default plan). I hadn’t really thought about doing anything interesting on it outside of white paint until I took the 30 seconds of design/brain space. We were brainstorming as a team, and Marlee mentioned that this is a great place to do another mural, but more quilt-themed. We were all VERY into this.
Now this wouldn’t be the exact one, but you get it – paint a fun quilt motif on the slider that would draw your eye and be more interesting than just the white. Before construction began, when people would walk past this house, they wouldn’t notice it, like at all. I would talk about the guest house, and our actual friends would say, wait, where is it? I realized that the slider is actually not very inviting, whereas the French doors are. I think the slider, as it was just, looked like a bit of a shed or barn, but the French doors said, “Hi, I’m a sweet home. Come in!” So maybe the quilt motif is the key!!
What do you think??? Should we keep it or just make it look really pretty without it?
Certainly, our garages can prove that once designed and painted the right color (SW Dutch Tile Blue), the charm is there. The French doors are so cute, but the slider is original and so unique!
From the inside, it looks like this, which is admittedly a little jarring, because it’s still just stock white right now. We will be painting it a color, but I’m not sure what yet. I just bought a bunch of Samplize stickers to see where we are headed.
We’ll patch and clad the new framing around with the reclaimed wood that almost matches (we know it won’t look seamless, but there are a lot of places that it is patched and you don’t notice/it’s charming). Overall, Brian and I are so pleasantly surprised. I took the cheaper route for sure, and while of course something custom could look epic, the two (almost) $15k quotes we got versus the $1,500 French doors (plus 1 day hanging and framing labor) was absolutely the right call for us, for this project.
You have to picture it painted dark, maybe a merlot, navy, dark green… I’m not sure yet, but something that doesn’t pop like crazy bright, but something moody and dark.
And yes, the other original window is staying. It’s so cute!
Real quick. I heard from our window restoration company that these big, huge windows that I was so excited to reglaze and rehang are not in good enough shape after all. He has taken on the task of rebuilding instead, but at much less than the original $5k quote, but we’ll see! As soon as they are done and look great, I’ll link up the local company and give them some love. But that’s another pivot that happened last week.
And most of you voted to keep the location of the awkward, cute little window on the second floor. Here’s where the vote landed:
It was a pretty dang close vote. Seeing it moved does look better!!! Gah! But everything is a thing and costs money, but what if moving this window (and restoring it–it’s not in great shape) is only a 1-day job!
Upstairs, inside, you can see now that the old shower and toilet stalls have been removed, so we technically could move it over. But…
This corner is going to be one of the nicest shoot spaces. I can’t tell if moving it will be a good thing for that or limit our space more. This entire house needs to be a flexible shoot space for work – almost like a movable set. I’m even excited to shoot Christmas here (if done in time). So we are designing it for great natural light, lots of textures and colors, but trying not to lock in any corner for now.
Ok, back to the slider – Y’all. Brian is team “too much work and money, and is it worth it?” Mostly because driving up and seeing the French doors is actually so cute and more inviting. I’m totally on the fence. But y’all, at the final hour of writing this, while with my team, Marlee suggested doing like a mural on the barn door, and you KNOW I love a mural. More inspiration to come, but how fun would that be!!
*Photos by Kaitlin Green
