Burning Question: Let’s Address This
When it comes to your casa’s house numbers, where exactly are they located? Does your mailbox boast your address? Or does your front porch wear its numbers proudly? Are they on a pane of glass above your front door or even your front door itself? Or do you have one of those fancy little customized plaques for the yard or next to the door?
If your numbers look anything like this cover of the now-defunct Blueprint magazine, we totally covet your door. And speaking of curb appeal, here’s how we switched out our front door hardware and even added a spiffy little door knocker while we were at it.
Psst- looking for a magazine to fill the void left by Domino, Blueprint and Cottage Living? Check out Lonny, the new online magazine.
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I seriously miss Blueprint mag. Blueprint, Domino…all the good ones are folding.
As far as this door…the stenciled numbers are beautiful, and that seems like a pretty easy DIY project. Would look great above the window on your gorgeous red front door.
Hey Brit,
Check out this brand-spanking-new online magazine (written by many of the old Domino people): http://www.lonnymag.com
It’s great and it’s free and there’s no waste since it’s online (plus all the clickable product links are amazing!).
xo,
s
Did you guys already ask this? Or am I totally imagining things?
Hey Zinnia,
You’re not imaging things! When we snapped a photo of a super cool house number mural on a downtown brownstone we also asked people how they generally display the numbers on their house a while back: http://www.younghouselove.com/2009/05/take-a-number-2/
I guess this is more of a formal burning question (and we couldn’t resist using that awesomely inspiring Blueprint cover).
xo,
s
We have an attached garage locating in the front of the house and that’s where our accessory sits.
http://brownaccents.blogspot.com/2009/09/floated.html
our numbers are on our mailbox but funny thing is nobody realizes that it’s our mailbox! it is soooooo far away from the driveway that it is totally out of place. Very few houses in our neighborhood even have house numbers at all. Poor mail lady :(
We have ours on our mailbox only, but I’d love to put them on the door.
The previous owners snatched their door knocker before we moved in, leaving us with some awkwardly spaced holes in our doors. I’d love to add the numbers to them though.
Our house numbers are on a custom plaque above the garage door that we had put in when the house was built. It has our house number, and below that it has the street name, all carved into a nice classy concrete plaque inset with the bricks.
Mailbox. We have a large front yard so you probably wouldn’t be able to read numbers from the street if they were on/near the front door. Love the blueprint pic.
FYI – a great, easy way to snap this look is with a personalized decal. They are pretty affordable to you can find places that customize almost anywhere. Etsy.com has a great selection of decal retailers.
We have a really cool concrete block thing by our mailbox that my husband found when we were digging up the backyard (along with some other old treasures). He painted it and bought numbers to put on it. We also bought handpainted address number tiles on our honeymoon to Mexico and put those on a post on our front porch. I don’t know if painting them on my front door would be overkill or not? I’m considering it.
I love this. I need some desperate ideas on numbers as well as mine are covered with ivy right now! I saw a really great temporary and seasonal idea at Michaels to display your numbers with pumpkins: http://www.michaels.com/art/online/projectsheet?pid=25708d&categoryid=119805
Mine actually look pretty similar to the picture, however my door is black. There is no way my home owners association would go for green – http://courtbaker.blogspot.com/2009/06/look-what-i-got.html
Ours are on the mailbox and above the garage door. They look awful in both instances. We just found some to replace the old mailbox #s and are wondering if we can just remove the ones above the garage. Any idea? We are not sure since the rest of the neighborhood has the same set up – though we don’t have an HOA.
Hey Alexis,
It’s your house right? Assuming you own and don’t rent and there’s no HOA you’re probably totally clear to update your house numbers! Good luck…
xo,
s
Ok no seriously… SUCH a cute idea!! Ours is only “9″, so I may be able to swing it?! We have it on the mailbox AND house, and no one ever sees it even STILL?! Perhaps neon? ha ha
My boyfriend’s house (at which I now reside) has those awful STICKER numbers, which have likely been there since it was built in the ’60s. (I’m in awe at how he could just ignore that for so long.) Our mailbox is built into our front door, so I really have to choose between the brick of the house or the mere 6″ white trim around the awning near the door. Suggestions to make our numbers pop out in either location?
Hey Tasha,
Hmm, you could get a plaque to hang on the brick in a contrasting color so the numbers are super visible. Or you could do some super cool numbers on the white trim (maybe in stainless or black so they really pop?). Also, if you have steps leading up to your front door we’ve seen house numbers on the front of one of the steps (the part that faces the road, instead of the sky) which looks super cute. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
I was all excited there for a second thinking Blueprint was back.
Love the door. (weeps silently that Blueprint is no longer with us)
Sighhhhhhhh…. I miss Blueprint as well! I might have to go look for my copy of this. What I want to see is a washable living room??? Hmmmm. Now, if only I had a SELF washing washable living room. That’d be great!
Thanks for the link as well of lonnymag. I need more things to read on the web!
I wish I could say we did something creative with ours but we can’t. We live in a neighborhood that has 800 pages long of HOA rules. Fun…not really.
We rent, so we don’t have much of a choice. But our house numbers are on the front of the house right by the front “stoop” (it’s not big enough to be called a porch!) and they aren’t anywhere near the mailbox!
I love that front door as well. So pretty! I’ve seen this look done all over the blogosphere with vinyl. Love it!
Someday when we own our own home…:::sigh:::
My brother has juvenile diabetes and we are always getting medical supplies in the mail. For a while the delivery guys kept saying “they had a hard time finding our house number.” Which is silly because it is on the mailbox and also centered above the garage door. So while we were in Mexico we bought a cute little yard sign with hand painted tiles to display our adress in yet a third location! So now we have the number on the mailbox, on the house, and in the yard.
the previous homeowners had the house numbers plastered everywhere. we used the cover of this domino issue(come back!) as inspiration for our doors color and number location. a bottle of goo-be gone, screwdriver, and sanding pad later, and this is the only location of our numbers.
Thanks for the link to the new online mag! Hopefully it will fill the Blueprint/Domino void. As for house numbers, this will be an issue for us as well as we move into our new place. I could put some on the front door but I’m doubting they will be very visable. However, we just repainted the garage which is really the most visable thing when pulling into the driveway. I’m looking at options of putting either a custom ‘plaque’ that I saw on etsy.com in between the two garage doors or just doing something DIY on the front door and calling it good! We’ll see how it pans out…
Would love to do something fun like this but our house # is…wait for it… 911. Would it still look so pretty and cute?
Hey Jen,
Hmm, that’s a tough one. It’s certainly associated with some nightmarish things so I wouldn’t think drawing a ton of attention to the number with color or a large size would be the best idea. But you can still do something understated and elegant so if feels simple and crisp- like clean-lined stainless steel numbers for example.
Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Ours are screwed into the wall next to the garage, right under a can light.
Funny thing…earlier this year our city mailed us a notice saying they were changing our number from 12 to 5. After 4 years of existence! I guess they had to realign things for emergency services, but some homes that had been around for decades had to switch and they weren’t happy.
My husband is picky about the font we use for our numbers (now number) – a funny thing to care about but we’re both designers so I guess what do I expect? :)
Thanks for the link to Lonny mag… so neat!!
I just painted our house numbers on our front door the other day. I printed out a cute font in Word, traced them onto the door, and filled in with some acrylic craft paint. Easy peasy!
I saw this same idea in BHG a while back and ripped out the picture for a future front door redo. I can’t wait to do it!
I did a post on this a few weeks ago, there are so many creative ways to display your house number; doormats, planters, and even pumpkins! Check out these great ideas: http://www.diynewlyweds.com/2009/09/diy-house-number-projects.html
Hey DIY Newlyweds,
Love those house number ideas! Especially the doormat and those stacked pumpkins. Too cute! Thanks for sharing.
xo,
s
I running to the store this instant! I can’t say I even really know where mine are, they are so nondescript!
Janell
Our house number is on our mailbox. Though I’m thinking about putting it on the door. On a side note I can’t help but say that I LOVE the girls outfit. :)
When we moved in to our home 3 years ago, it only had the house number on the mailbox, and it was hard to tell that the mailbox was ours, b/c it’s between our driveway and our neighbor’s driveway. So I ran to Lowe’s and got some classic yet modern house numbers and screwed them in under our porch light, right next to our door. It was so gratifying to do it myself instead of just settling for what was (not) there…
My house currently has hand cut wood numbers above the front door. And I hate them. I’ve been trying to think of a new location though that will work. I love that blueprint issue (they used the custom vinyl letters/numbers in that project) but our front door is mostly glass (2 panes by 8 panes so I can’t even do frosted numbers).
I think I’m going to paint a plaque to hang next to the mail box (to the right of the front door. I want to make sure they are large enough (and lit, and high contrast) for emergency personnel to see. Especially because we live on one of those weird roads that curves and turns into a different street with no visible transition.
Is it bad to say that I don’t actually know where they are? Hmm… I know there are at least some on the curb.
haha, ok I seriously had to look search for a photo of the front of our house to find out where our numbers are… how bad is that? :) Our are on a strip of trim near the porch.. This photo will explain better: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2645087&l=3505b68ad7&id=502961851
We actually just bought some white vinyl numbers for our black front door. We are placing them in the same spot at those in the magazine picture. I love that green door, but I don’t think the hubby would go for that :)
OMG I LOVE LonnyMag – I’m not getting any work done because I’m too busy oohing and aahing over the pics!!!! Ty YHL!
Oh, and my house letters are arranged vertically down one of our columns on our front entry.
Sherry…
At first, when I saw the picture in this post I thought it was Christi and Barrett (3rd pic down from their house crash http://www.younghouselove.com/2008/10/house-crashing-a-titanic-transformation/). But after looking back at the house house crash I realized I was far off and it definitely wasn’t them!
I guess its their adorable new front entry way that I’m so jealous of (I LOVE an overhang with a hanging light over the front steps). And I even thought the girl in the photo kinda resembled Christi, whoops, not quite!
Haha that’s too funny Erica. I guess all cute girls on front porches start to look alike in blogland!
xo,
s
does anyone remember Budget Living? :(
Ours are still located on the porch post where the original homeowners had them. I’ve been coveting a custom made sign available for order from Home Depot (it’s meant to be – the name of the design is also the name of our street). It’d look so perfect in our flower bed next to the porch, with a little landscape lighting to accentuate it at night time. :) Ahhh, so many ideas, so little money!
Assuming they are to serve a practical purpose they should go somewhere that a person or a car from the street can see. While the door is adorable, its not easy to read…
I just bought a house and I’m still trying to decide where to put my house numbers, so I’m loving this post! I’m currently thinking about putting “House No. 99″ in vinyl on my front door. I feel like such a short number needs a little somthing else, so that’s why I’m adding the “House” part. Sometimes I also like the look of the number written out in text.
Almost every house on my street had a sensible black door. Two months after moving in I decided to paint it a bright apple green. I got vinyl decals on etsy and attached it to my door. See the links for pictures I love it!
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/1494/pic014e.jpg
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/8600/pic013h.jpg
Excuse the door mat. It was left by the previous owners and I have been to lazy to change it
We just remodeled our front door to make it more appealing. I must admit, I am totally smitten with it! We show our house numbers proudly on our door, with a wreath just below that I made myself. Here are some pics! Keep doing what you’re doing, YHL!
http://inspiredbybelle.blogspot.com/2009/09/front-door-face-lift.html
We just recently got a new door and new numbers for the door, I love them so much better than the nondescript door/numbers we had when we moved in!
Here’s a link to the before: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30678341&l=4aea21e035&id=124301641
and here’s the after: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31035203&l=ba35d1c1ca&id=124301641
We are currently painting the exterior of our house and I want to replace our brass house numbers. I’m considering just spray painting them black for a cheap upgrade. I’ve looked online for some cute numbers but so far nothing has called out to me. I think at this point I’d rather put the money towards a new storm door and porch light.
Even though they’re spendy, we had to go with the Neutra numbers from DWR!
http://www.dwr.com/product/neutra-house-numbers-aluminum.do?keyword=neutra&sortby=ourPicks
The previous owners nailed plasic numbers on the vertical on the trim of the door and above the doorbell! Seriously.
I would like to buy craftsman styled numbers for our 1920 brick and stucco house and put them in a more prominent location. I can’t decide if I should angle them and if I do, which way, or put them in a horizontal line…
I have a fancy little customized plaque…that I made out of wood, spray paint and nail on numbers! It cost me about $12!
Christina – I remember Budget Living!
Oh Blueprint how I miss you and your Fling-alicious covers! Siiigh.