D.I.Y Not?

Focus on my wardrobe experiment has taken a temporary backseat to general house arrangement as we settle into our new digs next door. If this were last year I’d be off to the Crate and Barrel races by now, purchasing decorative items with unbridled abandonment. Outdoor pillows! Patio rug! Contemporary planters! Pops of freshly purchased color everywhere!

My first purchase for the original house was a set of 8” orange house numbers and a coordinating modern mailbox from New Zealand. I don’t think I ever disclosed how much those items actually cost. Let’s see, (4) numbers x $50 + (1) mailbox x $250 + $75 intl shipping = you do the math. A pocketful, yes. IMO money well spent because every time I pull into our driveway I’m impressed.

You can’t execute contemporary curb appeal for one house and leave the house next door all plain, right? Determined to use my creative resources and spend as little OOP as possible, AJ and I hit up Home Depot for a low budget solution. We selected a set of house numbers similar in font style, about half the size and 10% of the cost of their orange neighbors. Color was delivered by way of (2) cans of teal spray paint at $3.65 each.

By Sunday evening we painted four house numbers, one mailbox, one plant stand and a really heavy filing cabinet left by the owner and re-purposed by me as an outdoor storage solution. Total: $31.80. The color is uneven, at best, and the carport now boasts the teal outline of a filing cabinet. Please don’t get me started on whether or not the house numbers are level because I am not drilling another damn hole, okay? Look, you get what you pay for and I paid for myself to spray paint.

As we admired our handiwork, AJ wondered aloud if the rust red indoor/outdoor rug matches the teal accents. I told him to act “as if” and everyone will assume we know something they don’t about the color wheel.

Outfit details: Tart dress, re-purposed maternity purchase (2014), J. Crew cardigan (2014), J.Crew flip flops (2015). On AJ: Gap Kids tee-shirt and shorts; Puma sneakers