Porch Makeover with HMI Doors
Our recent Porch Makeover with HMI Doors has been quite the undertaking, but totally worth it! I can’t wait to share all the details with you in today’s blog post!
Today I’m sharing all about our recent Porch Makeover with HMI Doors, and let me just say that this was one long, ongoing project! We did everything ourselves but I am so happy with the way everything came together.
This post was sponsored in part by HMI Doors, but all opinions are my own. This post also contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you! For my full disclosure, click here.
Our New Arch Top Storm Door by HMI Doors
If you follow me on Instagram, you might already know that we got a new storm door back in January. We live in Michigan, and the winters are very cold and harsh. Our street is right off of the nearby harbor and the freezing winds are intense during those winter months.
As most of you know, our door is almost 100 years old. While we love the charm and character of our arch top door, it is far from energy efficient. Every year when the weather would shift, my husband would hang blankets all over the inside of our door to keep the wind from coming into our house.
Guys…ice would literally form on the INSIDE of our door as the temperatures dropped. It was that bad!
We had talked about getting a storm door for the longest time, but no one nearby had arched storm doors available. We decided to do some research, and that’s when we discovered HMI doors.
Not only does HMI Doors provide hundreds of gorgeous storm and security door options, they also create custom doors for your needs! I was blown away by their catalog and all of the amazing choices they had to offer, right down to the finish of your door handle.
We sent them our measurements in the fall, and I could not believe how fast the production time was! Within a few months I got an email saying our custom door had shipped.
HMI Doors highly recommends having your door professionally installed, but my husband is a very handy guy and thought he would try to install it himself. He didn’t have any problems and for him, the installation process was very simple.
Even though I’m just now sharing our door in May, I’m so happy we were able to install it in the middle of winter.
I can tell you now from personal experience, our new storm door COMPLETELY blocked the wind!!! Finally!! No more ice on the inside of our door, and no more blankets hanging inside of my entryway! I’m pretty sure I cried happy tears after installing it haha!
We went with full glass so that I can have our front door wide open, allowing lots of natural light to fill our entryway, even in the wintertime!
I decided to go with a black finish and brass accents, and boy was that a tough decision! Once we had it installed, I could not believe how beautiful it was. We were just so impressed with both the quality and craftsmanship. That’s when I knew that the rest of our porch desperately needed a makeover.
Our Porch Makeover
The very first thing I decided to do was paint my front door a different color. The dark blue I had before was even more shadowed by the glass of the storm door, and I felt like all of the detail in our original door was lost behind the glass. By brightening it up, our 100 year old door became center stage again.
You can read my post all about the color we painted our door and shutters, but truth be told, I’m still not 100% sure on the color, haha! Sometimes I feel so confident in my design choices, other times I’m at a complete loss. I’m giving myself a break for a while and living with this decision, though. What do you guys think??
After painting the door and the shutters, we gave the window boxes a fresh coat of paint and planted some beautiful flowers. I shared all about them last week and I love how they came together.
The next thing we decided to work on was the porch. Oh my goodness. What a project!
When we first moved in to this home, we stained the porch a dark red color. Not much thought went into the decision, honestly I have no idea what I was thinking.
About two years later I decided that I hated it, but I didn’t want to do the work of striping it all off and starting fresh. So I quickly covered it up with a solid stain that was much lighter in color.
I probably didn’t prep well enough, or Michigan winters or just THAT bad. But it all peeled up after the first year of application, and this past year it just looked BAD. You can see just how awful it looked in this post!
My husband used a deck stripper that he purchased at our local hardware and applied it all over the porch. He tried to scrape it up, but the wood had so many grooves that it was just a nightmare. Instead of scraping the entire thing with a metal scraper, he borrowed his Dad’s power washer to see how that would work.
Success! The power washer did the majority of the work and took most of the stain, off! Mike had to do some sanding in a few stubborn areas, but overall the power washing did the trick.
I stained the entire porch with a natural deck sealer by Woodsman in the color “Gravel Gray.” We got it at our local True Value, and I LOVE this color! It’s the perfect blend of gray and brown and it really enhanced the color of the wood.
My husband also replaced our crumbling thresh floor, and for now I stained it the same color as the porch. I gave all the railings a fresh coat of white paint, and my husband created some new trim work for the arched door surround using PVC exterior trim.
It was very tricky creating arched trim but my amazing husband always comes through and finds a way.
After seeing our gorgeous new storm door installed, I knew that our porch light needed to go. It was brown so it clashed horribly with our door, and it also felt under scale.
Well, we had the amazing opportunity to work with Signature Hardware again and they sent us the most gorgeous black porch lantern! We went with the Edgehill 2-Light Outdoor Entrance Wall Sconce in black and I could not be more happy with it! It’s modern, but the lantern shape gives it a vintage feel.
We got a matching lantern for our shed as well, and oh my goodness. It’s so pretty back there! I cannot wait to share our shed makeover with you guys!
You may have also noticed that we went with brass house numbers to tie into our new storm door handle, and I love how they look on the house as opposed to the door trim. We got them at our local True Value, but you can find similar ones, here!
I decided to add black rockers, which also tie in beautifully to the black storm door.
I can’t wait to spend so many mornings on our newly refinished porch, thanks to HMI Doors! Their beautiful storm door kick started this whole project, and we feel so blessed to have such a wonderful space to spend our summer evenings.
What do you think of our porch makeover with HMI doors? I’d love to know in the comments below!! 🙂
PIN IT FOR LATER
I love the color you chose for your door, but if you arent sure maybe it’s just not the right depth of color so perhaps you could try the same color but maybe a just a shade or two darker. But either way, its lovely.
Thank you so much Laurie, I think you are right. It’s a little too cool maybe? I don’t know. I have tried so many shades at this point that I’m walking away for now haha. I may revisit it later on in the summer! 🙂
I love the color of the door and shutters, and you are right it does show off the lovely detail on your front door beautifully. I also love that it’s not a color you will see on every other house on the street. May I ask where did you get your black rocking chairs?
Ohh thank you Karen 🙂 The rockers were at Walmart!! They were on clearance there this spring!
It looks wonderful, Andrea! The lilacs and Old Glory are the perfect finishing touches. Where did you purchase your rockers?
Hi Sarah, thank you!! I got the rockers at Walmart actually on clearance this spring!! 🙂
Can you send me a picture of the stain can? I know it’s gravel gray but I can’t find the base.
Sure! It’s a natural stain, not solid or semi-transparent. Send me an email and I’ll do what I can 🙂