A new gate & fence is in the works...

We have definitely put on hold any large projects for our house until the bath reno gets paid off but there's one more project I would like to tackle while we're still in debt over the bathroom (yes my hubby wants to kill me!) 

But this project is for security and privacy. We live in one of the safest neighborhoods in New Orleans but there have been some robberies in the area. This is just one of those things we deal with living in the city. I feel safe where we are but ever since we bought our house I have wanted to put up a privacy fence and gate for our driveway.

Here's our sad attempt at gaining some privacy over the last year by using bamboo. It's been great temporarily but there is NO lock on this fence. And we have to pile bricks in front the gate to prevent it from swinging open!! Not to mention our little dog can easily escape.

Piled bricks... so sad... so...so... sad!

I was thinking about doing something more contemporary at first - like this:

And I thought the design of this one is so cool:

But in the end a classic traditional gate will probably win. I am in a 150 year old cottage, not a mid century modern beaut! Although yes, I love the contrast of old and new but I think for this project we will go with a fence similar to this:

It's simple yet has beautiful detail. And this fence will be what you see when walking to our side door which we use as our front door. So I want it to look a little dressier than a standard fence. And we have a courtyard to sit in on this side too. 

Here's a little sketch of what I'm thinking:

I will need 2 more posts on either side of the gate but this is the general idea. Technically this is our driveway but I don't want it to feel like it is. We never pull the cars into it so we decided to center one opening that will be about 40" wide. (wider than the regular 36" in case we ever have something huge we need to carry through) 

It will start about 3' or 4' back from the existing fence and we will put beautiful pots with topiary cones on either side to give it a more formal entrance - kinda like these:

Y'all know I'm all about looks but the main reason for doing this is for security. I have been researching outdoor keyless locks. This is the best option I think because all our friends will know the code and can enter by punching in the keypad. Otherwise it will automatically lock at all times. Here are the contenders:

Or this:

 And here are some hinges I'm eyeing:

I also would like to attached the mailbox to the fence. We have a funky little mailbox on the house now but it's yucky. Here's what I like:

The mailbox obviously can wait but I'm trying to get pricing and everything together soon so we can get the baby built! I'm excited and think it will add a ton of curb appeal and safety at the same time.

What do y'all think?? You like the traditional fence or the more modern look?

We Painted Our Floors WHITE! Yeah... we are cray cray...

When we had to renovate our living/dining room we of course ran out of money and decided to just paint the subfloor. Click HERE to see the before!

Here's a shot from 2011 to see the floor color - I was trying to go for a deep charcoal color but apparently I was color blind that day in selecting a color because I wound up with a deep navy!

The navy floor color never bothered me but The Hubs and I always wondered how it would be with white floors... and that day came after our annoying bath reno. The contractors trampled through the living room for weeks with their nasty shoes, etc. and there was no saving the floor.

So what the heck.... let's paint the floor a HIGH GLOSS WHITE shall we?! We scrubbed the floors clean, vacuumed the floors about 40 times and then started the process. It took 3 coats and we used an oil based white. The key here is to use oil. It took about 5 days total but was worth the wait! Here's what it looked like drying:

And here's a sneak of it with the furniture in. I have to take some more pictures of the rest of the room but wanted to share this:

 Don't these floors get insanely dirty you may ask?! Well, yes, they do get dirty. But since they are shiny, glossy oil based all I have to do is take a wet rag and wipe them down. And I kinda like to see just how dirty my floors are. Then I know I need to clean them! 

So, for the time being we love these white floors! That's the fun thing with just having a subfloor - we can do anything we want to it and it doesn't matter because it's not permanent. When the back of the house undergoes its massive reno the whole back will have wide plank heart pine floors but that day will come.... never... ;)