curb appeal phase 1A: door

I've been thinking about things to do to my front door since this post over a year ago.  My entrance has always felt a little drab and unapproachable with the black door, but that was the only option the builder gave us with the house color I liked.  Guess what I did today {after looking online at front doors with glass only to realize that project is totally NOT in the budget}?
drumroll......

Painted it white!  BAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Here it is before:

 Since then, I've taken down those hanging baskets because as beautiful as they were, they never looked good.  The water POURES off of the roof on the right when it rains, so that poor basket was always drenched and then beat with sun all day :( 

{note the paint swatches taped to the door in that pic}  hehe

BAM!  Wierd lighting in this pic {the house is really darker like shown above}.  It's only about 1/6th of the way finished.  My big plan for the front stoop is.....

Paint that awkward part that surrounds the door a darker gray {darker than the house} so it kind of separates itself from the white trim above and the door.  I wish that wasn't there, but it is what it is and I don't know what else to do with it.

I moved the urns up to the front door in hopes of getting two magnolia topiaries to go underneath the coach lights....we still haven't bought those, lol. 

I love the way the silver hardware pops off of the white and it looks great with my doorbell I got a while back from restoration hardware:

SO, I picked up some silver house numbers at Home Depot that I will put in the middle of the door and I want to paint the urns to look like zinc and take that purple heart out and add something pink!  I'll keep the potato vine cause I LOVEEEEEEEEEE potato vine.

I was obsessed with the look of the hanging baskets, but as stated above, they won't work and I don't think just one will look right.  I really want to grow a vine up the left side that continues over the arc, but I'm not sure how to start that.  Any ideas?  I'm going for this:

  where it trails on one side only.  I thought about a generic lattice, but I'm still not sure how to apply it {size, design, etc} and you will see it for quite some time before the vine covers it, so I don't want it to be totally fugly. 

Last, but not least on phase 1 of my front door curb appeal makeover is the ground.  Thin pavers would be ideal, but who has money for that?  Not. Us.

I had a big rug down which looked nice for about 3 seconds until the sun ate it away and the rain washed out all of the color.  Small regular front door mat here I come.

That brings me to my {hopefully} cute cheap solution: PAINT.

I want to do a fun stencil.

Here's an example of one on hardwood floors.  <3

I am toying with doing a dark background in the same gray that I chose for the surround to the door and then a white design on top.  Something kind of classic though. 


Maybe more like this?

I don't know how long all of this will take, but I'm hoping to get it all complete by next Sunday.  It's pretty much all labor with very low expenses, so it should be feasible!  Then off to phase B: the planter bed in the front and then phase C: a planter bed on the side and the last and final phase is the planter beds in the back by the pergola!

-jd