Our house (far left) from the beach at sunset

It was back to house projects for us last week. We started with new interior doors which in most houses can be daunting, but when you only have FOUR doors in the whole house, it’s not so bad (there really are so many perks to a small house, haha)! It’s also a good thing there aren’t many doors, because as we anticipated, the openings were not even close to square or plumb, so it required a lot of cutting on Tom’s part. After he successfully replaced the door to the primary bedroom, we realized the old trim is now too short and isn’t going to work with the new doors. It’s not the prettiest trim either, so we decided we’re going to replace it altogether. Given this, we’ve paused the interior door project and will tackle the other doors once the new trim arrives (sorry, I did a terrible job taking pictures this week).

The next project was replacing the front door. I lovingly referred to our old door as the Hershey bar, I’m sure you can guess why. This door was a quite the eyesore when we bought the house, so I gave it a quick coat of paint knowing that we’d be replacing it sooner than later.

Original front door when we bought the house (picture taken mid renovation)

A little white paint worked like lipstick on a pig

Despite not being the prettiest, you could also see daylight through the gaps even when the door was shut. I’ve always wanted a door that let in more natural light, but cracks at the bottom isn’t quite what I had in mind. Originally, I wanted a mostly glass door, but then we realized with the amount of glass sliding doors in the house, it was probably better to have something more solid in case of a hurricane, so we went with a craftsman style door with 6 small lites at the top.

I take my dust management role seriously ;)

We decided it would be a good time to replace the door while the kids were at sailing for a few hours. It took most of the day and made quite a mess with all the concrete that needed cut to fit the new door, but it’s finally in and I LOVE it! It’s so nice having the extra light and view of the palms out the front. Now we just need to trim it out and give it a fresh coat of paint.

The garage made major strides this week, too! We had the gutters installed and the concrete for the aprons poured. We had a little extra concrete, so we also poured a pad for the trash cans and new steps off the pier into the water. Next up, we need to figure out what to use for the decorative wood headers above the doors, add lighting plus landscaping, and then we can officially call it a wrap on the garage.

At the last minute, Tom formed up new steps from the pier to the water

We did make a little time for fun, too! Two Sunday’s ago we spent the day on the boat exploring different shipwrecks and caves.

A pit stop on the boat to check out a new cave

On Tuesday night we met friends for dinner at LaBougainvillea, a small resort on the island, for Taco Tuesday. We eat a ton of Mexican food at home, but I honestly cannot think of one Mexican restaurant on the island, so we were thrilled to try it out. Eating out on the island can be a slow and expensive endeavor, so it’s not something we do often, but we had a great time and the food was delicious!

This past Sunday, the waves were amazing, so we went north to Surfer’s Beach for a day of surfing with a group of friends. Luci and Tom both got new boards and were excited to test them out. The waves were pretty intense, so Thomas opted to boogie board.

It’s hard to believe we’ve been on island for 6 weeks. The time has flown by. The kids have done a great job adapting to a new way of life. In fact, Luci told us the other day this experience has made her so happy. Same Lu, same.