My Door Re-Store

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had weather as nice as ours over the weekend. The winds we had definitely were howling “Spring!!!”. I was able to get my cold frame started and work on a special outside project that I hope to reveal soon.

We actually did this door project the  week before Thanksgiving. The Keen Family tradition for the holidays is to wait until the week before company arrives and then try to do all the maintenance and makeover projects we should have done throughout the year. This past year was no exception! I finished my utility room (haven’t posted that yet), started my bathroom (nope haven’t posted one either…) and did some touch up trim painting. I’ve learned the hard way that white trim is definitely NOT the way to go in a basement full of people! As we were working we noticed that the more we did, the more we saw that really needed doing. Like our basement door… and no, as usual there are no true, outside “before” pics for two reasons. One, my kids kept saying, “Mom, the door looks SOOO BAD! You can’t put that on your BLOG!”  and then once we decided to go for it, hubby jumps in with both feet and waits on no camera!

So, ten years ago the door looked like this

all shiny and new! Then, thinking we would be using this shade of greed for our trim, I painted the door this color:

Okay,so now you see why my kids didn’t want this posted, right? Even though the test paint stripes weren’t there and we did have glass in the door, it looked horrible!!! Special thanks goes to the dogs that think scratching the door to pieces will earn them a ticket inside! :(  We’ve known for a while that we desperately needed a new door. I didn’t want to spend any money on that when there were other things that seemed more important. The door didn’t get any better with time…so while we were getting ready for out company, hubby really noticed the door for the first time.You know how when you see something everyday and get sort of used to it, that you really don’t see it for what (or how bad) it is? He says to me, “Hey, why don’t we just paint it?” I already knew what he was thinking …just grab a of spray paint and go for, anything would be an improvement…and before I could say “It just isn’t worth it!” I remembered this awesome door redo from Jan at bobbypinsboardwalk!

Can you believe this is NOT a wood door? I  loved it from the minute I saw it!! I hope to use Jan’s technique on my loving room walls for wainscoting, but haven’t gotten that far yet. At that moment I knew I would be trying it on my door…hubby couldn’t get over me agreeing so fast!!! I have hated it and wanted it gone for a looong time! So using Jan’s tutorial, this is what we did and please remember that hubby doesn’t remember to wait til I get a picture before going on to the next step!

You’ve already seen the outside…here is the inside:

Yes, the door was red on the inside…but not as red as it looks in this picture! We left the door hanging, and removed the glass. Hubby cut out the plastic grid too.

To paint the door, start with a good primer. I used Kilz 2. Then I mixed my base coat with some paint I had on hand. Jan did alot of mixing to get her colors and she even used craft paint. I figured that if it worked for her, It’d work for me! :-) 

  I made the mistake of using a “pink” based brown…not a good idea. Reddish orange would have better to get a shade more like Jan’s. After the primer dried, ( I didn’t wait over night…we had company coming!! ) I did sand after it dried and wiped the door down. Then  I applied the basecoat with a 2’ brush. At this point…please go read Jan’s Tutorial! She does an excellent job of explaining the brushing technique!

   

  The one thing I learned from this, is to go with longer strokes to get the wood grain look. I started with short and choppy and it wasn’t as effective.

The trim around the window (minus the grid) was sprayed with Valspar Plastic Primer and the I just used the darker glazed paint on it. The “grain” was already in the plastic. We put it all back together and I took pictures! Why they are deleted and others still on the camera…???? I’m not sure except that I do share cameras and cards with other photographers in my house…So here is a picture from today, 3 months later. It’s holding up well to our significant amount of traffic including loads of firewood being wheeled in. The dogs have taken a little toll on the finish, yes there are a few scratches. Considering one of the dogs is a lab that weighs almost 100 pounds, I’m thankful it’s not worse!

Inside view, with sheet being held up outside to minimize glare…not sure it really helped.

  It will definitely do until we get something “new”. I enjoyed showing it off during the holidays.  Oh, the door handle and deadbolt were not a set…we needed a new handle, and I painted the lock with Oil Rubbed Bronze and now they are a matched set!

So, I hope to try this on my living and dining area walls this spring! I just had a thought…I wonder how this might work on some furniture?!?!!? Has anyone else tried something like this?

 

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