Painting Our Front Door.

Last weekend, my parents were kind enough to take my kids for the weekend (all 3 of them!!) I deal with them daily so I know what a mind boggling event this can be! They brought them home Sunday, so I was still able to see them on Mothers Day. After all they are the reason that I get to celebrate this holiday (or in reality treat it like any other day). It was also our 7th wedding anniversary so we got to go out for supper Friday night without having to find a sitter and pay for a sitter.

But the really reason that we had a kid free weekend was to get a few things done around the house that we had wanted to for awhile, but find it near impossible when there are 3 small children "helping" you at ever turn.

I managed to accomplish 4 of my items on my To Do list, so I was quite pleased with this. The first task I started on right when we got up Saturday was to paint our front door. I have always wanted to paint our front door red. I think it would look nice and match a majority of the holiday wreaths that get hung on it through out the year.

This is the before. I probably should have also cleaned the finger and probably lip prints on the side window and washed off the outside where some birds thought that I might let them build a nest. My kids had fun with the hose that day!

In the end I changed my mind and I painted it blue. Commodore to be exact. I went into Sherwin Williams to get some paint swatches. I was also painting several things gray and I knew I wanted the Mindful Gray color that they had. I have grown to like the Behr paint from Home Depot though and so ended up going there and having them color match it. The price is right there and they offer a military discount, so I will happily give them my business.

 

My husband was around to help me get the door off the hinges, then we took the bolt out, but left the handle on as we weren't sure exactly how to get that off, with still being able to put it back on. In the end I wish we would have found a way, but all's well that ends well! Once the door was removed, I required some good coffee for my long day ahead, so Chris willingly ran to Starbucks for some fuel while I washed the door down. Surprisingly it wasn't that dirty! I also ran the magic eraser over the door heading to the garage, as my daughter decided to kiss it several times one day while eating a chocolate chip cookie. (Just smile and nod)

I then started on project #2 and the largest project of the weekend, while Chris sanded the door down a little and used a tack cloth to clean it up. I was a little worried after painting the first coat on it as you could still see the white (I didn't expect it would be completely gone with one coat, but you know) and the brush strokes. I was worried I had just made a huge mistake and that I would now be investing in a new front door so that we didn't have to have this Pinterest fail as the first thing that guests saw when coming over. 

 The best way I found to paint the door is outlined below. Start with the groves, and the follow the numbers. This helps to show less brush strokes if you follow the flow of the door.

Thankfully once the second coat was applied I was feeling far more confident in my decision to alter the door and was very pleased with my color choice. So was my husband, so then we got to have a lengthy discussion about how there was not going to be orange letters spelling out Chicago Bears or a giant Bear head in vinyl on the front door. (He's a bit of a die hard if you didn't already know)

After 2 coats of paint.

After 2 coats of paint.

 We ran a small tower heater on the door while it was drying in between coats. We only really had one mishap when the garage door was opened and the wind blew some dried grass in an right onto the bottom of the door. I thought I might cry when Chris came to tell me, but luckily we let it dry, then I took the tack cloth and was able to remove the grass without wrecking the paint. Crisis averted! 

Once the door was dry I removed the frog tape from the handle and unfortunately had a little bit of the paint peel up as well, so I had some minor touch up to do there, but nothing major.

The door was dry and we were able to put it back up by supper and it looks fantastic. The next day I added the hello. I simply cut the vinyl from my silhouette and stuck it on. Easy peasy. I really still want the hello to be yellow, but I will need to order yellow vinyl to make that happen so for now it is red and very patriotic!

The finished door.

I choose this image from the Silouette online store for the Hello and just removed the Sunshine.

Vinyl red hello.

I love the different look it gives the house, but I still have to get used to it. Every time I leave the house or come home I instantly think someone left the door open due to it being dark. I then remind myself that it is just the blue door. I think I may have had several small heart attacks.