DIY Wood 2x4 Step with Welded Base

I have a super embarrassing story for you.  As a DIY blogger, I should be ashamed!

When we bought this lakehouse, we drove a small black hatchback.  We eyed up the house's carport and four car garage (it looks like a two car in photos, but it's two car lengths deep) and, although we agreed we'd miss the attached garage we had in the townhouse, we were happy there was a garage at all - and the carport was a nice bonus.

Fast forward a few months and we bought our Ram 2500 truck and plunked on some roof lights and... it wouldn't fit in the garage!  Oops. Well, we figured the garage was pretty far from the house anyway so we'd park in the carport.  Ha! Too wide for the carport!

We parked outside for a winter, maybe two?  It was terribly inconvenient and now my winters are blurring together.

Eventually we realized that the truck would fit in the carport if the concrete step wasn't in the way, so we decided to remove it and build a narrower step which would afford us the extra space to fit the truck in (although we could still only open the doors on the one side, lol).

Before

You know I hate decor/renovating waste, so I was thrilled that my father-in-law had a use for the concrete step.  He happily took it, and gave us his old step until we made our new one.

One Step Forward (haha), Two Steps Back

Well, we got so bogged down in planning super complicated designs (poured concrete with our own form and fancy details and tile and blah blah blah), that winter snuck up on us and we didn't make our new step at all!  Hubby's Dad laughed at us every time he saw that his old step was still in place.

See?  Pretty embarrassing!  

Especially because this year's warmer months almost slipped by again, but we vowed to FINALLY finish that damn step!  On the bright side, the extra year helped us decided we weren't really that smitten with concrete.  I had actually grown to love the weathered wood step Hubby's Dad lent us so we created a bright, shiny new wood step with a welded base, which we hope will weather to a lovely grey.

This is Project #2 in my grand scheme to test out untreated cedar and copper, inspired by my roof/siding combo (Project #1 was our cedar bench with welded base, if you missed it).

For this project, we opted for a simple cubed design and our metal of choice: square metal tubing.

(Don't mind the horrific spider).

 Supplies:

• 4.5" Angle Grinder
• Grinding Disk 
• Flapper Disk 
• Cutting Disk
• 1" Square Metal Tubing
• Welding Magnets
• Steel Step Drill Bit 
• Flux Core Wire Feed Welder
• Rust-Oleum Spray Paint Copper
• Untreated cedar 2x4's

How to Weld the Step:

The basic process is the same as our other welded projects (like the welded bed frame and welded desk we've made).  We sketched out our design and took some measurements before creating a cut list.  It just makes shopping for supplies so much easier!  With everything purchased, we started by cutting out the pieces.

We laid out the framework - measuring it to make sure it's square! - before tack welding it together.  Hubby opted to weld the bottom frames first and then attach them together with the upright legs.  The welding magnets help immensely here - they were such a great purchase!

Once everything was tacked in place and squareness was verified, Hubby went ahead and completed all the welds. 

Here's the step base, before grinding:

Using the angle grinder, he removed any weld spatter and smoothed out the welds.

And, voila!  Such smooth corners:

With the welding and grinding done, I painted the metal the same copper as our DIY bench and DIY firepit.  This is quickly becoming my favorite paint, not just because I love the color, but because it's also so much more forgiving than other spray paint - even other Rust-Oleum products!  I've watched sags and drips magically level out with this paint and the dry time is so much less fussy.  I have been using this high heat enamel for so many different projects, I just love it.

Can you see the tabs Hubby added?  Technically, you could drill through the square metal tubing, but these made it so easy to affix the wood step, which is just 2x4s glued together with waterproof wood glue.

All we did to prep them was to give them a light sand because we're going to let nature take its course and give them a nice grey, weathered finish - I hope.

You can see we upgraded the storm door too, to help showcase the new front door better.  But, if I'm being honest, the wind off Lake Superior grabbed the old one and whipped it against the house, beating it mercilessly, so we were kind of forced to make this update - and we chose one with a better latch!

A certain someone loves the new view for guarding the house, too:

The best part of finally finishing our front step is that I can use the "Go Away" door mat I bought at HomeSense years ago - I had been saving it for the new step!  It works too, because a package that required a signature was just left quietly beside the step, even though I was home to sign for it...

Excellent.... I might have to stock up!  This one is even more direct.

I know my front door is devoid of planters and embellishment and other blogger necessities, but honestly there's no room!  With our massive truck parked in here and the dogs bursting our the door, any kind of decor would just slow us down (and get knocked over, for sure).

But check out that "Before" and "After" - even without tchotchkes, it's such an improvement. While you're at it, picture it with new wood siding too...

Before

After

Did you notice how sparkling clean the concrete is?  I found a pressure washer in our garage and spent three days CLEANING ALL THE THINGS.

P.S. Check out our other welded projects by clicking here.

Bright Turquoise Front Door + Trim for the Guesthouse

I'm finally making a little progress with the guesthouse!

Did you spot it in my post about my new dresses?  Or maybe you couldn't take your eyes off the zebra print...?  I'm seriously considering ditching the DIY blogging gig and just becoming a fashion blogger because posing in front of this turquoise door might be my life's calling.

Kidding!  (Somewhere my former PhD supervisor is wondering what the heck happened.)

After asking you to weigh in on the pine walls last fall, I decided to take your advice and leave them natural (seeing Cassie's master bedroom sealed the deal).  But I didn't make any progress before winter hit, so I put off the whole building for another year.  Unwilling to let another year slip by without doing something out there, I cleaned out all of the furniture and stuff I was storing for someone else, gave the room a good scrub, evicted about three dozen horrifically large spiders, moved in the maple dresser my Mom lent (and eventually gave) me, and set up the queen bed from the townhouse guestroom.  And all of a sudden, it's a proper guest room now!  I'm slowly adding a rug, some art, and accessories and then I'll give you a tour.  While I wait for my Scandi-inspired rug to arrive, I decided to work on the outside a little.

Here's what it looked like:

The sun really beats down on the guesthouse and the door was looking SO weathered and worn.  Plus the pale sage green stain slapped up on the trim by the former owner was flaking and peeling.

The wood was looking rough, so I grabbed some leftover paint and primer and got to work!  I sanded the trim and door first, which took a long time but I wanted to really scuff up what was left of the finish and also remove any flaking paint or stain.  Next I washed with TSP, rinsed well and let it dry for a couple of days.  Then I applied an exterior door and trim primer, which required 8 hours between coats and an overnight dry before painting. 

Two days later, I painted on some bright turquoise - the same color we used for our mid-century inspired front door!  We still have nearly a gallon and it seemed a waste not to use it!

I have no plans to paint the exterior because I love the natural color of the wood siding with the pop of bright turquoise.  When the leave start to turn color, the turquoise will look incredible with the shades of gold and burnt orange Fall brings.  I am definitely not enamored with Fall like the rest of North America, so I'm really trying to find things to look forward to!

I just love how it turned out!  Next year I'll probably refinish the little mini deck and I definitely have to update that light fixture and maybe make use of the hook for a hanging plant, but already it looks a little better.  We really don't have a lot of money to be fussing with this space - even though it needs a bathroom reno in a big way.  We'll chip away at it but the mission is to spend as little as possible!



There's still so much work, but I love that I no longer have to see the worn trim and door from the house.  Baby steps! 

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A New Mid-Century Modern Inspired Exterior Door

Last year I asked you to weigh in on my door dilemma: paint the existing door (which Hubs and I didn't love), save up for an expensive, mid-century style door that we did love, or buy an affordable replacement that was better, but not perfect.

Here's the door we had:

At the time, I had a voting widget embedded in the post and 75% of you thought I should just paint the existing door, while 20% said keep questing (although some of you cheated and said paint the door and keep questing).  There were some great comments too, with some excellent ideas, and I am so thankful for the sound advice.

In the end, I took your advice and painted our existing door aqua, using Beauti-Tone's Cyan Sky (C13-3-0681-4). 

Paint was a fabulous, budget-friendly way to spruce up the old door.  In a bright and cheery shade of aqua, it already made me smile, but I have to admit that we still didn't love it.  As luck would have it, I recently had the opportunity to partner with a Canadian home improvement store to help our little lake house make a better first impression.

Although we lived with the aqua-painted original door for about a year, these days we're greeted by this beauty:



You'll never guess where it's from...  

Home Hardware!  Canadians, are you a little surprised?  I kept ogling Crestview Doors, thinking that was the only option for an exterior door with mid-century style.  I was so wrong!  The floor models at our local Home Hardware store are very traditional, but once we started to peruse catalogs for special order doors, we found a bevy of modern exterior doors, including the door we ordered - the Linea, by Standard Doors.  (It's from the Sophistica Collection).

The Linea has the mid-century feel we wanted, plus it lets a lot of light into our formerly dark and windowless hallway.  The glass is deceptive because it actually provides a lot of privacy by completely blurring any shapes more that a foot or so away from the door.  It actually rates a 9/10 for privacy in the brochure.  So although you can tell from outside if someone is standing right in front of the door, you can't see what (or who) is inside the house from outside.

It was professionally painted, courtesy of Home Hardware, using Beauti-Tone's Cyan Sky.  I liked the original shade of aqua from Beauti-Tone so much that I wanted to use it again for this door.  It was painted with an alkyd (oil) primer, followed up with a trim and door topcoat, from Home Hardware.

We had already replaced the old door hardware with a nice brushed silver knob and lock set, so we just moved that over to the new door.

The hallway has seen a lot of changes: we've painted the walls and trim white, updated the light fixtures, thermostat and smoke detectors, and also the door hardware.  It's a much brighter, happier space now!  Some more changes might be on the horizon, though, because we've considered replacing the linoleum floor in the entry (and kitchen, laundry room, and powder room).  We originally thought we'd put it off until we renovate those spaces and we invest in something like tile or concrete, but it's been driving me nuts so we've been looking at affordable options for the interim. 



What a difference a door makes!

 
Thanks to Home Hardware for providing the Linea door and the Beauti-Tone paint.  I really shouldn't be surprised that I found something so stylish at Home Hardware because that's also where we purchased the fabulous green glass vessel sink in the townhouse - we were so smitten with it, we drove to a neighboring town to purchase it!  I wasn't paid or prompted to provide a positive review - it's pretty much a given that an aqua door with a mid-century feel will get my approval :)

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